FPT Industrial & Trinidad & Tobago Pilots Assn.

The Trinidad & Tobago Pilots Association is committed to the provision of the highest quality Marine Pilotage services within the territorial waters of the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago. Based in the Port of Spain, they also provide technical support to the local and regional maritime industry, while promoting exacting standards of maritime competence, safety, and protection of the marine environment.

Boats ordered back in the early 2000’s were quickly approaching the time for another engine repower. Their track record of engines performing well in the warm tropical waters was not highly successful. The original 9L engines, from a different manufacturer, were frequently out-of-action as they required a lot of maintenance and replacement parts. A repower with another 9L engine manufacturer provided a better duty cycle, but lost speed with a 103 hp reduction, and continued some maintenance and parts issues arising from warm tropical waters.

John-Paul Pantin, Pilot Master, and Joel Isava, Head of Engineering, began exploring online for new options for a 9L engine to meet their needs, and asked for referrals from fishing fleet colleagues. He discovered FPT Industrial and studied the marine engine portfolio. John-Paul spoke to Mike Blocher, from North River Boats and to FPT’s distributor salespeople, to garner their advice about using a pair of FPT Cursor 9 550 marine engines in the next repower project.

The Pilots’ Association is extremely pleased with FPT engines performance. In the 3-4 years since the first FPT Cursor 9 marine engine repower, they have not suffered the maintenance and parts replacements issues that they had with earlier engines. As John-Paul Pantin explained, “Our tropical climate is a challenge and most European and American built engines don’t do well in the heat here, but we are not having any problems with FPT engines. Plus, we’re saving 50% on maintenance costs after repowering with FPT engines.” In fact, after 3 years, the FPT engines have actually paid for themselves.