To better bundle all articles and messages about Marine / Maritime Pilots I would like to suggest the Hashtag #MARINEPILOTS. We can use it well here on LinkedIn, but also for other social media like Twitter.

Announcement from www.Marine-Pilots.com:

It all started with the idea and vision of a large community of Marine Pilots, bringing people and organisations together. A web portal that gathers all the information for the pilot industry, makes all the stakeholders visible and gives the world's pilots an opportunity to exchange ideas among themselves.

Look at Life - City of Sailors - Portsmouth - 1965
Portsmouth is no longer the sea-faring city it once was; this film from the Documentary Series "Look At Life" Volume 5 - Cultural Heritage in 1965 looks at its changing face.

According to many training experts, including Malcom Gladwell, from his book Outliers: Story of Success, 10.000 hours is the point in which a standard professional acquires the qualities necessary to perform any work with master skill.

A handy and simple tool to determine in a minimum time what is really needed as tug assistance, is the Bollard Pull Calculator which calculates in an approximate way the total required tug power for ships in various conditions of wind and current. This tool can be loaded as an app on the smart phone.

A busy morning with all three pilot services on jobs at Point Lonsdale, Victoria, Australia.
Ship spotting at Point Lonsdale and other water activities.

For nearly 150 years, the Bar Pilots have protected our environment by safely guiding ocean-going vessels through our waterways.

The local harbor pilot boards the 2GO Maligaya on the port side during her Monday noon arrival to Cebu from Manila
See my photos at https://www.flickr.com/photos/dareleven/

A loaded bulk carrier is a bit tricky to handle, do to all that mass: de require a lot of power in order to be stopped. This is why this maneuver are normally slower. Same applies to tankers.