IN the wake of complaints, by Carnival Cruise Line, that one of their vessels was damaged because of a build-up of silt in the Montego Bay harbour, cruise shipping interests in the western city have been lobbying to have the harbour dredged.

“We will not bring a destiny size vessel into Montego Bay unless the required dredging takes place,” said Brent Currigan, Carnival’s senior vice-president of operations in a letter to president of the city’s Cruise Ship Council, Lee Bailey. “Even though the vessel (Triumph) was well within the buoys, there is an apparent build-up of silt or mud. The ship touched bottom, but damage was limited to scratched paint.”

Destiny-class vessels weigh up to 102,000 tonnes and can accommodate 2,500 to 2,600 passengers. Carnival continues to patronise the Montego Bay harbour with its smaller vessels like the Inspiration, which weighs 70,767 tonnes and accommodates up to 2,100 passengers.

The damaged Triumph was in the resort city on a charter; and the minor damage done to it has effectively sealed off the possibility that Carnival would send in more large ships. But cruise-shipping interests have vowed not to let this happen.

“What we want is to lobby on behalf of the (local) people in order to get more business for the community. And anything that will stifle that process, we will lobby to change,” Bailey told the Observer. “Once the dredging takes place, I am almost certain we’ll have serious interest from other mega-cruise line companies.”

Bailey said the Shipping Council had a meeting with the Port Authority of Jamaica, earlier this year, about the prospect of dredging the harbour. According to him, it was one of the most productive meetings the Council had ever had with that organisation, and he was optimistic that dredging would get under way by early July.

But Bailey’s optimism may be short-lived as the Authority’s vice-president for special projects, Byron Lewis, has shot down the suggestion that dredging would allow the harbour to accommodate mega-cruise liners. “There is no silting up of the harbour in Montego Bay,” Lewis told the Observer. “This has nothing to do with dredging.”

He said a government survey, which was conducted earlier this month, had confirmed that the harbour was still at its maximum depth of 10.4m, the same depth recorded in 1991 when it was last dredged. This, he explained, means that the harbour is able to accommodate vessels that have a draft of up to 9.6m, 1.3m more than the draft of the Triumph.

And he charged that the damage to the Triumph was not due to the build-up of mud or silt at the pier but to the length of the vessel. Lewis said the harbour accommodates vessels up to 268m in length, a length that the Triumph exceeds.

He maintained that it was unlikely that anything short of changing the size and configuration of the entire harbour would allow the facility to accommodate mega-cruise liners. And, he added, such a venture would be very expensive and would also pose a threat to the marine environment.