Spanish cruiser Lepanto

After putting to sea only a few times in her original configuration, Lepanto was redesignated for use as a gunnery and torpedo training ship. She was reclassified as a second-class cruiser and her 200-millimetre (7.9 in) guns were replaced with 160-millimetre (6.3 in) guns removed from the armoured frigates Numancia and Vitoria during their conversion into coastal defense ships.^[2]

In her new role, Lepanto made voyages in the Mediterranean Sea to train midshipmen, gunners, and torpedomen. Sailors assigned to her began wearing a distinctive cap with a ribbon bearing the ship's name; the use of a cap ribbon to identify sailors' postings later became widespread, and the ribbon became known in the Spanish Navy as the "Lepanto ribbon" or simply "Lepanto."^[2]

In April 1904, Lepanto, the armored cruiser Cardenal Cisneros, and the protected cruiser Río de la Plata departed Cádiz, Spain, escorting the royal yacht Giralda, upon which King Alfonso XIII was embarked for a visit to the Balearic Islands. The ships stopped first at Mahón on Menorca, then arrived on the afternoon of 21 April 1904 at Palma de Mallorca on Mallorca, where they rendezvoused with Numancia and a British Royal Navy squadron under the command of Vice-Admiral Charles Beresford that had arrived from Gibraltar. On the morning of 25 April Giralda and her escorts arrived at Ibiza, then set course for the Chafarinas Islands in the Alboran Sea in the western Mediterranean, which they reached on 26 April. On 27 April, the Spanish squadron departed for Málaga, Spain. Getting back underway from Málaga on 1 May 1904, the ships called at Melilla on the coast of North Africa. The king and his escorting ships then stopped at Chafarinas and Ceuta before ending the voyage at Cádiz.^[3]

From 8 to 10 April 1907, Lepanto and her squadron — which also included Vitoria, the armoured cruiser Princesa de Asturias, and the protected cruiser Extremadura — joined the battleship Pelayo in attending a meeting between King Alfonso XIII of Spain and King Edward VII of the United Kingdom which took place in Cartagena's harbor.^[2][4][5]

Lepanto was decommissioned on 3 October 1908.^[2][6] The last surviving Reina Regente-class ship, she was sold in 1911 and subsequently scrapped.^[2]

• Aguilera, Alfredo; Elías, Vicente (1980). Buques de guerra españoles, 1885-1971 (in Spanish). Madrid: Editorial San Martín.
• Bordejé y Morencos, Fernando de (1995). Crónica de la Marina española en el siglo XIX, 1868-1898 (in Spanish). Vol. II. Madrid: Ministry of Defence.
• "No title stated". El Mundo Naval Ilustrado (in Spanish). Vol. 2, no. 23. Madrid. 1 April 1898.
• Various authors (1999). El Buque en la Armada española (in Spanish). Madrid: Editorial Sílex.