Tt-Spirit

The Oropouche West MP Dave Tancoo alleged that crew members of the 'TT Spirit' have been abandoned at sea with no means of relief, since the ship was drydocked aboard the heavy load carrier 'White Merlin' (IMO: 9670224) on the Port of Spain Anchorage for a prolonged period. Tancoo claimed that the technical crew of the ferry have been marooned at sea, on board their vessel which was hitched to the repair vessel 'White Marlin'. The Port Authority of Trinidad and Tobago chairman Lyle Alexander said that the 'TT Spirit' was not being held for ransom. The repairs to the vessel have been completed while it was on drydock and it would be relaunched on April 4 to complete other minor repairs so it could return to the water after it underwent engine repairs with the shaft and parts on the jets of the engine being replaced. The emaining repairs were to be continued while the vessel is in the water, alongside the GSS Jetty in Port-of-Spain. All payments for the operations on the 'White Marlin' have been made to the ship’s agent.

A bomb scare at the port in Scar­bor­ough has de­layed the 6.30 a.m. sail­ing of the "T&T Spir­it" on June 24, 2019. Some­one phoned in the threat at 5:12 a.m. Fire Ser­vices re­pond­ed and did a se­cu­ri­ty sweep of the ves­sel, sub­se­quent­ly clear­ing it for sail­ing. Board­ing was al­lowed to be­gin af­er a fire of­fi­cer had checked all ve­hi­cles wait­ing to embark on the ves­sel.

The crew of the "T&T Spir­it" was forced in­to ex­tra du­ty in the evening of April 16,, 2019, af­ter they en­gaged in a res­cue op­er­a­tion whilst on their way to Scar­bor­ough. The cap­tain re­ceived a dis­tress call com­ing from a small pirogue just off Mara­cas Bay as the ves­sel was mak­ing its way to To­ba­go. At least four peo­ple were lat­er res­cued from a boat that had start­ed to drift af­ter their en­gine failed. Crew mem­bers of the "T&T Spir­it" were com­mend­ed for their swift ac­tion. The fast fer­ry docked in the Scar­bor­ough Port a few hours lat­er than sched­uled.