VESSEL SINKS

CCNTV6

A number of passengers are today lucky to be alive after the reef tour vessel Cool Runnings,  which was chartered for a boat ride sank on No Man's Land Tobago. Passengers were told to balance the boat, then they were hurriedly evacuated. Calls for a marina are being made. More in this report.

Transcript

00:00Balance the boat. Balance the boat.

00:04A few moments later.

00:06Fellas upstairs, we start to move.

00:08Over the boat fast.

00:09We pull you move faster at this place.

00:12It's a serious situation.

00:13Move faster, faster.

00:15Remove the coil and life in our body.

00:17The voice of one of the operators of Cool Runnings

00:21as passengers were urged to disembark the vessel

00:24as it started to sink at no man's land

00:27last Saturday night during a boat ride.

00:30Efforts to contact the manager of Cool Runnings,

00:32Ronnie Elliott, were unsuccessful.

00:34However, when contacted,

00:36president of the Storbe Reef Tour Association,

00:39Michael Frank, told TV6 News

00:42the vessel had recently undergone repairs.

00:45I know it's his fault because I heard something

00:48the day that the boat went down,

00:50they were actually repairing, fixing things.

00:52But you know something, it's his fault, one.

00:55But I blame a lot of this on the system.

00:57Tobago has no marina, no place for people to pull up,

01:00the boats to fix them.

01:01You have to keep fixing it in the water,

01:02underwater, and it's not very good for the system.

01:06It's not good for the system because you use so much

01:08chemical and you need to fix.

01:09And then you have to be diving to try to fix something.

01:11You can't fix it properly.

01:12So, one, it's his fault because, you know,

01:15if one has a hole in it, then it shouldn't have gone.

01:18And two, the government did not put in nothing

01:20in place of boats.

01:21How long do we have to ask for a marina?

01:23Mr. Frank said, where an incident,

01:26the likes of this vessel occurred,

01:28it's expensive to have the boat brought to shore.

01:31If you try to pull it out on land,

01:33just to get an excavator,

01:35to bring an excavator on the beach,

01:39it will cost you about $20,000.

01:41Just to bring an excavator on the beach.

01:42Then you can take out next two hours

01:44for them to drag it up on the sand.

01:46That's what I just do.

01:47You know what I'm saying?

01:48So, I don't have to do that.

01:49I don't have to do that once a year.

01:51But it's a very, very expensive process.

01:54And when you put that boat back in the water,

01:56if you hit a stone or you hit any type of thing,

01:58that damage, within that time, the next year,

02:01it means that you have to dive on the water

02:03with tank or what the case might be,

02:04just trying to see if you can repair it on the water.

02:07During an interview with TV6 News previously,

02:10Chief Secretary Farley Augustine called on the government

02:13to pass the necessary laws to have the regularizing

02:16of reef tow operators at the Bucco Reef Marine Park,

02:20as it is only so much the THA can do

02:23with the present policies in place.

02:26Elizabeth Williams, TV6 News.

02:31I'll be right back.

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