it was the year 1973 When in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria young Antonio Armas Fernandezonly 27 years old, took over the management of the family business. A shipping company that, through hard work and effort, has grown into a regional, national and internationally recognized maritime empire.
The company was founded by his father. Antonio Armas Curbeloin 1941 Lanzarote, the island where he was born. Armas Curbelo started this project with “wood-hulled boats, pure sailboats and motor sailers”, ships dedicated to “salt and cargo traffic” between different islands of the Archipelago.
Later, The rabbit businessman would incorporate “steel hulled ships and diesel propulsion and steam engines”, which he managed to get out of this situation. Canary Islands and gained a certain importance by reaching the Spanish Sahara, which was the country’s colony from 1884 to 1975.
Shipping and port businessman
But Armas Curbelo did not work alone. Son of Antonio Armas FernandezHe was involved in the maritime and port business from a very young age and joined the company in the late 1970s, especially in 1968, when he was just 22 years old.
Since then, Armas Fernández has devoted himself to the management of the company. however, he had to wait five years until 1973 to get the “effective” baton from the shipping company.
According to journalist Juan Carlos Díaz Lorenzo, “the company was going through a complicated situation at the time.. It had a large fleet of conventional ships with high maintenance costs and poor performance, causing significant losses.”
Benjamin businessman had to find a solution. “A feasibility plan created the need to modernize the business structure and reorganize the fleet; This meant mooring most boats and selling some of them to other shipowners, as well as renegotiating outstanding debts with banks and creditors,” explains Diaz.
slippery ships
Another of his achievements was to implement cabotage with roll-on cargo ships in the Islands, that is, the transportation of people and goods between different places in the same region. These ships use the cargo-carrying technique or “roll-on-roll”, In Spanish, “rollon” allows ground vehicles such as trucks and cars to access the ship via a pier extending from the quay.
Armas Fernández was aware of the importance of this practice in “Northern Europe”, thanks to his trips to “Sweden, Denmark, Norway, England and Ireland”. In August 1973, after negotiating a loan in foreign currency, Gran Canaria bought the ‘rollon’ ships.Firlingen’ And ‘Rolingen’ Each is worth DKK 1.7 million.
The ships were renamed in Spain with the following names: ‘Yaiza Volcano’ And ‘Tahíche Volcano’in honor of his father’s home island of Lanzarote, respectivelyAntonio Armas Curbelo at first doubted the viability of these cargo ships due to their large size.
Can we fill a day?
With “82 linear meters capacity” insideIt can fit eight trucks, four meters high. As Díaz points out, “today this figure may seem ridiculous, but back then it was a significant challenge.” Actually “the day of the official launch of the ship” ‘Yaiza Volcano’ The journalist added that in the port of Las Palmas, the head of the family was attacked with terrible suspicion and commented to his relatives: “Will we be able to fill this rate one day?”
But, the ships did not cross the waters of the Canary Islands until January 1974because at first they had placed the ramp “port side” and in order to adapt them to their new task, some work had to be done to place it “aft”.
Trans-Mediterranean
Armas Curbelo’s suspicion would soon be resolved when it did not fit in the cargo holds.. In this way, Weapons Fernández provided the following services to Canarian companies: sea transport “reliable and orderly” promoting the exchange of goods in the archipelago and hence the development of non-capital islands.
Antonio Armas Fernández’s work for the company did not end there. In the 1990s Gran Canaria noticed a new trend will revolutionize the market and favor the merging of merging boats mixed freight and passenger transport. Again in these years, the company was renamed Naviera Armas.
In 2002, Armas Fernández took over 8% of Trasmediterranea after its privatization. in 2017 negotiated with shipping company Acciona for months acquisition of more than 90% of the shares of Trasmediterranea. The operation was approved by the National Markets and Competition Commission with some restrictions, and in the summer of 2018, Armas took over control of the former publicly traded company. Sand thus became the largest shipping company Spain owns two brands that have routes in all of the state’s main shipping markets and are well-known as well as respected among the public.
Antonio Armas Fernández’s decades of effort and dedication to see the family business grow was awarded the 2021 Canary Islands Gold Medal a year before his death.