Jearlean sees off Blue Wave Harmony herself in late night sailing

STEPHON NICHOLAS

Se­nior Re­porter

Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John said the MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny sailed for To­ba­go last night, car­ry­ing all car­go that ar­rived at the Port of Port of Spain.

Ac­cord­ing to the Port Au­thor­i­ty, 185 trucks and flatbeds and five 20-foot con­tain­ers de­part­ed for Scar­bor­ough on what of­fi­cials said was a ful­ly cleared sail­ing.

Min­is­ter John, who vis­it­ed the port yes­ter­day morn­ing, re­turned in the evening to make sure op­er­a­tions went smooth­ly. She had ear­li­er in­struct­ed of­fi­cials to keep the ramp down un­til 9 pm, some 30 min­utes be­fore the ves­sel’s sched­uled de­par­ture from Trinidad.

In a video post­ed by the min­istry, Port Au­thor­i­ty CEO Mar­cia Charles-El­bourne said 185 trucks, flatbeds and five 20-foot con­tain­ers left for Scar­bor­ough.

“Every­thing that came went on board? You left back no­body?” Min­is­ter John asks in the video.

“We cleared the yard,” Charles-El­bourne replied.

As she board­ed the ves­sel, Min­is­ter John ob­served sand, bricks and grav­el loaded for trans­port.

“To­ba­go busi­ness is good busi­ness,” she said.

She dis­missed crit­i­cism of the car­go ser­vice, say­ing:

“If there is a short­age it means there needs [to be] more sup­pli­ers in To­ba­go.”

The min­is­ter had ear­li­er de­scribed the US$25,000-per-day car­go ves­sel as a “beast” ca­pa­ble of “tak­ing every­thing” aboard.

The MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny has been un­der scruti­ny since its ar­rival on Jan­u­ary 22, 2026. Me­chan­i­cal is­sues and an in­ci­dent that dam­aged its hull near To­ba­go de­layed its maid­en com­mer­cial sail­ing by a week.

On Fri­day, the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce warned of what it de­scribed as dis­rup­tion to car­go ser­vice on the sea-bridge, say­ing op­er­a­tional costs were ris­ing and busi­ness­es were un­der tremen­dous pres­sure to main­tain cur­rent prices.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine al­so re­vealed that Stud­ley Park En­ter­pris­es Ltd has been strug­gling to se­cure a sup­ply of bi­tu­men from Trinidad for its quar­ry op­er­a­tions.

Min­is­ter John al­so spoke with Charles-El­bourne yes­ter­day morn­ing and re­ceived as­sur­ances that there was no back­log of car­go at the port.

How­ev­er, truck­ers and mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty said un­pre­dictable and in­con­sis­tent sail­ings have re­duced their week­ly trips to To­ba­go from five to three, plac­ing strain on the de­liv­ery of goods to the is­land.