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USS Hartley DE 1029 / ARC Boyaca DE 16 Guatape Columbia The USS Hartley DE 1029 commissioned in July 1957 was decommissioned
in July 1972 and sold to Colombia and again sailed with the Colombian Navy as the ARC Boyaca DE 16. After 20 years of service,
the ship was decommissioned in 1992 with plans to be a marine museum and tourist attraction in Guatape Colombia, The ship
was dismantled and trucked to a mountain location on the shores of Lake Guatape in anticipation of being reassembled
as a land ship. Due to funding limitations, the project has been on hold since. Unknown to the Newport Dealeys as to
the disposition of the former USS Hartley, in early 2004 Luis Castro LT ARC Boyaca (1985), Dean Hoover MM3 (1959) and Marc
Arsenault ET2 USS Hartley (1961) researched, organized and planned an effort on behalf of the Newport Dealeys, to locate the
ships remains in Guatape, and then sponsor a trip to the location to document the remains. In May 2004, on behalf of the Newport
Dealeys, Luis Castro traveled to Guatape and with the assistance of local help, completed the goal of photographing and creating
a video of the site and surrounding local areas. A report on the trip and a formal photo presentation were made at our Newport
Dealeys annual reunion in Warwick RI in the fall of 2004.
On March 2, 2013, LT Luis Castro confirmed that the Boyaca
remains are still there on the location in Guatape.
On 28, Sept. 2015, Lt Luis Castro, while revisiting Guatape, reported
that the remains of the Hartley / Boyaca have been removed and there are houses being constructed on the site. An internet
search of activites in Guatape (with photos) revealed that the removal occured in June of 2013. The following photos
were extracted from a video of a discussion in Spanish by Colombian officials on the future of the project.
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