Less than 10,000 nau­ti­cal miles sep­a­rate the newest fer­ry in the na­tion­al fleet—the APT James—from its des­ti­na­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, as it con­tin­ues to make its way home, af­ter hav­ing been hand­ed over of­fi­cial­ly to the Gov­ern­ment, ear­li­er this month.

In a re­lease is­sued this morn­ing, the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NID­CO) ad­vis­es that the APT James ar­rived at the Port of Galle, Sri Lan­ka, to­day, Wednes­day 18 No­vem­ber 2020, at 3:45 am (lo­cal time).

Ac­cord­ing to the NID­CO state­ment, the Sri Lan­ka stop is the first of five sched­uled stops for the ves­sel to bunker (re­fu­el) dur­ing its jour­ney to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Image courtesy the National Infrastructure Development Company Limited (NIDCO).

Bunker­ing / Re­fu­elling stops for the ves­sel in­clude the fol­low­ing:

●  Galle, Sril Lan­ka - Bunker­ing - One (1) day

●  Re­pub­lic of Dji­bouti, East Africa - Bunker­ing - One (1) day

●  Suez, Egypt - Bunker­ing - One (1) day

●  Al­ge­ci­ras, Spain - Bunker­ing - One (1) day

●  Pra­ia, Cape Verde - Bunker­ing - One (1) day

With the stop at Sri Lan­ka, the ves­sel has 9,474 nau­ti­cal miles left in its jour­ney to Trinidad and To­ba­go, and is es­ti­mat­ed to ar­rive in late De­cem­ber 2020, good weath­er per­mit­ting.

The proposed route for the APT James’ voyage to Trinidad and Tobago. Image courtesy the National Infrastructure Development Company Limited (NIDCO).

The APT James was built by Austal—the Aus­tralian com­pa­ny con­tract­ed by NID­CO to de­sign and build the ve­hi­cle and pas­sen­ger cata­ma­ran—at its new ship­yard in Vung Tau, Viet­nam.

The fer­ry, des­ig­nat­ed 94-me­tre Au­to­Ex­press, will pro­vide high-speed pas­sen­ger and ve­hi­cle op­er­a­tions be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The APT James fea­tures the very lat­est in 'smart ship' tech­nol­o­gy, in­clud­ing an ad­vanced Mo­tion Con­trol Sys­tem, to de­liv­er a more com­fort­able and sta­ble ride. It has the ca­pac­i­ty for 926 pas­sen­gers and 250 cars, and can trav­el at speeds of up to 37.5 knots.