ARC Gloria

ARC Gloria (IMO number: 8642555) is a training ship and official flagship of the Colombian Navy. She is a three-masted steel-hulled barque. The Colombian Government authorized its navy to acquire a training ship in 1966. A contract was signed with the Spanish shipyard Celaya of Bilbao in October 1966, and began to be fulfilled in April 1967. The ship was commissioned on 7 September 1968 with the vessel moored at the wharf of Deusto Channel. She is one of four similar barques built as sail training vessels for Latin American navies; her half-sisters are the Mexican Cuauhtémoc, the Venezuelan Simón Bolívar and the Ecuadoran Guayas. She was named after Gloria Zawadsky De Rebeiz, the wife of General Gabriel Rebéiz Pizarro who was the Minister of Defense that authorized her construction but died before her completion. Apart from being a training ship she also serves a secondary role as a sailing ambassador for her home country.