Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The re­place­ment of the MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny af­ter just six months of ser­vice on the seabridge has sur­prised mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty. How­ev­er, one stake­hold­er told Guardian Me­dia the de­ci­sion to change the car­go boat has proven her crit­i­cism of the ves­sel was war­rant­ed.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (Nid­co) re­vealed that the MV Gold­en Car­ri­er will take over the in­ter-is­land car­go trans­port ser­vice up­on com­ple­tion of sea tri­als. It said the sub­sti­tu­tion of the ves­sel will come at no ad­di­tion­al ex­pense to the State and is in keep­ing with the one-year agree­ment.

The char­ter of the US$25,000 per day Blue Wave was for an ini­tial six months with the char­ter­ers hold­ing the op­tion to ex­tend the deal for a fur­ther six months.

The Gold­en Car­ri­er is ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in Port-of-Spain to­day, and Nid­co is an­tic­i­pat­ing a smooth tran­si­tion with sea tri­als sched­uled to be­gin on Sun­day.

Nid­co added that the Gold­en Car­ri­er, which was built in 1986, of­fers sim­i­lar car­go ca­pac­i­ty to its pre­de­ces­sor.

The 40-year-old car­go ves­sel can ac­com­mo­date 240 pas­sen­gers, 74 more than the Blue Wave.

It boasts 70 cab­ins, three few­er than the Blue Wave. It al­so in­cludes a nurse sta­tion, gym for crew and a play area for chil­dren.

Nid­co said the de­ci­sion to with­draw the Blue Wave was tak­en by the own­er as the ves­sel is sched­uled to un­der­go main­te­nance and up­grades.

The Blue Wave Har­mo­ny re­placed the Cabo Star, which ex­it­ed the seabridge on Jan­u­ary 12 af­ter its lease end­ed.

The Blue Wave ar­rived in T&T on Jan­u­ary 22 and en­coun­tered sev­er­al dif­fi­cul­ties be­fore com­plet­ing its maid­en com­mer­cial sail­ing on March 2.

Di­ane Hadad, for­mer head, To­ba­go arm, Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, told Guardian Me­dia she wel­comed the ves­sel’s re­moval but said she is un­con­vinced by its re­place­ment.

She al­so crit­i­cised Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to ex­tend the deal with­out con­sult­ing the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

Hadad be­lieves the re­place­ment of the Blue Wave has vin­di­cat­ed its crit­ics.

In Feb­ru­ary, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed the ves­sel had been flagged for close to 30 de­fects be­tween 2023 and 2025.

“They qui­et­ly slip it away now, which means the Gov­ern­ment, as far as I am con­cerned, Madam Min­is­ter (Jear­lean John) has ac­knowl­edged and ac­cept­ed that the ves­sel that they brought here was not wor­thy to car­ry out the func­tion re­quired. It is an ad­mis­sion the Blue Wave Har­mo­ny did not do the job,” she said.

Hadad hint­ed there was a bet­ter ves­sel avail­able to the Gov­ern­ment, but de­clined to give fur­ther in­for­ma­tion.

Cur­tis Williams, head, To­ba­go arm, Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, said the de­ci­sion to re­place the Blue Wave came as a sur­prise, but he does not an­tic­i­pate any sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on the ser­vice.

“Nev­er­the­less, we will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion close­ly and as­sess any im­pli­ca­tions as fur­ther in­for­ma­tion be­comes avail­able,” he said.

Truck­ers Ltd pres­i­dent Nicholas Man­swell, in a brief in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, said he re­mains hope­ful and is an­tic­i­pat­ing a tour of the ves­sel next week.

Ef­forts to con­tact Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and PNM To­ba­go leader Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis for a com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful.