Webinar on 24th October: Re-conceptualizing Indian Maritime Pilotage

NAUTITEC as a maritime simulation and training centre offers various services for shipping companies, port authorities, captains and for pilots and tug crews.

Found on YouTube. Created by "Onur Yazcizi".

16mt HSLC CLASS ALUMINIUM PILOT BOAT engineered & build by LYNX.

Found on YouTube. Created by "Maritime Simulation and Resource Centre".
Specialized training for maritime pilots in Canada.

A LEADER IN TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
Founded in 2005, the Maritime Simulation and Resource Centre (MSRC) is a purpose-built marine pilot simulation training and turnkey port procedural development facility, offering unique navigational safety expertise in North America.

This pilot course is the first of the capacity-building efforts of the three-year project on enhancing regional research, capacity building and convening of stakeholders towards a safer maritime domain in the Gulf of Guinea.

A pilot of Sandy Hook, Dennis Sherwood fell off a ladder while boarding a ship today at 4:30 a.m. and died of his serious injury in Staten Island hospital.

The entrance to Cork Harbour situated on the South coast of Ireland can produce some pretty extreme sea states during the winter storm months. There are two main factors that influence the sea state at the entrance, the first being the ebbing tide, the second being shoaling waters over the Harbour Rock, this is situated at the entrance to the Harbour off Roches Point lighthouse, right in the middle between the Western and Eastern channel entrances.

In the second of our series focusing on ‘Our people at ports’, we catch up with Pierre Chays, our Marine Safety Manager and Pilot who gives us a behind the scenes look at what our Harbours Team is doing during these difficult times in supporting the movement of essential freight services in and out of the Island. For him, it is very much ‘business as usual’ – and outside of his working hours he’s getting used to having another baby around the house.

Found on YouTube. Created by "K24 TV".

Kenyans will on Tuesday celebrate the 6th Mashujaa Day to honour the sacrifices and achievements of various individuals in contributing to the welfare of society and the nation at large. In our continuing series of K24 Mashujaa we spotlight a middle aged woman in Mombasa who has beaten all odds to become East Africa's only female marine pilot. Mercy Milanoi spent the day with Elizabeth Marami in the high seas and tells us how she is scaling the heights in a male dominated field.

Found on YouTube. Created by "Sjöfartsverket".

Showing the new EfficientFlow functions for the SEAiq PPU, to be used by pilots and ferry personnel in the Baltic Sea

Found on YouTube. Created by "Frank Kowalski".

Safehaven Marine undertook an 800nm 4 day cruise in Thunder Child II to Scotland, living off the boat to visit a place called the Gulf of Corryvreckan. A pretty wild yet beautiful place.

The Corryvreckan whirlpool, or ‘Maelstrom’, as would be a more appropriate description, is formed as the tide enters the narrow stretch of water between the Islands of Jura and Scarba that is the Gulf of Corryvreckan. Here the tidal flow speeds up to 8.5kts as it is squeezed between the islands, and there it encounters a variety of underwater seabed features. On the western entrance a basalt pinnacle rises up from depths of 70m to 29m, and lying to East, directly in front of the pinnacle is a deep hole in the seabed, with a depth of 219m.

As the water flows through the gulf it falls into this hole, and then encounters the steep face of the pinnacle, causing a massive upwelling surge of water to rise to the surface. On a flood tide this surge meets swells entering the Gulf from the West, and creates standing waves that can reach heights of 9m. These ‘standing waves’ are not like normal waves as they form directly over the pinnacle, standing still and breaking heavily on the spot. Whirlpools are also formed over the pinnacle as well as throughout the Gulf, as opposing water columns sheer, and these can be up to 50m wide.

During a storm on spring tides it is said that the angry roar from the seething waters of the maelstrom, with its standing waves and whirlpools can be heard up to 10 miles away, and local mythology refers to this as the voice of ‘Cailleach’ (The Hag) of the Whirlpool.

In a well found boat the gulf can be safely navigated in fair conditions, or at slack water, but I can imagine that in a Westerly gale on a flood tide, you wouldn’t want to be anywhere near the place, as it would truly be described as ‘Unnavigable’. Indeed it was once classified as such by the Royal Navy. On the day we visited with Thunder Child we had Westerly winds of Force 5 gusting 6, and a 3.9m tide which enabled us to experience the standing waves on the flood and the whirlpools on the ebb.

The word Corryvreckan translates to ‘Cauldron’ and that perfectly describes the seething sea state around the whirlpools, and it was quite an experience to have the throttles set for 6kts, holding station just ahead of the standing waves that were breaking behind the boat, and not be moving at all!

There is an Old Irish text known as Cormac’s Glossary written by the King and Bishop of Cashel, Cormac mac Cuilennáin who died in the year 908: “There is a great whirlpool which is between Ireland and Scotland to the north, in the meeting of various seas, its thunderous eructation and its bursting and its roaring are heard among the clouds, like the steam boiling of a cauldron of fire.” I felt that was a pretty cool description of the place as how the place might have appeared of old during a storm.

Coryvreckan is reputed to produce the third largest whirlpools after the Saltstraumen and Moskstraumen Maelstroms in Norway, however the unique submarine topography of the gulf of Corryvreckan and its capability to produce dangerous standing waves means that in storm conditions, it is potentially one of the most violent stretches of water in the world.

The Voyage: Casting off at Cobh in the afternoon on Saturday 18th July 2020 Thunder Child II arrived at Bangor marina at 9.30pm for refuelling after averaging 32kts over the 275nm run. Overnighting on aboard we set sail early Sunday morning heading up the Northern Ireland coast to Rathlin Island, itself a place notorious for producing challenging seas with its tidal strong race and overfalls, before a lumpy crossing to Scotland to enjoying two days taking Thunder Child II through the standing waves and whirlpools in the Gulf of Corryvreckan, and capturing some cool Ariel drone video. Whilst we were there It was also nice to see one of our old Interceptor 42 passenger boats ‘Venturer’ for the first time since we built her 15 years ago, and still looking good. Operated by Craignish Cruises running boat tours in the Gulf, they guided us on a tour around the islands visiting the notorious ‘Grey Dogs’ tidal race and seeing the Sea Eagles nesting nearby.

Spending Sunday night isolated on the breakwater at Ardfern marina we headed to Belfast late afternoon on Monday. Next day we were onwards to Dun Laoghaire for lunch and down the East coast of Ireland where we we’re buzzed overhead by Rescue 116 of the Irish Coastguard, which was great to experience and gave us the excuse to give Thunder Child the beans, and although heavy with fuel we still managed to hit over 50kts.

We arrived home to East Ferry Marina, Cobh late Tuesday evening after an enjoyable voyage for her crew comprising: Skipper Frank Kowalski and crew: Carl Randalls (Drone pilot) Ciaran Monks, Mary Power and Kenny Carrol. During the voyage Thunder Child II ran faultlessly and proved her capabilities of averaging high speeds for long distances.