Coast Guard still investigating patrol vessel found under water

The lone patrol vessel for the Tobago Coast Guard is still being repaired after it was discovered under water while it was moored at the Scarborough jetty on November 20 around 8:45 am.

The Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard is continuing investigations in how the vessel came to be under water, Public Relations Officer of the T Coast Guard, Lieutenant Sherron Manswell told Newsday Tobago on Wednesday. Manswell said a patrol vessel from Trinidad will continue to service Tobago until repairs on the boat are completed.

Meanwhile the search continues for the 74-year-old skipper of the yacht, Vagant, which drifted onto the reef at Lambeau’s Little Rockly Bay last Friday. Manswell told Newsday Tobago the vessel was searched and nothing illegal was found on board.

A November 28 Associated Press report stated that the Poland’s Foreign Ministry was in touch with Barbados and Martinique authorities after a 67-year-old woman informed her daughters in Poland by satellite phone that her husband had fallen into the water and she didn't know how to turn back the boat and fetch him. The couple had planned to travel around the world.

Manswell told Newsday Tobago last week that TT Coast Guard officers got a call from their Barbados counterparts asking them to be on the lookout for a vessel that went adrift from Barbados with a male and a female on board.

"The male fell off board and the female was picked up approximately 165 miles south-east of Guayaguayare by a Brazilian cargo vessel," he said. He said the woman was to have arrived in Brazil today.