00:00According to Jesse James of the Marine Services Association, scores of vessels were expected to make their way to Trinidad today.
00:09He says he expects between 80 to 200 arriving.
00:14James tells us some are from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, but the majority are from Grenada.
00:21He adds that some vessels even needed rescuing due to the severe weather conditions.
00:28I had to make a reunion with a private vessel, Captain Fraser, on a local fishing boat, Perseverance.
00:35Managed to get him to go out about 40 miles, just on the border, before they slipped into Venezuela.
00:42And this was a family of four, husband and wife, a Canadian family, which I'm a one-year-old and a three-year-old kid.
00:48Managed to get them. Them people can't stop talking to me, because we grabbed them and threw them all the way there.
00:55And then another one, they were coming in from Grenada also.
00:59And just in the boker, before they made the turn to come in, they broke down and, oh boy, they were panicking.
01:05He tells of a French vessel that also encountered difficulty.
01:09His sails ripped apart. He lost his engines and he started to drift.
01:15And he was right again on the border.
01:18So there was a French Navy vessel that was coming from Martinique to try and assist.
01:23By the time they would have gotten here, he would have long gone into Venezuela.
01:26So our Coast Guard and the support from Coast Guard, Captain Don Polo and his right-hand man, Daniel Castani,
01:33they made a decision to go and grab him and pull him in.
01:37And then I made an arrangement to get a private, same Captain Fraser from the fishing boat.
01:42He went in and met them and they handed him over.
01:45He notes that the Minister of Trade and Industry also visited the site yesterday to see how things were progressing.
01:52So I have to say kudos to our line minister, Minister Gopiskun.
01:57The minister came down yesterday.
01:59She called me and said, Jesse, I want to come and see what's going on.
02:02It's a site visit. And she came down.
02:04So MSAT, the Marine Services Association of Trinidad and Tobago, I'm the vice president.
02:08Mr. Peake, Peter Peake is your president.
02:11And we created a MSAT operation centre.
02:15And again, it's a camaraderie effort going on, inshallah.
02:20Volunteer basis.
02:21Volunteer.
02:22Nicole M Romany, TV6 News.
Comments