Blue Wave Harmony heads to Trinidad for repairs

The Blue Wave Har­mo­ny de­part­ed the Port of Scar­bor­ough at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 7.15 am to­day and is en route to the Port of Port of Spain, where it is sched­uled to un­der­go re­pairs ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the Trinidad & To­ba­go In­ter-Is­land Trans­porta­tion Com­pa­ny.

The ves­sel had been un­der­go­ing sea tri­als as part of its com­mis­sion­ing process ahead of en­try in­to com­mer­cial ser­vice. It suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed its first sea tri­al on Jan­u­ary 27, sail­ing from Port of Spain to Scar­bor­ough.

Dur­ing its sec­ond sea tri­al on Jan­u­ary 30, the ves­sel sus­tained dam­age to its hull while berthing at the Port of Scar­bor­ough. At the time, the ves­sel was un­der the com­mand of its cap­tain and as­sist­ed by a ma­rine pi­lot, in keep­ing with stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures. On­ly crew mem­bers were on board and there were no re­ports of in­juries.

Pre­lim­i­nary in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go in­di­cat­ed that weath­er con­di­tions, in­clud­ing strong winds, may have con­tributed to the in­ci­dent. Tech­ni­cal teams car­ried out dam­age as­sess­ments in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the ves­sel’s op­er­a­tor and rel­e­vant agen­cies.

Ac­cord­ing to the Port Au­thor­i­ty, berthing op­er­a­tions in Scar­bor­ough were com­plet­ed with­out fur­ther in­ci­dent. All re­pairs to the ves­sel will be sub­ject to in­spec­tion and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion by the rel­e­vant in­ter­na­tion­al safe­ty au­thor­i­ties.

The au­thor­i­ty said the Blue Wave Har­mo­ny is ex­pect­ed to en­ter ser­vice in the com­ing days once the re­pairs and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process are com­plet­ed, as part of ef­forts to sta­bilise the in­ter-is­land sea bridge.