Jean-De-La-Valette

Despite a successful first sailing to Tobago on July 18, the "Jean de La Valette" suspended its afternoon sailing after an alert on the bridge on its return trip to Scarborough. The "Jean de la Valette" had departed Scarborough, Tobago at 6:57 a.m. with 723 passengers and 130 vehicles onboard. She was stopped off Trinidad to allow preliminary checks after the alert was seen. The master decided to cancel the return sailing and return the vessel to the Port of Port of Spain. Passengers and vehicles were transferred to the afternoon's sailing of the "T&T Spirit" upon the vessel's arrival at the Port of Port of Spain. A technical crew carried out investigations onboard the vessel to address all issues. A technical team identified that the alert was in respect of Jet Tunnel #2 and was caused by a broken jet cover bracket, which affected the function of the jet cover. The National Infrastructure Development Company Limited (NIDCO) hoped to have the Jean de la Valette back up and running by July 20 after all necessary repairs and tests were completed.

The in­au­gur­al sail­ing of the "Jean De La Valette" on do­mes­tic seabridge was de­layed in the morn­ing of July 18, 2019, be­cause of a med­ical emer­gency. The ves­sel de­part­ed Scar­bor­ough at 6.57 a.m., half an hour lat­er than its ex­pect­ed de­par­ture time. due to a med­ical sit­u­a­tion abroad which re­quired the in­ter­ven­tion of the state am­bu­lance. The am­bu­lance dis­em­barked the ves­sel at 6:40 a.m., and the ferry de­part­ed sub­se­quent­ly. The ves­sel sailed from To­ba­go with 723 pas­sen­gers and 130 ve­hi­cles.

Virtu Ferries’ JEAN DE LA VALETTE – one of the largest high-speed ro-paxes in the Mediterranean – is expected to join Trinidad & Tobago by May 2019 to serve the sea bridge ferry system between the two Caribbean islands replacing the T&T EXPRESS which is suffering major technical issues and has been listed for sale.