New date: 56th General Meeting EMPA

For days, the container freighter "Ever Given" had blocked the Suez Canal. Now Egypt and the shipping company are apparently arguing about compensation. For safety's sake, the canal authorities had the ship chained up.

While in many western countries of the world, pilots there have already been preferentially vaccinated against COVID-19, pilots in other countries such as Malaysia are struggling to get vaccinated.

Already nearly 25 years the authoritative guide on tug operations and IMO recommended. It addresses present and future developments and shows how training can be carried out and what should be trained,

The European Maritime Pilots' Association (EMPA) has compiled a very good overview of current (and also country-specific) documents concerning the COVID-19 pandemic on its website. This page is updated regularly.

Good news for pilot safety: As one of the leading shipping companies, MAERSK is now targeting the notorious "trapdoor arrangements". A corresponding notification to all the company's ships concerned was made public in the last few days.

The role of a Tug Master undertaking harbour towage activities is a very specific one. He/she has to, alone or in cooperation with other Tug Masters, assist a ship in a safe and efficient way using his/her tug to the best of its qualities. 

Here’s some cool video footage we captured of the Cork Pilots in their Interceptor 48 pilot boat ‘Failte’ undertaking pilot transfers off Cork Harbour during the recent days of strong SE gales. Roches Point lighthouse recorded 50kts of wind on the 13th as the Cosco bulk carrier passed and the Cork wave buoy 2nm off the harbour entrance recorded waves to 6.7m at the time. The pilot boat coxwain managed to get alongside and safely disembark the pilot despite the challenging sea state....

China has already submitted proposals to the IMO regarding changes to SOLAS, Chapter 23, and IMO A.1045(27) in early 2021.