The Guayas is a three-masted barque with a steel hull that can display a sailing area of . The main mast reaches over deck. The ship carries a crew of about 120 sailors as well as eighty cadets under the leadership of about 35 officers. The Guayas is one of four sailing ships that were built by Astilleros Celaya S.A. in Bilbao, the Gloria (Colombia) being the most similar ship,- the other two sister ships are the Simón Bolívar (Venezuela), and the Cuauhtémoc (Mexico). These four ships present a basic design that is very similar to Blohm & Voss' Gorch Fock that was built more than four decades earlier.