The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has con­firmed that Aus­tralian ship­builder, Austal Lim­it­ed, has launched the first of two Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard (TTCG) Cape Class ves­sel in­to the wa­ter.

The ves­sels are in­tend­ed to en­hance the bor­der pro­tec­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ties of the coun­try in con­junc­tion with the ex­ist­ing Coast Guard fleet.

In a news re­lease is­sued this morn­ing, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Stu­art Young, MP stat­ed:

“This launch is a sig­nif­i­cant step, bring­ing us clos­er to tak­ing de­liv­ery of these naval as­sets for our Coast Guard. We look for­ward to the con­tin­ued progress in the jour­ney of get­ting these as­sets to Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

De­signed and built by Austal, the Cape Class is a 58-me­tre all alu­mini­um mono­hull pa­trol boat, specif­i­cal­ly pro­duced to com­bat the full range of mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty threats.

Ac­cord­ing to Austal, the ves­sel has a long 4,000 nau­ti­cal mile range and 28-day pa­trol cy­cle, with a crew of up to 22 per­sons. The ves­sel al­so sup­ports two high speed 7.3 me­tre Rigid Hull In­flat­able Boats used for in­ter­cept­ing oth­er ves­sels.

FLASHBACK – Austal and T&T participants at the metal cutting ceremony at Austal’s Henderson Shipyard, in April 2019. (Image courtesy Austal)

Back in 2018, ex­perts from the TTCG, in­clud­ing the Chief of De­fence Staff, had spent a week in Aus­tralia ob­serv­ing and test­ing the Austal Cape Class Ves­sels, with the as­sis­tance of the Roy­al Aus­tralian Navy (RAN).  The TT Del­e­ga­tion sub­se­quent­ly rec­om­mend­ed that Gov­ern­ment con­sid­er pur­chas­ing that type of ves­sel, which would be suit­able to work in the wa­ters of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and al­so could be in­te­grat­ed with the six (6) Austal ves­sels and the Da­mon ves­sels owned by the Coast Guard.

In 2019, Austal was award­ed the con­tract to build the two pa­trol ves­sels for this coun­try.  The TT Gov­ern­ment had re­quest­ed that the pur­chase be sup­port­ed by a fi­nanc­ing pack­age (the De­fence Ex­port Fa­cil­i­ty) through Ex­port Fi­nance Aus­tralia (EFA)—which had been ap­proved and an­nounced in De­cem­ber 2018.

Austal then be­gan con­struc­tion on the ves­sels with a met­al cut­ting cer­e­mo­ny at the Com­pa­ny’s Hen­der­son ship­yard on 8 April 2019.  That cer­e­mo­ny was at­tend­ed by Cap­tain Dou­glas Archer rep­re­sent­ing the GORTT Coast Guard and Aus­tralian De­fence Ex­port Ad­vo­cate, the Hon. David John­ston.