We were pleased to welcome the Vertom Thea into Kingstown! The Vertom Thea is a Europe Caribbean Line (ECL) ship represented in the UK by our sister company, Baltic & European Shipping Ltd., now also represented by Kestrel as its liner agent in St Vincent and The Grenadines. The arrival of this new vessel is supporting developments in St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). The team here at Kestrel SVG are proud to play a part. By working with services like the ECL ships, we help in the efforts to bring economic development to the Caribbean region.
The shipping industry plays a vital role in enabling government infrastructure projects. For example, the Vertom Thea ship is already in full swing delivering construction cargo as part of a new port build in Kingstown.
The SVG’s multi-million dollar Kingstown Port Development project is taking shape as we speak. Upon completion, the port will boast terminal buildings, a container storage yard, break-bulk, vehicle storage, and maintenance areas. The terminal buildings will include administration and customs offices, warehouses, workshops and a container freight station too.
As you can imagine, a build of this magnitude requires an ‘all hands on deck’, or rather, ‘all hands on port’ approach, as well as a whole lot of construction materials! Which is why the ECL’s Vertom Thea has been put to work manoeuvering concrete culverts. Through the use of heavy lift, the culverts have made their sea voyage and safely landed at the old port for the last leg of their journey to the new port. Our Kestrel SVG team works closely with the port stevedores to supervise the unloading of cargo and handling of the ship’s arrival.
As liner agents, we are well-versed in handling all types of ships and all types of cargo. But we like to go above and beyond wherever possible!
Baltic & European Shipping Ltd. is the UK agent for the ECL, handling sales, commercial and operations. Kestrel is their liner agent in Barbados, Trinidad and SVG, providing a full range of marine, vessel, crew change, ships spares and associated vessel services, whilst working closely with the Port Stevedores to manage the loading and unloading of the ship. However, our service doesn’t stop there. Logistics aims to provide a seamless service from start to finish and we often talk about end-to-end service. We recognised that it’s sometimes the final mile where things can go a bit pear-shaped, so to ensure we can give our St Vincent and Grenadines customers an even better service we have recently shipped down a fantastic new Kestrel curtain-sided truck and a new Kestrel van!
Baltic & European Shipping Limited is run by Chris Thorne, whilst Kestrel’s CEO is Andy Thorne. The two of them were super hands-on as always and delivered the Kestrel vehicles themselves. Head to our LinkedIn page and watch our video footage of the nicely liveried Kestrel van and truck (along with one of our Caribbean island offices) being loaded and unloaded on the Vertom Thea at the ports of Hull, UK and Kingstown. Our aim is that these two new vehicles add that little extra to the end of the supply chain in SVG. If you’re in the region you will be seeing them out and about - so give us a wave!
We are not exaggerating when we say we have been super busy at the Kingstown port. The Kestrel team has also been doing some training. Miami finance member John Cleasby got his first hands-on experience of a breakbulk ship coming into port and was literally shown the ropes by our Kestrel SVG team, Ramano George and Marlon Gibson. All three of them have spent the weekend on the port in Kingstown and we’d like to express a massive thank you to the Captain of the Vertom Thea for his positive and hospitable approach – excellent job and teamwork by all!
We think it’s evident that the Vertom Thea is more than just a ship! It has brought Kestrel, Europe Caribbean Liners and Baltic & European Shipping together in a way that looks bright and promising for the future. It has provided training and learning opportunities for our team. And the vessel has already been an integral part of Kestrel’s projects as well as bigger projects and economic development in the St. Vincent and the Grenadines area.
