00:00The ship Merigo Vespucci is the oldest ship of the Italian Navy, built in 1931.
00:12Since then, it is the school ship where the students of the first class of the Naval Academy,
00:18at the end of their training course in the Academy, have their first encounter with the sea,
00:24with the elements and with life on board.
00:26But it is also a set of Naval Diplomacy, a floating embassy,
00:30so within this project it is a spokesperson of values, traditions, culture, technology, research and a lot of Made in Italy.
00:42We have counted more than 42,000 visitors, many Italians or people of Italian origin,
00:49but also a lot of ordinary people.
00:52And it is the most important and beautiful thing that we bring from Los Angeles,
00:57this embrace of the population, this affection, this warmth that makes us feel a little at home,
01:03even if we are so far away.
01:05We will leave this afternoon from Los Angeles for Tokyo,
01:11with a stopover in Honolulu, in Hawaii.
01:15The crossing of the Pacific Ocean will take almost two months.
01:20It will be an important challenge from a particularly challenging nautical point of view,
01:27both navigation and logistics, everything that surrounds it.
01:33It will be a nice adventure for us and especially for the students of the first class,
01:39who leave here with their training campaign.
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