Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

As­sess­ments are un­der­way on the Cabo Star at the Port of Port of Spain af­ter it re­turned to Trinidad on Sat­ur­day.

On Wednes­day, pas­sen­gers aboard the ves­sel were left strand­ed for some 17 hours af­ter a fire broke out in the en­gine room. The crew was able to iso­late and quash the blaze. There were no ca­su­al­ties. A re­lease from the Port Au­thor­i­ty of T&T said the ves­sel made its way back to Trinidad by 2.15 p.m. on Sat­ur­day, Au­gust 26. It said the ves­sel is cur­rent­ly un­der­tak­ing its in­spec­tions, re-cer­ti­fi­ca­tions and re­pairs be­fore re­sum­ing its op­er­a­tions.

"The Man­age­ment of the Au­thor­i­ty wish­es to re-it­er­ate that the ser­vice will re­sume on­ly when the ves­sel has been cer­ti­fied safe to op­er­ate and all users will be ad­vised ac­cord­ing­ly," the re­lease said.

Over the week­end, Guardian Me­dia reached out to the CEO of the Trinidad and To­ba­go In­ter-is­land Trans­porta­tion Com­pa­ny (TTITC), Vil­ma Lewis-Cock­burn, for an up­date on the ex­tent of dam­ages and re­pairs re­quired. How­ev­er, on Sun­day night, she said the as­sess­ments were still un­der way giv­en the ves­sel on­ly ar­rived the af­ter­noon pri­or there­fore she was not yet in a po­si­tion to make such a pro­nounce­ment. She re­mind­ed that the Cabo Star is a char­tered ves­sel, mean­ing, "the as­sess­ment and its costs are for the own­ers."

In the mean­time, while the ves­sel is out of ser­vice, car­go is be­ing trans­port­ed on the APT James, the Buc­coo Reef and the Galleons Pas­sage fer­ries with pri­or­i­ty giv­en to food­stuff per­ish­able items. How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to the To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber head, Mar­tin George, busi­ness­es are still be­ing im­pact­ed. This is why he called for the fleet to be ex­pand­ed.

"While there were arrange­ments to ac­com­mo­date some of the small­er trucks- the one tonne and one-and-a-half tonne trucks- on the oth­er sail­ing ves­sels, the fact of the mat­ter is that any...large car­go or large truck, from a three-tonne up­wards, had prob­lems get­ting to and from To­ba­go," he told Guardian Me­dia in a voice note yes­ter­day.

"Of course, when you have things like this hap­pen you would have a slow­down. So that's why we've ad­vo­cat­ed there should be a sec­ond car­go ves­sel, just like the Cabo Star."

He said the Cabo Star func­tions "very well" and the cham­ber has no is­sues with its per­for­mance and a sec­ond such ves­sel will strength­en the sup­ply chain.

"All we need is an­oth­er one. So, there­fore, you lessen the wear and tear on each ves­sel be­cause you could have them run­ning in tan­dem and then al­so you al­ways have a back­up ve­hi­cle when one has to go in dry dock or when one has an emer­gency, such as this one where you have to take it in for re­pairs. So there­fore, you still have the car­go ser­vices run­ning," he said.

"That's just ba­sic com­mon sense and plan­ning. So, I would hope the Min­is­ter of Works (and Trans­port) Mr Ro­han Sinanan would take this sug­ges­tion on board and we would soon get an­oth­er ves­sel just like the Cabo Star ser­vic­ing the Trinidad/To­ba­go route."