Safehaven´s "Celso Madeira" for Portugal's Sines Port starts sea trials

Many consider the Bristol Channel pilot cutter to be the finest sailing boat design ever. Fast, seaworthy and beautiful to behold, the pilot cutter is the perfect combination of form and function - a thoroughbred perfectly adapted to a life in one of the Britain's most treacherous stretches of water. Sailor and writer Tom Cunliffe explores the life of the pilots and sails a perfectly restored cutter to find out just what drove these men and their wonderful machines.

The Port of Cork company has ordered a new pilot vessel from boat builders, Safehaven Marine based in Youghal.

Today a look at a special vessel that is commonly seen on the Astoria waterfront: the pilot boat that takes pilots to and from passing ships.

The Master and pilot are dependant on each other for a safe and successful beginning or end of a voyage. They are both operating in a foreign environment.

Brief footage of a maritime pilot disembarking the Disney Magic and boarding his pilot boat as we left Nassau in January 2022.

Educational and descriptive video

The Spring 2022 edition of our magazine The Master, Mate & Pilot is available online.

Practical samples for manoeuvres for ships going astern - as Stern-First-Method SFM. Introduction using as sample from the Master Thesis by Karel Wiegert for an arrival manoeuvre of a cruise vessel in Southampton port with a Twin-screw vessel under strong current. The same manoeuvre with the same ship model was used to show the advantage of Fast Time Simulation FTS using the SAMMON Planning Tool. This goes much faster than the manoeuvres in the real time simulator - and it can even be...