The St. Vincent and the Grenadines Coast Guard Services says it is investigating the circumstances surrounding one of its rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB) patrol vessels taking on water while docked at the Calliaqua Coast Guard Base on Saturday.
iWitness News understands that a worker at a nearby business raised the alarm after seeing the boat partially submerged in water.
Reports are that Coast Guard officers then rushed onto the boat with buckets trying to bail out the water, before deciding to tow the boat ashore.
Commander of the Coast Guard, Brenton Cain told iWitness News on Tuesday that it is virtually impossible for a vessel of that type to sink.
Wikipedia says a RHIB is a lightweight but high-performance and high-capacity boat constructed with a solid, shaped hull and flexible tubes at the gunwale.
The design is stable and seaworthy and the inflatable collar allows the vessel to maintain buoyancy if a large quantity of water is shipped aboard due to bad sea conditions.
Cain told iWitness News that the boat, which was recently re-launched, took on some water and the Coast Guard is investigating the cause.
The boat is one of two donated to the SVG Coast Guard by the United States in 2012 as part of a maritime security assistance initiative that aims to deter threats associated with transnational organised crime.
The two Defender-class interceptor vessels are multi-mission capable platforms that can exceed speeds of 40 knots and are nearly identical to the boats used by the U.S. Coast Guard.
They can also conduct search and rescue missions and are capable of towing small vessels in distress and responding to environmental or natural disasters.
I am waiting for a few years when those disposable bridges Ralph brought in from Ecuador start to fail. I thought these boats would last much longer.
The Baily bridges were given to us by or were purchased from Saint Lucia.
They bought them when they had storm damage to all their bridges which they rebuilt in quick time and then disposed of the temporary bridges.
The Ecuadoran military were here for political reasons. The bridges could of been installed in SVG by British military in 3 days each. The Ecuadorans took 6 months.
The British would have done it for free and paid for their own food and billeting themselves.
Brenton Cain should have been put out to pasture after the North Windward coast guard debacle.
He and who else, C. ben? Is now you go start?
Sinking? Sink? So what? It did not cost anything and theres more where that came from. It is free money, man, dont sweat it.
The problem is that so many of the coast guard and firemen are lazy bordering bone idle, have no pride and bad leadership.
When you are in town next walk around the fire-engine parked outside the police barracks. Old accident damage to the bodywork and fenders. Lights and electrical broken and the paint work unpolished and unkempt.
Any fireman in any other country in the world wash and polish their fire engines every single day.
Its like the coast guard boats they are all neglected there were perfectly repairable boats laying in the yard next to the station for years. Until they rotted and decayed into total scrap.
If the officers spent as much time looking after equipment as they spend playing games and dominoes we would be in a better place.
I just hope that someone pass’s this on to the Americans and they refuse to give us any more boats
Because as Mr Ferrari rightfully said or implied easy come easy go, they cost nothing and there is plenty more from where they came from.