The Galleons Pas­sage has left Yoko­hama, Japan, and is on its way to Hon­olu­lu, Hawaii. Con­firm­ing the ves­sel had ar­rived as sched­uled in Japan on Tues­day (March 13), the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (Nid­co) yes­ter­day said the stop fa­cil­i­tat­ed the in­stal­la­tion of ad­di­tion­al fu­el tanks and bunker­ing ser­vices.

Orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled to leave Japan on Thurs­day (March 15), the Galleons Pas­sage was de­layed by a fur­ther two days. Nid­co said "Due to se­vere weath­er con­di­tions, the ves­sel de­part­ed Yoko­hama on March 17, as it con­tin­ues its jour­ney to Hon­olu­lu, Hawaii, for bunker­ing."

Bunker­ing is the sup­ply of fu­el for use by ships and in­cludes the ship­board lo­gis­tics of load­ing fu­el and dis­trib­ut­ing it among avail­able bunker tanks.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said Galleons Pas­sage was sched­uled to ar­rive in T&T by the end of April.

Im­bert said the cost of the ves­sel was US $17.38 mil­lion, in ad­di­tion to a US $900,000 price tag to bring the ves­sel to T&T and up­grades to­talling US $350,000.—An­na-Lisa Paul