US ship to provide maintenance help to GDF coast guard
Stabroek News
November 6, 2002
United States Coast Guard Cutter, `Gentian', the Caribbean Support Tender (CST), is scheduled to return to Georgetown for its 4th port call on Sunday morning at 10 am, a US Embassy press release said.
The CST is a 180-foot Balsam class buoy tender that provides technical training opportunities, logistic support, maritime training and other regional cooperation activities.
The Gentian, which will be moored at Muneshwer's Wharf, will be open to the public for tours on Sunday from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., the release said. The vessel will remain in Georgetown until 4 p.m. next Tuesday.
The international crew of the US Coast Guard Cutter includes crewmen from the US, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Panama, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. Four Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Guard Ratings have served aboard the vessel and one more is due to go aboard during the port call here, the release stated.
It noted also that while in Georgetown, the Gentian crew will provide training for the GDF in outboard motor maintenance, ship husbandry, and first responder medical treatment.
Further, the GDF Coast Guard is expected to receive two Detroit diesel engines which can be used on the Fish Class 44-foot vessels which it acquired from the US. Crewmen will also assist the GDF Coast Guard with improving the maintenance system for the 44-foot vessels.
The vessel's current voyage includes stops in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Isla Margarita before returning to its homeport in Miami, Florida.
The Gentian is a combined venture between the US State Department, the US Southern Command, the US Coast Guard's Atlantic Area Command and the various maritime services of the Caribbean nations.