TEMA: No one was on board boat overturned off Tobago

Tobago Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) director Allan Stewart has said there were no people on board the boat found overturned off the Cove Eco Industrial Park, Tobago, around 7 am on February 7.

“There are no souls on board, so the theory is that this vessel may have been disrupted way out of Trinidad and Tobago and just drifted into our waters…The hull itself is creating what we call a pocket, so it would be semi-submerged in deep waters,” he told Newsday on February 8.

The boat is leaking oil 200 metres off the coast of Tobago.

Stewart also confirmed the name of the boat –Gulf Stream – but said its identification number is yet to be verified.

“This will narrow it down to determine where exactly the vessel originated from.”

He said from parts of the vessel which had fallen of and "following a trail of debris that the divers were able to investigate, there were chains that had broken off, so it appears to be cargo-type vessel.”

THA Chief Secretary Farley Augustine said at a news conference on Wednesday that the Tobago Emergency Operations Centre had received a report shortly after 7am that day about an overturned boat.

At that time he was unable to say whether anyone was on board.