Joshua Sur­tees

The Min­istry of Trans­port and Mar­itime Ser­vices Di­vi­sion (MSD) will take its most de­ci­sive step yet in deal­ing with the aban­doned ships in T&T wa­ters by hir­ing a con­trac­tor to re­move all of the derelict ves­sels that lit­ter the coast­lines.The ten­der no­tice is due to ap­pear in news­pa­pers with­in the next fort­night, and will be open to both to both lo­cal and for­eign con­trac­tors.

At the last re­port­ed count, 51 ves­sels were in vary­ing states of dis­re­pair, some in shal­low wa­ters, some par­tial­ly sub­merged, some ful­ly cap­sized and some an­chored or tied to­geth­er fur­ther out to sea.In ear­ly April, Min­is­ter Steven Cadiz re­vealed that the MSD had tak­en ac­tion on the 13 derelict boats in Ch­aguara­mas when it in­struct­ed the own­er, Nguyen Hai Chau, to re­turn to Trinidad to deal with the is­sue.

Steven Valdez is a mem­ber of the T&T Yacht Club and T&T Game Fish­ing As­so­ci­a­tion who has close­ly mon­i­tored the sit­u­a­tion and first no­ti­fied the T&T Guardian that some of the ships were cap­siz­ing in De­cem­ber last year. He re­ports now that one of the ships had been moved to a Port-of-Spain ship­yard, where it was stripped and is await­ing ship­ment to Chi­na as scrap met­al.

A sec­ond ship named Uni­ty, a for­mer Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um (NP) ves­sel used for car­ry­ing liq­uid pe­tro­le­um gas (LPG), has al­so been tak­en to the Sea Lots break­ers' yard where it awaits a sim­i­lar fate.Once Uni­ty has been dealt with, an­oth­er NP LPG car­ri­er named En­ter­prise will fol­low suit. Valdez told the T&T Guardian, "The two NP ships were tied side by side with­in 100 yards prox­im­i­ty to the Tide­wa­ter ves­sels."

Tide­wa­ter is the name of the Louisana com­pa­ny which deals in off­shore ser­vice ves­sels. The Amer­i­can com­pa­ny bought the age­ing Brazil­ian-man­u­fac­tured boats once they had been de­com­mis­sioned two years ago then sold them to Tai­wanese busi­ness­man, Hai Chau, who paid for their moor­ing.Valdez says a fourth ship, called the Port-of-Spain Dredger, is an­chored be­tween the tiny Cen­tipede Is­land and Gas­pa­ree Is­land, op­po­site the Coast Guard head­quar­ters in Staubles Bay.

"Where the Port-of-Spain Dredger is lo­cat­ed, its an­chor sits very close to the main pow­er line run­ning from the main­land to Gas­pa­ree," said Valdez. "It was hoped that the an­chor could be lift­ed but the winch on the ship doesn't work. They might have to dis­con­nect the an­chor and chain and leave it there to move it."The dredger (a ship used for re­mov­ing sed­i­ment at the bot­tom of the ocean) is due to be moved with­in the next two weeks, which Valdez says is im­per­a­tive for safe­ty rea­sons.

"What's scary is it's close to some of the is­land homes. If there was a bad storm, strong wind or a strong tide, the ship could move to­wards the jet­ty, and that could cause con­sid­er­able dam­age," he said.The re­movals are be­ing han­dled in part by Mar­itime Preser­va­tion Ltd, a dry dock and ship re­pair com­pa­ny, though some of the ves­sels will al­so be re­moved by MSD, which is re­spon­si­ble for over­see­ing the over­all project, at the own­er's ex­pense.

Valdez con­firmed he had heard from "a very good source" that the ten­der was ex­pect­ed to be pub­lished in the news­pa­pers with­in two weeks.

Where and why

Of the 51 ships, 39 are in the north­west of Trinidad, while the rest are in Clax­ton Bay, San Fer­nan­do, Ce­dros and To­ba­go.Valdez showed the T&T Guardian pho­tographs of the ships, many of which are in ter­ri­ble states of dis­re­pair. Their hulls are dam­aged, floor­boards are bro­ken and the sub­merged ones have been seen leak­ing oil and diesel in­to the Gulf of Paria.

Valdez be­lieves some of the ves­sels have been for drug and gun-smug­gling. They have al­so been used for the il­le­gal sale of diesel, ac­cord­ing to En­er­gy Min­is­ter, Kevin Ram­nar­ine