Sailing in the wake of Zheng He's voyage

More than 600 years after Zheng He led seven expeditions as far as the east coast of Africa, a navy training vessel named after him has launched the Chinese navy's second global goodwill voyage.

Having left Dalian in Northeast China's Liaoning province in mid-April, the training vessel Zheng He - which so far has visited countries including Vietnam, Malaysia, India, Italy, Spain, and Ecuador - is scheduled to make port calls to altogether 11 countries worldwide. The total distance of the route is expected to cover more than 30,000 nautical miles (55,560 km) in a period of five months.

Designed specifically for long-distance voyage, the training vessel can cruise 10,000 nautical miles without refueling, according to Zu Shuming, who was the captain of the Zheng He from 2000 to 2003.

Since it was built in 1987, the vessel has made extensive long-distance voyages in the past 25 years, including her maiden visit to Hawaii in April 1989.

More than 300 Chinese sailors and cadets joined the expedition this time, including about 110 students from Dalian Naval Academy. The cadets will have the opportunity to improve their competence in mapping and surveying of naval maneuvers, and marine meteorological analysis and prediction.

Recalling his voyage to Russia as Zheng He's captain in 2000, Zu still felt it an impressive journey when around 200 cadets from the navy colleges visited the Russian navy colleges and talked face to face with their Russian counterparts.

"The life onboard is not easy. You have to overcome seasickness and bad weather, for example. Sometimes we forecast high winds and waves that we are going to encounter, but in order to let our cadets learn how to adapt to these future challenges, we did not change our route to avoid them," Zu said.

"But there is also a lot of fun," he added. "It's a perfect chance to put what you've learned at college into practice, and also an exciting opportunity to expand our knowledge about nature and the ocean."

Besides Chinese cadets onboard, there are also midshipmen from other countries involved in parts of the expedition. They practice navigation, and carry out activities like making astronomical and geographical observations together.

A 22-year-old Canadian cadet surnamed Francis told CCTV that it was a "great" experience to be on the ship.

It took some time to get used to the new environment, but everyone soon got along well as a big family, he said.

The vessel has paid friendly visits to ports in the countries it has visited, some of which were also visited by Zheng He and his fleet centuries ago.

The voyage this time, 10 years after the first global voyage organized by the PLA navy, will play an "active role" in further promoting exchanges between the PLA navy and the navies of relevant countries, according to Geng Yansheng, the spokesman for the Defense Ministry.

During the vessel's visit to India in May, the Chinese not only held a deck reception and invited Indian navy cadets to visit the ship, their mutual activities also included a series of events such as a football game, a joint band performance at a local auditorium and Chinese cadets visiting the local maritime museum.

Chinese Ambassador to India Zhang Yan said the visit was an important event in bilateral ties and military exchanges to mark 2012, the "Year of China-India Friendship and Cooperation".

Contact the writers at qinzhongwei@chinadaily.com.cn and zhangxiaomin@chinadaily.com.cn

Wu Meng also contributed to this story.