Mircea is a three-masted barque, built in 1938 in Hamburg by the Blohm & Voss shipyard as a training vessel for the Romanian Navy. Her design is based on the successful plans of ; the last of a series of four sister ships. The ship is named after the Wallachian Voivode, Mircea the Elder. After World War II she was temporarily taken over by the USSR, but later returned to Romania. In 1966, she was overhauled by Blohm & Voss. History On 22 September 1938, the ship was launched and named Mircea after its predecessor NMS Mircea. The name of the ship comes from Voivode Mircea the Elder, who ruled Wallachia between 1386 and 1418, under whose reign the local navigation and the trade carried out at sea experienced great development, with Wallachian ships sailing not only in the Black Sea but also in the Aegean Sea and Mediterranean Sea. On the bow, the ship has a figurehead representing the ruler dressed in a blue blouse, red cloak and wearing a crown on his head. The national flag raising ceremony took place on 27 April 1939 and on 1 May 1939, the ship entered service. Mircea entered the port of Constanța on 17 May 1939, being greeted by officials and young students of the Naval School and the ships docked in the port, including the old NMS Mircea. On 3 July 1939, Mircea left for her first training voyage in the Mediterranean Sea, stopping at the ports of Palermo, Toulon, Palma, Gibraltar, Algiers and Alexandria. The last part of the voyage, which included visits to Syria, Cyprus and the Greek Islands, was canceled because of the German attack on Poland. Thus, on 3 September 1939, Mircea returned to Constanța where it was docked at the military berth. The outbreak of the Second World War would mean the beginning of a long period, over 25 years, in which Mircea did not execute any long voyages representing Romania outside the Black Sea. For safety, on 19 February 1941, the ship was docked at Brăila on the Arapu arm of the Danube. She stayed there until the summer of 1944. In September 1944, she was taken by Soviet authorities. Two years later, on 27 May 1946, she was returned to the Romanian Navy. Between 1946 and 1947, the ship went through some repair works, mainly on the masts. The training voyages resumed in