The Cartagena City Council officially took ownership of the S-62 submarine “Tonina” on Friday, October 17th. The Admiral in charge of the Arsenal, Pedro Luis de la Puente, and Mayor Noelia Arroyo signed the transfer agreement in front of the President of the Community, Fernando López Miras.
The ceremony, which took place next to the submarine in the Navantia Carenero, marks the end of the process by which the Navy gives one of its most famous ships to the city. The ship will be kept and turned into a museum in a new exhibition area that will be built in the Espalmador tunnels.
The City Council is in charge of the project, which will be done with help from the Navy and money from the Autonomous Community. It will take place in the tunnels that were dug out of Mount Galeras and turned into an exhibition space for the sea, technology, and naval history.
Fernando López Miras, the head of the regional administration, stressed that the regional government has given €500,000 to this project. He said the goal was to make Cartagena’s tourist attractions stronger and to “put submarine weapons at the forefront” to help the city get back its naval past.
López Miras thanked the Navy and the Cartagena City Council for their work on this project during his speech. He especially thanked the mayor “for having insisted and persevered day after day to ensure that we moved forward and made the museum a reality,” according to sources from the Community of Cartagena in a press release.
The councillor said, “We are going to take advantage of a unique location in Spain to create a unique space in Europe.” She also said that the project “will have the ‘Tonina’ as its main attraction, will serve to spread knowledge about Spanish submarines and submariners, and will allow us to tell the story of the Submarine Corps, which has its roots in Cartagena.”
Arroyo said that the Tonina was the Navy’s longest-serving submarine, with 32 years of duty, more than 200,000 miles travelled (the same as nine journeys around the world), and more than 31,000 hours of immersion, which is more than three and a half years underwater. “We are going to make sure that the Navy’s most profitable submarine stays useful to the Navy, Cartagena, and Spain,” he stated.
Author: Derek Appleton
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