Blue Wave misses Friday sailing, leaving cargo in limbo

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Less than 24 hours af­ter the TT Cham­ber of Com­merce ex­pressed grave con­cern over the dis­rup­tion to car­go ser­vice on the seabridge, the MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny failed to de­part Port-of-Spain at its sched­uled 9.30 pm sail­ing on Fri­day.

The ves­sel, which was al­ready loaded with dozens of trucks packed with es­sen­tial goods for To­ba­go, re­mained docked overnight and through­out the day yes­ter­day, leav­ing some truck­ers wor­ried about the sta­tus of their per­ish­able goods.

A me­dia re­lease by the Port Au­thor­i­ty yes­ter­day said the ves­sel is ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in Scar­bor­ough to­day.

Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John said she is not alarmed by the ves­sel miss­ing its sail­ing. In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, John in­sist­ed that the car­go boat, which ar­rived in T&T on Jan­u­ary 22, is still un­der­go­ing sea tri­als and ad­just­ing to the in­ter­is­land route.

Con­cerns have been mount­ing over the car­go ser­vice, and To­ba­go busi­ness­es were an­tic­i­pat­ing yet an­oth­er com­mer­cial blow.

The Port Au­thor­i­ty de­fend­ed its man­age­ment of the seabridge since the Cabo Star ex­it­ed on Jan­u­ary 12. In a me­dia state­ment, it out­lined the con­tin­gency mea­sures in place and not­ed the Blue Wave Har­mo­ny’s sched­ule for the re­main­der of the month. The au­thor­i­ty said night sea tri­als will be­gin on Feb­ru­ary 25, with a sign-off for full com­mer­cial pas­sen­ger op­er­a­tions an­tic­i­pat­ed by March 1, sub­ject to the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of all re­quired as­sess­ments.

But Min­is­ter John ex­plained it was not ab­nor­mal to post­pone sail­ings dur­ing this tri­al pe­ri­od.

“It is on sea tri­als. Sea tri­als mean it is not on a com­mer­cial sched­ule. We have said that over and over in press re­leas­es. Have you all seen that?

“We have a boat that just came in­to the en­vi­ron­ment, in the ju­ris­dic­tion, so they have to take their time to make sure every­one knows what they’re do­ing.”

She said the cap­tain of the Pana­man­ian-flagged ves­sel, Tim Fenech, is sail­ing with a ma­rine pi­lot from Trinidad who is help­ing him learn the route.

John ac­knowl­edged that dam­age to the ves­sel’s hull dur­ing a re­cent dock­ing in To­ba­go has de­railed the sched­ule.

She said the cap­tain and ma­rine pi­lot are with­in their rights to amend sail­ing times.

“They changed their minds based on what the ma­rine pi­lot and cap­tain de­cid­ed. That is why we don’t have pas­sen­gers on the boat, be­cause it is on sea tri­als.”

Asked if she was trou­bled by the short­age of es­sen­tial goods in To­ba­go, John said, as a min­is­ter and a To­bag­on­ian, it has left her con­cerned.

“If peo­ple are not get­ting the ser­vice that they ex­pect, cer­tain­ly you would al­ways try to meet and pass ex­pec­ta­tions.”

John said her min­istry had in­tro­duced a barge to mit­i­gate any in­ter­fer­ence in the flow of car­go.

“There was nev­er a gap (in ser­vice). When the Cabo Star left, we put a barge in ser­vice im­me­di­ate­ly, and we had three boats on the wa­ter. Then some­thing hap­pened to the T&T Spir­it; the en­gine sucked up some piece of wood. That is some­thing you can’t plan for. We still have three pas­sen­ger ves­sels (Galleons Pas­sage, APT James and Buc­coo Reef) on the bridge - which is ad­e­quate.”

She be­lieves that with­in the next sev­en days, every­thing will be reg­u­larised.

Mean­while, To­ba­go East MP David Thomas said pro­to­col must be fol­lowed be­fore the Blue Wave Har­mo­ny can be cleared for full sail­ings.

Thomas ini­tial­ly told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that his lat­est in­for­ma­tion was that the boat was func­tion­ing and he was un­aware of any fur­ther prob­lems.

“No­body raised any­thing with me, and usu­al­ly, my con­stituents speak with me all the time. I am at an event now in my con­stituen­cy, and noth­ing was brought to my at­ten­tion.”

But Thomas called back 30 min­utes lat­er and said he made it his du­ty to con­tact of­fi­cials and stake­hold­ers about the is­sue.

“My ad­vice is there are cer­tain pro­to­cols that need to be fol­lowed based on in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards to op­er­ate on the seabridge. These pro­to­cols would cause the ves­sel to be resched­uled from time to time, and it would cause some in­con­ve­nience.”

Asked if the in­abil­i­ty to ac­quire ba­sic items such as bread and wa­ter was mere­ly an in­con­ve­nience, Thomas said, “Giv­en the fact we are try­ing to put a re­li­able ser­vice in place, it is not just to take a ves­sel and just put it on the wa­ter. It is al­so im­por­tant to en­sure safe­ty is para­mount.”

How­ev­er, for­mer Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris said he was “deeply con­cerned” by the “trou­bling pat­tern” since the ves­sel ar­rived.

He post­ed on Face­book, “There was the re­port­ed dam­age while dock­ing in To­ba­go, the de­lay in dock­ing due to bad weath­er, the ear­li­er ramp arm fail­ure, and now the ves­sel’s in­abil­i­ty to de­part Port-of-Spain, af­fect­ing dozens of trucks and the wider sup­ply chain. This is no longer an iso­lat­ed is­sue. It is a se­ries of prob­lems that is plac­ing re­al strain on busi­ness­es, fam­i­lies, and the cost of liv­ing in To­ba­go.”

Mor­ris said it is be­com­ing hard­er to source ba­sic items on the is­lands, such as bread and but­ter.

He called on To­ba­go to put pol­i­tics aside as this was now a mat­ter of sur­vival.

“I am call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to ur­gent­ly clar­i­fy the sta­tus of the car­go fer­ry pro­cure­ment process and to pro­vide a clear time­line for de­liv­ery. To­ba­go de­serves re­li­a­bil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, and de­ci­sive ac­tion.”

PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis said he was keen­ly ob­serv­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans’ re­ac­tion to the sit­u­a­tion.

“Since Jan­u­ary 12, To­ba­go has been with­out a re­li­able car­go ves­sel; a mat­ter that af­fects every shelf, every busi­ness, and every house­hold.

“Not a word from To­ba­go’s de­ci­sive­ly elect­ed lead­er­ship. Not a word from their friends in Trinidad. And more telling­ly, not a word from To­bag­o­ni­ans.

“I there­fore re­spect­ful­ly as­sume that the present sit­u­a­tion re­flects the stan­dard of ser­vice To­bag­o­ni­ans now find ac­cept­able. I will con­tin­ue to ob­serve.”

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine told Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day that Stud­ley Park En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed is al­so feel­ing the ef­fects of the dis­rup­tion. He said there has been a de­lay in re­ceiv­ing a sup­ply of bi­tu­men from Trinidad, af­fect­ing op­er­a­tions at the THA-man­aged quar­ry com­pa­ny.

Ef­forts to con­tact Au­gus­tine for an up­date yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful.