A $1.5 million Lloyd’s Register survey of the tugboat Powerful has been labelled “a lot of money” and “a lot of waste.”

Chief engineer Cornell Simmons said the $1.5 million figure is “still up in the air” after he and his crew have spent the past eight months repairing the poor-quality work he said was conducted on Powerful by Lloyd’s workers in Jacksonville, Florida.

Powerful left Bermuda for the survey in Florida last May, but was delayed in coming back after suffering damage from a lightning strike.

Since returning in September, the tugboat has not moved from its berth in Dockyard.

And Mr Simmons has raised his concerns over the growing price of his crew’s efforts to get Powerful seaworthy once again, adding that he has yet to receive any report detailing what was done, and what it cost.

“I have no real proof that’s what it cost,” said Mr Simmons. “It may have been more. It seems to be floating that way.”

While he said the problems left for him and his crew were not irreversible, Mr Simmons expressed his exasperation over the cost of repairing things that were supposedly dealt with in the first place, adding that he was “mystified” at the quality of the work.

“Some things would take a lot of money to fix the way they should be.”

“The rubbing band that’s been fixed onto this boat is not fitting correctly — it’s got big gaps in it — [because] the wrong size bolts [were used.] They’re too small, so the rubber’s loose on the boat and it can tear off.”

“That’s where your $1.5 [million’s] gone.”

“We push on tankers and stuff. You don’t need the rubber falling off and a tugboat going metal-to-metal with a tanker. You’d blow half of St George’s away.”

The closest Mr Simmons could come to an estimate on how much the entire project has cost taxpayers was that “it’s a lot of money”, and that as far as he’s concerned, “a lot of waste”.

He also said workers had installed an air conditioning unit for the ship that required more energy than the generator aboard could actually provide.

“Now we have this gorilla,” said Mr Simmons, pointing at the brand new, unused AC unit. “It’s too big. It draws too much amps.

“They’re looking at changing the generator now, and I’m looking at it saying ‘what a waste!’. The only way around this is to take it out and get rid of it.”

The survey was a first for Powerful in the 25 years it has been operating in Bermuda, differing from standard annual surveys and inspections Mr Simmons said he and his crew have carried out over the years.

“All this has to do with Lloyd’s. They call the shots. When they say it has to be pulled up, we have to pull it up.

“They want this type of survey, we do it. What you do to the vessel after that is entirely up to you.”

Considering the nature of the survey, Mr Simmons said he expected some kind of report detailing the work that was conducted on his ship, but even after inquiring, no information regarding the work or the cost has been shared with him.

“A lot of information I felt we should have gotten, we didn’t, even after the lightning strike. At the end of the day, I don’t think management really knew the extent of what really happened to this boat.”

“As Chief on this boat, I should know,” said Mr Simmons, asked if it was unusual for that information to not be shared.