The APT James has been of­fi­cial­ly hand­ed over to the Gov­ern­ment. A re­lease from the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port stat­ed that the ves­sel, one of two new fer­ries be­ing ac­quired for the seabridge, was hand­ed over on Wednes­day morn­ing.

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

It fea­tures the very lat­est in 'smart ship' tech­nol­o­gy, in­clud­ing an ad­vanced Mo­tion Con­trol Sys­tem, to de­liv­er a more com­fort­able and sta­ble ride f with ca­pac­i­ty for 926 pas­sen­gers and 250 cars, pow­ered by trav­el­ling at speeds up to 37.5 knots.