President of Bridgemans Services Group Brian Grange told the T&T Guardian that the engines of the Cabo Star “are all in fine shape.”
He said Wednesday night’s cancellation of the sailing of the vessel was linked to problems with a circuit board for an auxiliary engine which happened overnight in Tobago.
The discovery of the problem he said was first made last week and it was sent for repair locally. “There are now issues with the spare on board which is being investigated as there is no power to the system. “ The repair he said is being investigated.
Grange said they need a “trained electrician for the systems which are joining the vessel on arrival in PoS.” He said, “This is a timing issue of certified personal being available.”
According to Grange, “The delays we have had have been having over last month have had to do with repairs for preventative maintenance to make the vessel continue to operate and to improve performance.”
Grange also complained about “long lead times getting the parts into T&T.” But he said all the parts have now been received.
Because the Cabo Star is so large he said “it takes time to do these items. Our schedule for the CS is daily with one day off and we are running 12 hours per day.” As a result he said “maintenance needs to take place in between working hours to ensure the uptime of route.”
He said there are “certified and trained technicians from T&T, Europe and on the crew in the engine room.”
Grange said Bridgemans had spent “a lot of money to ensure longevity of the contract to include items such as renewing turbo chargers, cleaning air coolers, bottom cleaning and sea chest cleaning etc etc.”
In addition he said the company had spent “ as much money as we can locally to support local business.”