On October 31, 1981, a Greek cargo ship sailing from Ivory Coast to Greece ended up deliberately beached in a cove near the port of Los Mármoles, in Arrecife. Ten days earlier, according to available historical reconstructions, it had suffered a serious water ingress while crossing the La Bocaina strait, between Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. The damage compromised its buoyancy and forced a solution to be sought to prevent a possible sinking from blocking the port facilities of the capital. On board were 29 crew members and thousands of tons of tropical wood logs. Furthermore, the fuel stored in its tanks posed a pollution threat to the island's waters. That maritime emergency would eventually become one of the most unique episodes in Lanzarote's contemporary port history. For more than four decades, the remains of the Telamón lay off the coast until they became part of Arrecife's landscape and memory.
A cargo ship built in Scotland destined to sail the seas
The Telamón's journey began long before its arrival in Lanzarote. The vessel was built in the Scottish city of Dundee by the company Caledon Shipbuilding & Engineering and launched on September 24, 1953, under the name Temple Hall. It was a cargo ship of considerable size for its time, with approximately 139.5 meters in length and nearly 18 meters in beam.
Throughout its commercial life, it changed owners and names. In 1969, it was renamed Pantelis, after its acquisition by Greek shipping interests, and in 1977, it adopted the name Telamón, with which it would eventually become part of Lanzarote's maritime history.
In October 1981, it was on a voyage between San Pedro, Ivory Coast, and Thessaloniki, Greece. It was carrying a significant cargo of tropical wood, consisting of large logs destined for the European market. Historical reconstructions place the cargo's weight at around 5,500 tons, although other publications offer higher estimates.
That would be the merchant ship's last voyage. As it approached the eastern coasts of Lanzarote, damage to the hull definitively altered its fate.
The emergency in the La Bocaina strait
The historical reconstructions consulted place the start of the emergency on October 21, 1981. While navigating the La Bocaina channel, between Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, the Telamón suffered a severe water ingress that compromised its stability and endangered the crew and cargo.
The captain set course for Arrecife and requested assistance as he approached the port of Los Mármoles. The situation was delicate: the ship had buoyancy problems, was carrying thousands of tons of timber, and its condition made any intervention to control the damage difficult.
The possibility of bringing it into the port was even considered, but the list and the risk of it sinking during the maneuver made that alternative inadvisable. A cargo ship of such dimensions, sunk inside Los Mármoles, could obstruct the access of other vessels and compromise an essential infrastructure for Lanzarote's supply and maritime communications.
A location had to be found that would allow it to be kept outside the port's operational area and reduce the consequences of a potential sinking.
The decision to beach it to protect Los Mármoles
The solution adopted was to guide the cargo ship to a cove near Las Caletas, behind the port's breakwater and in the vicinity of the DISA facilities.
The operation concluded on October 31, 1981, ten days after the date that historical reconstructions attribute to the damage. The Telamón was taken to an area with a sandy bottom, where it was deliberately beached.
The maneuver allowed the danger to be moved away from the interior of Los Mármoles and prevented a possible sinking from interrupting its activity. The ship was left with its bow facing land, near the shore and secured by two ropes stretched to the coast. It also had a slight list to port.
The port pilot participated in the intervention, and his actions contributed to positioning the cargo ship in a way that facilitated subsequent operations. It was not, therefore, a shipwreck caused by currents or storms, but a deliberate decision to control the consequences of a maritime emergency.
Since then, October 31 has been linked to one of the most unique episodes in Arrecife's port history: the intentional grounding of a merchant ship that would never sail again.
The 29 crew members: the human component of the accident
Behind the image of the stranded ship, there was also a human story. Aboard the Telamón were 29 sailors, most of them Greek, although there were also crew members from Ghana, Mali, and Ivory Coast.
Historical reconstructions record that the sailors were disembarked and housed in facilities at the Casa del Mar and the San Ginés residence in Arrecife. However, the publications consulted offer different versions regarding the time they remained on board and the moment of their evacuation. Therefore, it is not possible to establish a specific date for the disembarkation with sufficient certainty.
On November 2, the owner of the freighter, Mr. Ninnos, arrived in Lanzarote to assess the extent of the damage. The hull inspection was carried out by divers from the Puerto Naos shipyard, who located the water ingress in the area of the second and third holds, partially flooded and occupied by wooden logs.
The inspection confirmed the severity of the damage and the difficulties in recovering the vessel. The condition of the hull meant that any attempt at repair or refloating would require a high-cost intervention.
The presence of those 29 sailors recalls the human dimension of the emergency: an international crew that had to abandon the ship and remain in Lanzarote after a voyage that almost ended in tragedy.
The invisible danger: more than 300 tons of fuel
Once the immediate emergency was attended to, another concern arose: the fuel that remained stored in the freighter's tanks.
The Telamón carried approximately 260 tons of fuel oil and another 60 tons of diesel oil. In total, about 320 tons of petroleum products that could cause a spill with serious consequences if the tanks were damaged by the deterioration of the hull or the action of the sea. The proximity to the coast and port facilities made this possibility a first-order environmental risk.
According to historical reconstructions, on November 3, three technicians from London, linked to an association dedicated to the protection of the marine environment, arrived in Lanzarote. Their task was to prepare the necessary means to prevent and contain a possible leak.
Among the described actions is the installation of a pneumatic platform around the hull, in addition to the application of a product intended to facilitate the dispersion of fuel in case of a spill. Subsequently, the transfer was carried out by the small tanker Mayorga, identified in those reconstructions as a vessel belonging to Compañía Española de Petróleos (CEPSA).
The removal of the fuel prevented the freighter's breakdown from resulting in a large-scale spill and worsening the environmental consequences of the accident for the coast of Arrecife.
Thousands of wooden logs: the fate of the cargo
The tropical wood cargo constituted another major chapter after the grounding. The thousands of logs the ship was carrying had to be unloaded and transported to land, where they were stored in various areas of the island.
Part of that wood found a second life in Lanzarote. Five large logs were used by the sculptor José María Pérez Sánchez to create the sculptural ensemble "La noche de San Juan," installed in 2009 in a roundabout near Las Cucharas beach, in Costa Teguise.
The composition turned the freighter's wood into an artistic intervention integrated into the public space. However, the deterioration of the elements eventually caused one of the logs to collapse in August 2016. Municipal services then removed the five elements for safety reasons.
The research by Daniel Rodríguez Zaragoza, based on documentation from Juan Garrido López's archive, provides another significant detail about the recovery operations. In 1984, the company Marine Service, S. L. informed the Port Authority that it had extracted 525 logs and requested an extension of the deadline to complete the work.
It has also been noted that some logs were donated to the Carpentry Workshop of the Pancho Lasso Art School. However, no primary documentation has been found to confirm an institutional donation or to specify the exact destination of these pieces, so this point must remain as information pending verification.
That wood, which had departed from the African coast bound for the Greek market, ended up having different uses in Lanzarote. Its journey constitutes a little-known consequence of the accident and shows that its effects extended far beyond the place where the freighter ran aground.
A shipwreck turned into a landscape of Arrecife
Discarded the possibilities of repair and refloating, the Telamón was abandoned in the cove. Its structure remained exposed to the action of the sea, salinity, and storms, which progressively deteriorated the hull.
Over time, the ship ended up breaking into two large sections. The bow disappeared underwater, while the stern section and part of the superstructure continued to be visible from land.
Its location on the eastern coast of Arrecife made it a recognizable landmark of the coast. For years it was popularly known as the ghost ship or the DISA beach ship. Its silhouette became part of the usual images of that stretch of coastline and aroused the interest of photographers, visitors, and diving enthusiasts.
Deterioration also generated concern for safety. The area around the shipwreck was subject to restrictions to prevent access and dives, due to the risks arising from the state of the structure.
Over the years, different positions emerged regarding its future. While some defended the removal of the remains for safety reasons, others considered that the ship had acquired a scenic and sentimental value that justified its conservation.
In October 2019, the Ministry of Defense published in the Official State Gazette the announcement of a public auction for the extraction and sale of the remains of the Telamón. The document placed the ship in the bay between Punta Grande and Punta Chica, next to the breakwater of the port of Arrecife.
The dismantling work began in September 2022, after the contract was awarded to Recuperadora Lanzarote. However, the operations were subsequently halted due to issues related to the possible presence of hazardous waste, including asbestos, and the environmental conditions of the intervention.
The documentation consulted does not allow confirmation that this material was detected in the Telamón.
The awarded company subsequently maintained a legal proceeding with the purpose of resuming work and proposed measures to prevent access to the ship while its removal was pending, with the argument of avoiding accidents.
The dismantling process thus opened a new chapter in a story that, more than four decades after the grounding, continued to have consequences for the coast of Arrecife.
On October 31, 1981, the Telamón ceased to be a cargo ship sailing between West Africa and Greece to become a stranded vessel off the coast of Arrecife. The decision to move it away from the port prevented a possible sinking from compromising the Los Mármoles facilities, but it began an episode whose consequences would last for decades.
Its story includes an international commercial voyage, a serious maritime emergency, the evacuation of 29 crew members, the risk of contamination from hundreds of tons of fuel, and the recovery of thousands of logs that ended up with different destinations on the island.
To all this was added the progressive transformation of the cargo ship into a wreck that ended up becoming part of the daily landscape of Arrecife. Its prolonged presence turned a maritime accident into a recognizable element of the island's memory.
Forty-five years after that maneuver, recalling the story of the Telamón means remembering not only a stranded ship, but also those who participated in the
means remembering not only a stranded ship, but also those who participated in the operation, the sailors who had to abandon it, and an emergency that tested the port's response capacity.
The cargo ship that never reached its destination ended up leaving an unexpected mark on Lanzarote: that of a ship that arrived from other seas and ended up becoming part of the history of Arrecife.
DOCUMENTARY AND BIBLIOGRAPHIC SOURCES
• MONTELONGO FRANQUIZ, Antonio J. and FALERO LEMES, Marcial A. El Puerto del Arrecife. Cabildo de Lanzarote and Ayuntamiento de Arrecife, 2000, p. 159. Reference used by Memoria de Lanzarote for the chronology of October 31, 1981.
• Memoria de Lanzarote. Chronology of October 31, 1981 and photographic archive of the ship Telamón. Photographs LV_2547 and LV_2610, property of La Voz de Lanzarote.
• RODRÍGUEZ ZARAGOZA, Daniel. Historical research on the Telamón, with documentation and photographs from the archive of Juan Garrido López.
• El Mercantil. "Diary of a ghost freighter with its days numbered". February 25, 2023.
• DÍAZ LORENZO, Juan Carlos. "44 years since the grounding of the Greek ship 'Telamon' in Arrecife de Lanzarote". Puente de Mando, October 31, 2025.
• Boletín Oficial del Estado. Resolution of the Canary Islands Delegation Board for Disposals and Liquidation of Material for the extraction and disposal of the remains of the ship Telamon. BOE No. 249, October 16, 2019, reference BOE-B-2019-43676.
• Teguise City Council. Urban planning and heritage documentation relating to the sculptural ensemble 'La noche de San Juan', made with logs from the Telamon.
• La Voz de Lanzarote. Information on the removal of the sculptural elements from Costa Teguise, August 10, 2016.
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