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Lo­cal fish­er­men agree that a ves­sel with­out a flag in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters could be mis­tak­en for a pi­rate ship, but they say the ab­sence of a flag alone does not jus­ti­fy it be­ing de­stroyed.

On Tues­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar weighed in on the ves­sel at the cen­tre of the Unit­ed States’ “dou­ble tap” con­tro­ver­sy, say­ing it may not have been fly­ing a flag and was there­fore treat­ed as a sus­pect­ed pi­rate ves­sel.

Fish­er­folk who spoke with Guardian Me­dia at King’s Wharf and Ota­heite Bay yes­ter­day ex­plained that lo­cal boats are iden­ti­fied through num­bers and let­ters. Clement Charles, pres­i­dent of the Ota­heite Red Brick Trace Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion, said that if a ves­sel has no flag, it should be in­ter­cept­ed and in­ves­ti­gat­ed be­fore any dras­tic mea­sures are tak­en.