Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor- News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

The in­ter-is­land fer­ry APT James is ex­pect­ed to re­turn to ser­vice on Jan­u­ary 3, 2026, fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of its manda­to­ry five-year dry dock­ing, ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via What­sApp yes­ter­day, John con­firmed the ves­sel will soon be back in ser­vice af­ter go­ing in­to dry dock on No­vem­ber 20, 2025, to un­der­go the re­quired works.

“The dry dock­ing works have been suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed, and all re­lat­ed fees have been paid for the dry dock­ing,” John said.

Guardian Me­dia sought clar­i­fi­ca­tion from the min­istry af­ter claims cir­cu­lat­ed that the ves­sel was off the route be­cause dry-dock­ing fees had not been paid. The min­istry was asked to con­firm whether this was true and, if not, to ex­plain why the ves­sel re­mained out of ser­vice and when it was ex­pect­ed to re­turn to op­er­a­tions.

In a pub­lic ser­vice an­nounce­ment is­sued on Mon­day, De­cem­ber 29, Trinidad and To­ba­go In­ter-Is­land Trans­porta­tion Com­pa­ny Ltd said the APT James “re­mains out of ser­vice,” with­out giv­ing a rea­son.

John said all post-dock­ing re­quire­ments are now be­ing com­plet­ed ahead of the ves­sel’s re­turn.

“Af­ter dry dock­ing, there is the load­ing of life rafts and sea tri­als and clean­ing,” the min­is­ter said, adding that the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny con­firmed that all fees re­lat­ed to the dock­ing have been paid.

The fer­ry dis­rup­tions have placed in­creased pres­sure on the air­bridge. Caribbean Air­lines said yes­ter­day that all pas­sen­gers with con­firmed tick­ets for do­mes­tic trav­el would be ac­com­mo­dat­ed on sched­uled flights, though ser­vices were op­er­at­ing at full ca­pac­i­ty due to the can­cel­la­tion of fer­ry sail­ings.

In the same TTIT ad­vi­so­ry, the com­pa­ny said the T&T Spir­it had been tem­porar­i­ly with­drawn from ser­vice due to me­chan­i­cal is­sues, re­sult­ing in the can­cel­la­tion of all its sched­uled sail­ings. The Buc­coo Reef and the Galleons Pas­sage have con­tin­ued op­er­a­tions with ad­just­ed sched­ules to sup­port pas­sen­ger and ve­hic­u­lar move­ment.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, called on the Gov­ern­ment to give “a clear in­di­ca­tion to the peo­ple of To­ba­go on the time­frame for the re­pair of these boats.”

John lat­er ex­plained that the T&T Spir­it re­mains down due to is­sues with its ring gears and starter, with ef­forts un­der­way to re­turn the ves­sel to the sea bridge by to­day.

The com­pa­ny said the ring gears and starter have been an on­go­ing is­sue since Oc­to­ber, with an ap­par­ent align­ment prob­lem caus­ing re­peat­ed dam­age.

She said en­gi­neers have tak­en mea­sure­ments and are com­par­ing the ves­sel’s en­gines to iden­ti­fy the cause of the mis­align­ment, while the cur­rent ring gear has been sent to a ma­chine shop for re­pairs, with as­sur­ances it will be re­turned by to­day so the ves­sel can re­sume op­er­a­tions in the short­est pos­si­ble time.