Rose­marie Sant

The T&T Spir­it re­mains on dry dock and fi­nal re­pairs on the ves­sel are yet to be com­plet­ed.

Port of­fi­cials who spoke with the T&T Guardian are op­ti­misic that it will be back on the seabridge soon say­ing “the work is al­most com­plet­ed and it should be out soon.”

The T&T Spir­it went on dry dock in June last year and a price tag of TT$8mil­lion has al­ready been put on the re­pairs un­der­tak­en. Sources said that the amount of mon­ey be­ing spent to re­pair the ves­sel would be more.

In Jan­u­ary, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley met with stake­hold­ers in To­ba­go and in­di­cat­ed that “the Spir­it which has been on dry dock for quite some time is ex­pect­ed to do some sea tri­als next month and hope­ful­ly if the sea tri­als go well it will be back in­to ser­vice and that will plug the hole there.”

But no sea tri­als were done up to yes­ter­day on the ves­sel. The T&T Ex­press, the lone ves­sel on the seabridge, was tak­en out of ser­vice for more than a week af­ter it failed to get an ex­ten­sion on class cer­tifi­cates dur­ing the car­ni­val pe­ri­od. It even­tu­al­ly re­turned to ser­vice last Sat­ur­day, but that ex­ten­sion is on­ly un­til ear­ly March.

In­sid­ers say it is crit­i­cal that the T&T Spir­it re­turn to the route be­fore then.

The T&T Guardian un­der­stands that Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan met with mem­bers of the Board of the port Au­thor­i­ty on Mon­day. The seabridge is­sue was dis­cussed.

We are told that Port of­fi­cials as­sured that work is con­tin­u­ing apace and there is a sense of op­ti­mism that the ves­sel will be back out be­fore month end, in time for the T&T Ex­press to go on dry dock. One source in­di­cat­ed that the ves­sel may be put back in­to ser­vice on three en­gines, which means that it will op­er­ate at a slow­er pace.

Stake­hold­ers in To­ba­go told the Guardian that it is “un­ac­cept­able” that To­ba­go con­tin­ues to be treat­ed this way and even if the T&T Spir­it re­turns it will again be “on­ly one ves­sel on the route. That is not what is re­quired for a prop­er ser­vice.”

Ef­forts to con­tact Port Chair­man Al­li­son Lewis proved fu­tile.

Mean­while, checks in­di­cat­ed that the Galleons Pas­sage re­mains docked in Guangzhou Chi­na and there is no word from Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert when the ves­sel will leave. On Feb­ru­ary 15, Im­bert in­di­cat­ed that Chi­nese New Year cel­e­bra­tions had de­layed the process for ac­quir­ing the re­quired per­mits for trans-Pa­cif­ic ocean trav­el and Pana­ma Canal.

Those cel­e­bra­tions he said would be in one week af­ter which the Galleons Pas­sage will trav­el 11,000 nau­ti­cal miles from Hong Kong to Port-of-Spain.