Montego Bay has a new tourist attraction — tours, cruise and water sports excursions aboard the 85-foot Baltimore Patriot II, the 100-tonne motor vessel that was featured in the Hollywood action/adventure movie Enemy of the State, with Will Smith and Gene Hackman.

The vessel was purchased by the Montego Bay company, Wiltel Ltd, and will shortly be christened and launched after minor renovations.

The spacious, 16-year-old commercial charter vessel is partly named for Baltimore, Maryland, the historic United Sates city in which it was commissioned in 1985. It is licensed to carry 250 passengers.

According to managing director of Wiltel Ltd, Earl Bernard, the Baltimore Patriot would add “an exciting new dimension” to Jamaica’s tourism industry.

“From the bright lights, whirring cameras and exciting action of Hollywood, the Baltimore comes to Jamaica’s sunny shores to offer a completely different, new thrill,” Barnard charged.

The thrills will include parties, coastal sightseeing trips, snorkeling excursions for groups between 30 and 240 persons and sunset “reggae booze cruises”.

A special evening package will take in a three-hour long cruise from Falmouth to Montego Bay. This will include dinner at the world famous Glistening Waters seafood restaurant on the Luminous Lagoon in the district of Rock, Trelawny. It will also include a boat tour of this historic phosphorescent waterway.

Bernard maintained that the Baltimore Patriot has introduced to the island’s leisure industry a “fresh, expanded choice” of things visitors can see and do, as well as interesting places to visit.

He said his company would soon launch a major marketing blitz throughout the international tourism destination marketplace, using slick brochures to complement catchy advertisements and commercials in major trade publications and on key television and cable channels.