WINDHOEK, Namibia, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- A flotilla comprising of two warships and one combat support ship from the German naval task group will on Sunday dock at Walvis Bay, Namibia, before it will embark on its cruise that will take it to thirteen harbours in eleven countries.
Walvis Bay, one of the busiest ports in southern Africa, is the only city with a deep-sea port where large container vessels and tankers could land in Namibia.
Information about the flotilla was made available on Wednesday by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Namibia to Xinhua.
The ships with 600 sailors consists of the multi-purpose frigate "Brandenburg", the anti-submarine frigate "Niedersachsen" and the combat support ship "Frankfurt am Main".
"These three vessels form the training task group of the German Navy which is activated annually with the aim to improve and intensify international relations with the countries visited, as well as training the embarked officer cadets of the German Naval Academy.
When the task group will arrive in Walvis Bay they will have spent one month since they departed from their home based at Wilhelmshaven and Kiel in northern Germany and will have already called on the harbour of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in Spain while their marathon journey will have a duration of five months.
The last visit of the German vessels took place in 2008 when a fleet of three ships called on the port of Walvis Bay on a similar training cruise and sailors who participated in that exercise reportedly had pleasant memories of Walvis Bay renowned for its hospitality.
"In order to strengthen the relations initiated in 2006, the frigates 'Brandenburg' and 'Niedersachsen' as well as the combat support ship 'Frankfurt am Main' will be open to the public on Tuesday, Feb. from 16:00 (1500 GMT) until 19:00 (1800 GMT). The crew of the ships is looking forward to be host to interested visitors and will offer guided tours around their vessels, enabling guests to gain insight in the challenging but interesting world of a modern warship," stated the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The 600 men, women, officers, officer candidates and sailors will participate in a plethora of naval exercises with the South African, British Royal Navy, Portuguese, Spanish, Ghanian and the Turkish Navy to name but a few. The next port of call will be in South Africa.
On an annual basis, the German Task Group 501.01 participates in an exercise conducted by the German Navy in order to improve the training standard of its units and the embarked cadets from the Naval Academy in Mürwik. Another important aim is to represent the German Navy to the countries visited during this exercise.
There are tens of thousands of German-speaking Namibians whose roots could be traced to the short-lived German colonial period when Germany had briefly colonized Namibia.
Today German is used by 30 percent of white Namibians and the Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper found in Windhoek is the only German daily newspaper in Africa and Namibia enjoys a special relationship with Germany.
