The Torremolinos Town Hall has added the vessel Los Amiguetes to its heritage, donated by its owner, Juan Antonio Guiles. The boat, renamed 'Torremolinos, origin of paradise', now proudly sits in a roundabout next to the Congress Palace.
The Torremolinos Town Hall has turned a nearly century-old vessel into one of its new tourist attractions, which now presides over one of the busiest roundabouts in the municipality, next to the Congress Palace and the Monument to the Tourist. This is Los Amiguetes, a boat that its previous owner, the local resident Juan Antonio Guiles, donated to the Town Hall and which now bears the name 'Torremolinos, origin of paradise'.
The transfer was formalised on 10 August 2023, when a municipal crane took the vessel from the dry dock of Puerto Marina in Benalmádena, where it had been moored for over three decades. Since then, the boat has remained in municipal facilities until the Town Hall found a prominent location for locals and visitors to admire it.
The story of Los Amiguetes began about thirty years ago when Guiles, then a young boy, found it with his brother Rafael. The vessel was about to be sunk, but a trade with a small boat that Juan Antonio owned saved it from its fate. "The boat is almost a century old. When I was a boy, we found it. They were going to sink it, but in the end, my brother convinced me and we traded it for a small boat I had," recalls Guiles.
The ship was in a deplorable state at that time, with a broken deck and a "fourth of moss", but Guiles invested 38,000 pesetas in parts that he sourced from Estepona and managed to bring it back to life. Its first mooring was at El Bulto beach in Málaga, where restoration continued, not without setbacks, such as the loss of the stern. With effort, the boat returned to sailing, managing to transport more than twenty of Juan Antonio's family members on its outings to the Mediterranean.
"It was my passion, my home, my workshop, where I made miniatures of jábegas," confesses Guiles, who also found refuge on the boat during the pandemic. By order of the maritime authorities, the vessel had to leave the capital's coastline and docked in Benalmádena, in a dry dock that eventually became the current Puerto Marina.
At the Benalmádena dock, Los Amiguetes shared waters with the Willow, an impressive steamship built between 1924 and 1927 for the US Coast Guard on the Mississippi, which became unusable in 2019 after a storm. The enormous ship, measuring 61 metres long, 20 wide, and 2.4 draft, once served as a floating nightclub and restaurant. Regarding the anecdotes he experienced alongside the Willow, Guiles elegantly concludes: "better not to tell".
The conclusion came three years ago when his brother Rafael passed away, with whom he shared countless hours on board. "It was very hard for me to be on the boat without him; we spent a lot of time together there," he acknowledges. The option to scrap it, estimated at 500 euros, was dismissed thanks to his daughter's suggestion to donate it to the Town Hall.
The local administration saw potential in the vessel, and Guiles is pleased that "they have found a beautiful place for everyone to see it." At 84 years old, the former waiter and cook remains attentive to his boat and poses a challenge: "The boat is ready to sail right now; it will bury us all."
Los Amiguetes thus joins the list of photographed spots in Torremolinos, although its location at a very busy road junction requires curious onlookers to exercise caution to appreciate it properly.
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