The Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard says that they con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the Vin­cent­ian ves­sel First Chance which over­turned on the north coast of Trinidad on Sat­ur­day 2nd April 2022.

In at­tempts to tow the ves­sel in­to shal­low­er and calmer wa­ters, the ves­sel drift­ed in­to Venezue­lan wa­ters.

De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard:

In an ear­li­er re­port, it was high­light­ed that the Vin­cent­ian flagged ves­sel First Chance over­turned on the north coast of Trinidad on Sat­ur­day 2nd April 2022.

The TTCG SAR op­er­a­tion that en­sued at­tempt­ed to tow the ves­sel in­to shal­low­er and calmer wa­ters. How­ev­er, due to the size and weight of the ves­sel, these at­tempts proved un­suc­cess­ful. Con­se­quent­ly, the ves­sel drift­ed some dis­tance in­to Venezue­lan wa­ters. 

The TTCG has en­sured that the ves­sel con­tin­ues to be mon­i­tored in case any of the miss­ing per­sons that may have been trapped on board is able to make their way out of the ves­sel and al­so as a safe­ty pre­cau­tion to pre­vent oth­er ves­sels from col­lid­ing with it. How­ev­er up to the cur­rent time, none of the miss­ing per­sons have been seen or de­tect­ed.

The drift of the ves­sel in­to Venezue­lan wa­ters has caused the TTCG to es­tab­lish and main­tain li­ai­son with Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties to fa­cil­i­tate the pres­ence a TTCG ves­sel along­side Fair Chance. 

On Sun­day 3rd April 2022, the own­ers of the ves­sel, with the as­sis­tance of the TTCG, were able to arrange a tug boat which made its way in­to Venezue­lan wa­ters and ren­dezvoused with the TTCG ves­sel which was on watch with Fair Chance. 

At ap­prox­i­mate­ly 4pm on Sun­day the Tug boat be­gan slow­ly and care­ful­ly tow­ing the Fair Chance back in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go wa­ters. 

This op­er­a­tion is chal­leng­ing and tak­ing some time be­cause the ves­sel is par­tial­ly sub­merged whilst be­ing up­side down, sea con­di­tions are rough, and the di­rec­tion of the tow is against the pre­dom­i­nant­ly west­ern cur­rent. 

The in­tent is to take the ves­sel in­to calmer and shal­low­er wa­ters in the Gulf of Paria so that divers can com­mence search­es in­side of the over­turned ves­sel.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard re­mains ded­i­cat­ed to the con­tin­ued pro­vi­sion of bor­der se­cu­ri­ty and oth­er ser­vices to main­tain safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go through the con­duct of mar­itime safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty pa­trols with­in our area of op­er­a­tions as well as any oth­er area in which we are called up­on to serve.