It is one of the least known recent shipwrecks in Canarian waters. It happened 27 years ago in the south of Tenerife when the fishing Date at Sea He returned to the island with two tons of tuna in his holds after a couple of days fishing in El Hierro. On the night of May 14, 1995, a sudden impact startled the 14 crew members of the boat. They had just run aground at Punta de Rasca, on the coast of the municipality of Arona, next to the lighthouse of the same name.
The tuna boat, 21.80 meters long and 6.24 meters wide, was sailing with autopilot towards the lighthouse and then headed south of Gran Canaria. But an unfortunate mistake ended up crashing him against the rocks.
After the impact, the crew desperately tried to push back with the 230-horsepower engine, and, with the help of the tide, the trawler backed away, but the leak that had opened under its bow ruined the boat. plan to reach the port of Los Cristianos, less than two nautical miles away. The captain then ordered the abandonment of the ship. The Date at Sea, built in 1961, began to sink in the middle of the morning and minutes later disappeared from the sight of its crew. Her keel ended up in the rocky-sandy bottoms, 23 meters deep.
Hours later, with the first light of day, two of its crew members, still with the fright in their bodies and wet clothes, showed up at a candy store in Los Cristianos run by Sergio Hanquet, an expert diver resident in the South, led there by Fefo, fisherman and friend of Hanquet, who was asked to try to rescue the valuable documentation that remained on board, inside the cabin.
That same day Hanquet jumped into the sea in search of the papers, which he managed to recover from one of the drawers in the cabin. He verified that the ship was intact, except for its bow, in which the enormous hole caused by the grounding could be seen. “I remember that the boat moved and getting to the cabin was not so easy, because in a recently sunk boat everything floats -as he personally verified by having to dodge mattresses and wood- and you have trouble moving because at a given moment you can see trapped”, recalls the diver in DIARIO DE AVISOS almost three decades later.
In the following days the diver went down several times to the Date at Sea to photograph the progressive deterioration of the wreck and explore its cellars full of tuna. “It did not take long to degrade, as is often the case with wooden boats subjected to currents. It was not safe at all, the stern swayed due to the swaying of the sea and the bridge fell under its own weight, splitting the boat in two, ”explained the diving expert, who has recorded the event and his experience in his guide. Diving in the Canary Islands 2.
More than 27 years later, the wreck remains fifty meters from the coast and about 45 meters deep, practically double the place where it fell the night of the accident, due to the action of the currents. Its remains have become a refuge for various species that have transformed its old wood and what remains of the aluminum cabin into an ecosystem full of life.
“When a sinking occurs by accident, it can locally and for a time cause a series of factors that are harmful to the environment, such as fuel spills or the effect of certain chemical agents, but over time they all become in small ecosystems that attract many species,” said Hanquet. In addition, she recalled that, depending on their location and depth, wrecks become attractive places for divers.
In the same area of the accident, another boat, the countsuffered the same fate on September 27, 1973 at a point very close to the sinking of the Date in the Sea. the digital portal Command booth, of Juan Carlos Díaz Lorenzo, published that the ship, 43 meters long and 8 meters wide, was carrying a shipment of cement from Gran Canaria and was heading to the port of Los Cristianos, but a little more than a nautical mile from its destination was stranded at Punta de Rasca.
After verifying that its holds were flooded and given the risk of it breaking in two, the abandonment of the ship was ordered. The count He signed his sentence and went to the bottom of the sea, where his remains have rested for almost half a century.
