Victory for Victoria? | 环球航行纪念日

by Jeremy Beacock

On September 6, 1522, a lone sailing ship with a crew of 18 arrived in the Spanish port of Seville. It was the last remaining ship of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition to find a new way to the Spice Islands, but it was also the first ship ever to circumnavigate the globe.

The expedition had set off with 265 men in five ships three years before, and initially, the journey went well. The fleet reached South America in December 1519 and sailed south, resting for a year in modern-day Argentina. However, before reaching the Pacific Ocean, two ships were lost. The expedition crossed the Pacific in four months, and in March 1521, the three remaining ships reached the Philippines. There, Magellan made a fatal error when he got involved in a tribal feud between two local kings. The ensuing battle cost Magellan his life.

The remaining sailors had to abandon the Concepcion and continued to sail the Victoria and the Trinidad westward. In November 1521, they reached the Spice Islands, the goal of the expedition. The crew of the Trinidad decided to return via their original route, but Juan Sebastián Elcano, the captain of the Victoria, continued west with his cargo of spices.

The last part of the journey, however, was terribly difficult because the Victoria lost 20 crew members to starvation, and Elcano had to leave behind 13 more men while fleeing the Portuguese. Nine months after leaving the Spice Islands and three years after leaving Spain, the Victoria barely made it back to Seville and into the history books.

   die of starvation　　死于饥饿

　　公元 1522 年 9 月 6 日，一艘帆船独自搭载着 18 名船员抵达西班牙的塞维尔港。这是费迪南德‧麦哲伦的远征队为了寻找香料群岛的新航线，硕果仅存的最后一艘船，同时也是史上第一艘完成航行地球一周的船只。

3 年前远征队启航，有 5 艘船舰搭载着 265 人，这趟旅程刚开始时一帆风顺。舰队于 1519 年 12 月抵达南美洲，并继续向南航行，在现今的阿根廷停留了一年。但他们在抵达太平洋前就已经损失了两艘船。远征队在 4 个月内横渡太平洋，剩下的 3 艘船于 1521 年 3 月抵达菲律宾群岛。麦哲伦在这里犯了一个致命的错误，他涉入当地两位酋长间的部落纷争。接下来的战争让麦哲伦付出生命的代价。