The book has been appreciated by many stake holders in the Marine industry around the world. This will be a great enhancer of knowledge for Marine pilots, for masters and deck officers, for competent port authorities dealing with pilotage, for the cadets learning in the marine training institutes, trainers of ship handling in various shipping companies etc.
Preface to the book by the author Capt. Santosha K Nayak:
It has been a great pleasure to convert the unspoken and unexplained theories came up to my mind during my pilotage experiences of handling a wide range of ships in very restrictive environments. The immense mental challenges a marine pilot goes through in optimising the vessels safe positioning at every seconds of time with the available scarce resources is really commendable. This doesn’t mean anything to a non-mariner; but for a mariner, it really means something that needs excellent reflexes imbibed with knowledge and courage.
Within a limited fraternity of seafarers, there exists another smaller fraternity of the Marine Pilots. The problems, the challenges, the intensity of demands on the job of those marine pilots may be understood by none other than fellow Marine pilots. And this limited fraternity barely ever meet and talks about the technicalities of the job they do almost every day. Thus the treasure of experience they gain in manoeuvring the ships- large and small, deep or light, streamlined or unusual, remains largely with themselves and barely disseminated among the seafaring community. Thus even masters with long experiences sometimes get afraid to carry out manoeuvring in confined waters. When we talk about questioning the pilot’s intentions by the master or the bridge team, it seldom happens in practice. That’s why I think there is a need to disseminate the knowledge gained by a pilot among the seafaring community for the better understanding of the pilot’s action by a bridge team.
In the present state of knowledge on manoeuvring, there are practically no books available in the market which explains the nitty-gritties of manoeuvring to any interested reader. There few books available which repeat few old and repeated theories of ship handling. With that minimum knowledge, how can we expect a present day deck cadet would be a diligent master in future to question the pilot’s intention on the bridge?
This book investigates the science behind each component of manoeuvring a ship in confined waters, especially in port limits and the art to master it. I have been analysing each manoeuvring situations of each incident and accidents published in public domain since the day one when I decided to take up the job of a Marine Pilot. I have been analysing each manoeuvring situations I faced and I am continuously trying on how to improve the pilotage techniques on manoeuvring of ships. Based on my steady observation, analysis and experience on each major and minor aspect of the manoeuvring of different types of vessels in different types of situations, I tried to put all the relevant knowledge together for reference of all concerned with pilotage and ship handling.
I hope the book will be appreciated and will be of some use for all the stake holders in the Marine industry around the world especially for fellow pilots, for masters and deck officers, for competent port authorities dealing with pilotage, for the cadets learning in the marine training institutes, trainers of ship handling in various shipping companies etc.
Thank you Very Much
Capt. Santosha K. Nayak
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