Mr. J. Richard Blankenship, appointed in December 2001, announced his resignation as ambassador on June 9, 2003, and left the country on July 19. But yesterday he was back – as a guest on Island FM’s talk show “Parliament Street”.
“If we tripled the size of the Defence Force to protect the borders and fisheries stock there is going to be a lot of training going on and we’ll have many vessels,” said Mr. Blankenship.
Fibreglass, he said, could be used in the construction of the boats just as it is used in the construction of many US Coast Guard ships.
“We don’t need grey hull steel boats in this shallow water and if we could use that to kicj off a new industry and start cranking out patrol boats… I think it would increase the border patrol and it would create a new industry,” said the former ambassador.
Source: The Tribune
