Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­les@guardian.co.tt

Pas­sen­gers aboard the T&T Spir­it were left strand­ed for hours yes­ter­day, af­ter rough seas and re­port­ed tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties de­layed the ves­sel’s ar­rival in To­ba­go.

The fer­ry, which de­part­ed Trinidad at about 9.30 am, re­mained at sea and lat­er in har­bour for sev­er­al hours be­fore fi­nal­ly dock­ing in Scar­bor­ough just be­fore 4 pm, ac­cord­ing to the Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John.

John said ad­verse weath­er con­di­tions made it un­safe for the ves­sel to berth ear­li­er, and she in­struct­ed port of­fi­cials to pri­ori­tise safe­ty.

“The wa­ter is so rough. I don’t un­der­stand what’s hap­pen­ing. So the boat is just try­ing to dock, and I told them, ‘Just take your time.’ Be­cause I just don’t want an in­ci­dent. So it’s right there in the har­bour,” John said in a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion with Guardian Me­dia while the ves­sel was at­tempt­ing to berth.

John said she was aware that pas­sen­gers had con­tact­ed her ex­press­ing fear and un­cer­tain­ty as the fer­ry strug­gled to dock in heavy winds and strong cur­rents.

She said she ad­vised them to re­main calm while the cap­tain ma­noeu­vred the ves­sel.

“I’ve al­ready told the CEO of the Port Au­thor­i­ty to let the cap­tain take his time. Right? I don’t want no in­ci­dent,” she said.

The min­is­ter al­so said such con­di­tions were not un­usu­al, not­ing that weath­er and sea state could af­fect berthing, par­tic­u­lar­ly in To­ba­go’s har­bour. She main­tained that safe­ty re­mained the pri­or­i­ty.

How­ev­er, one pas­sen­ger said the or­deal in­volved more than rough seas.

Spencer Ald­ing­ton, who was on board the T&T Spir­it, said pas­sen­gers were told the ves­sel ex­pe­ri­enced tech­ni­cal prob­lems af­ter leav­ing Trinidad and had to turn back, com­pound­ing de­lays and frus­tra­tion.

“We were on this boat from 9 am this morn­ing un­til now,” Ald­ing­ton said.

He al­so com­plained about the lack of as­sis­tance for pas­sen­gers dur­ing the pro­longed wait, say­ing they were forced to buy food on board.

“They open the can­teen and sell the food. We said...we bet­ter go and buy food in the can­teen,” he said.

Pas­sen­gers re­mained on board even af­ter the ves­sel reached port, wait­ing for clear­ance to dis­em­bark as the sit­u­a­tion was re­solved.

The T&T Spir­it even­tu­al­ly docked safe­ly in To­ba­go just af­ter 4.30 pm, bring­ing the hours-long de­lay to an end. How­ev­er, this in­ci­dent left the APT James out in the har­bour wait­ing as the T&T Spir­it al­lowed pas­sen­gers and ves­sels to dis­em­bark.