PATT to open bids Monday

The Port Authority of Trinidad and Tobago will open the sealed bids of six companies who tendered for a passenger ferry to service the sea bridge on Monday.

Bridgemans Services Group Limited placed their bid shortly before the bids closed at 3 pm on Wednesday. The bid was submitted through a representative of the company. According to well-placed sources, the other companies which placed bids for the passenger ferry for a contract to service the sea bridge are:

* Bridgemans – tendered one boat (Ocean Flower 2)
* Sea Jets – tendered five
* Getaway Cruises – tendered three
* Fortune Maritime – tendered one
* Ocean Star – tendered One

Paragon, which had applied during a previous bid, declined this time around.

On Monday, the Board of the PATT will begin opening the bids and all documents will be photocopied and given to the board members for perusal. It remained unclear how soon a decision would be made on which company would be chosen to service the sea bridge.

On Wednesday the Ocean Flower II docked at Chaguaramas off Carerra island with the captain and 12 crew members. It was revealed that Lester Kenny the owner of Ken Shipping and Marine gave notice to immigration that the vessel was due to arrive at Chaguaramas and the scheduled date and time. The boat’s engines were serviced in Panama but when the vessel arrived shortly after midday on Wednesday there was a lot of smoke emitting from the engines.

Andrew Purdey, Bridgemans vice president, said the arrival of the boat was pre-planned and that it was in Trinidad for dry docking. He expected the dry docking to take about two weeks and then a decision would be taken on the future use of the vessel.

Well-placed sources said Bridgemans had been working closely with a team of legal maritime experts who had been perusing the cancelled contract first offered to the Ocean Flower II. The experts had reportedly told Bridgemans the company had an irrevocable standby letter of credit in the amount of US$3 million which was contained in the charter party agreement that was not cancelled along with the contract.