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The winning teams of the national “Navigators Through History” contest — promoted by Camilo José Cela University (UCJC), the Royal Academy of History (RAH), and publisher Vicens Vives — set sail today on a Mediterranean voyage aboard the school ship Cervantes Saavedra. It will be a week of learning, culture and life at sea, evoking past academic expeditions that left a lasting legacy.
The winning teams — SEK-El Castillo, Hélicon, and GSD Las Suertes — will visit historically significant sites in the Spanish Mediterranean, including Valencia, Peñíscola, Tarragona and Palma de Mallorca. Here, history becomes a living experience as students learn and sail aboard a moving classroom, inspired by the 1933 academic expedition led by the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities of the Complutense University of Madrid.
Just like that original voyage, this new expedition is not only about teaching history — but living it. Students will take part in cultural visits to castles, archaeological parks, Gothic cathedrals and historic town centres. They will also join sailing workshops, astronomy lessons, constellation-based navigation, maritime history activities, and knot-tying techniques.
Each night, students will write in their logbooks, reflect on their learning, and share their experiences on deck — under the stars, beneath white sails, and accompanied by documentary screenings. As Federico García Lorca once wrote after a similar journey by sea: “Everything had an air of something beyond reality.” For many of the participants, this will also be their first time at sea — their first direct encounter with history beyond the pages of a book.
A Floating Classroom That Makes History
The Cervantes Saavedra school ship, built in 1934 at the Götaverken AB shipyards in Sweden, was acquired by UCJC in 2005, refurbished, and transformed into a floating classroom. Since then, it has hosted numerous educational voyages led by the SEK Education Group.
Sailing under the Spanish flag, the ship welcomes students, teachers, and professional crew on board, offering an environment that combines academic rigor, maritime adventure, and personal development. It is also the base of SEK Posidonia Lab, a project focused on marine biology and sustainability, and has been used to teach history, astronomy, nautical culture, and leadership. Every summer, it also hosts the Blue Planet Voyage with the Oceanogràfic Foundation — a marine, educational, and family-focused experience supporting Mediterranean recovery.
Historic Sites and Guided Tours by Leading Scholars
This edition of “Navigators Through History” begins with a welcome event at the Oceanogràfic in Valencia, followed by stopovers in Peñíscola, Tarragona and Palma de Mallorca. Activities include guided visits led by academics from the Royal Academy of History, sailing workshops, night watches, talks on Spain’s maritime Enlightenment, themed onboard celebrations, and even a unique high-seas cooking contest. The voyage will conclude in Valencia with a guided tour of the cathedral, the Silk Exchange, and the historic city center, accompanied by UCJC Rector Jaime Olmedo and heritage experts.
Spain’s Largest History Contest for Schools
The winning students represent teams recognized in various categories: Creativity (SEK-El Castillo), Use of the Historia Hispánica portal from the Royal Academy of History (GSD Las Suertes), and Project Defense (Hélicon). All have shown excellence, enthusiasm, and a deep connection to history — which they now have the chance to experience firsthand.
This contest, the largest school history competition ever organized in Spain, was conceived as a gateway to the past through the geolocated knowledge provided by the Historia Hispánica portal. The portal features over 50,000 biographies and 20,000 historical events tied to the locations where they occurred, offering around 150,000 georeferenced records — forming the world’s first historical big data project.
