Mooring Equipment Guidelines (MEG4)

Marine pilots must make crucial decisions under extreme conditions. Transferring from a cargo ship to a small pilot boat in hurricane-force gusts can be fatal. For marine pilots, this is the most dangerous moment in their daily working lives: climbing down a rope ladder from a cargo ship in gale-force gusts, and transferring to a small pilot boat. In mid-January, a pilot fell into the sea off Borkum and was taken to hospital suffering from hypothermia. Just a few days earlier, a British...

harbor pilots disembarking in Hong Kong
container ships - IKARIA and YM Excellence

UKMPA press release on the death of Captain Pilot Francesco Galia. A tribute.

It's quite possibly the most isolated lighthouse in the world and is precariously perched on top of a rock pillar with the wild waves of the cold North Atlantic ocean raging below.

In conjunction with the anniversary celebration, the Port has launched the “125 Years in 125 Seconds” video series. The videos will serve as an oral history of the Port featuring public officials, maritime partners, port workers and others to share the Port’s story from their perspective.

Unedited video of Ketchikan harbor pilots being offloaded onto Ovation of the Seas in July 2026...filmed from the wing accessed via the Solarium.

We bid farewell to our Otaru marine pilot just outside Otaru Harbor, Japan. The crew of the pilot tug were particularly fastidious about not marking up the side of the Viking Orion during the operations, spraying the interface with water, even though that might have made the transfer more hazardous for the pilot. From the Viking Orion, October 2024

The All India Maritime Pilots' Association has released its new journal for December

Today the 17,9 meters draft CAPE PRIDE enterded the Port of Rotterdam via the Eurochannel. Two pilots were put onboard by NHV helicopter, provided by the Rotterdam Pilots.

Safehaven Marine, pilot boat specialist builders in Ireland have launched a new Interceptor 48 pilot boat for the Port of Coruna in Northern Spain. ‘Practicos Coruna Ochno’ is powered by a pair of Volvo D13 500hp continuously rated engines and ZF Gearboxes. Propulsion is by conventional sterngear turning 28” propellers giving her a 25kts continuous operational speed. Capable of carrying 7 pilots and crew all on shock mitigation seating comfortably in her spacious fully lined cabin with extremely low noise levels of 73db recorded.