Marine Port Pilot, Port Operations

Issues like the Covid 19 crisis and the moves towards increased autonomy appear to be driving a renewed interest in Shore Based Pilotage (SBP), nowadays often called Remote Pilotage.

Great image video of the Italian pilots (Federazione Italiana Piloti dei Porti).

Safehaven Marine have launched a new Interceptor 48 pilot boat ‘Pilot 1’ for the Gdynia Pilots in
Poland. This is Safehaven’s 44th Pilot vessel delivered to ports worldwide. Safehavens Pilot 48 has
proved to be a superb sea boat performing admirably in pilotage operations with all owners extolling
its virtues of seakeeping, strength and stability.

Goodchild Marine won the order to manufacture and deliver the vessel in 2023 to increase Briggs Marine’s fleet to six ORC-class pilot boats.

We we’re out on sea trials with the two newly launched Interceptor 48 pilot boats when the Port of Cork pilot boat ‘Failte’ passed by to undertake a pilot transfer from an outbound ship. It was a nice opportunity to capture some cool video of the action as the boats ran alongside before the ship turned to create a lee for the pilot to disembark. Although the seas weren’t very big, it was blowing hard at the time with gusts of over 50kts recorded at Roches PT lighthouse as we passed.

This ship is a legend: The pilot schooner "No. 5 Elbe" is the oldest operating seagoing ship in Hamburg. Furthermore, the "white lady" is a real beauty. That's why it's a tragedy what happened on Pentecost Saturday: The two-master collided with a container ship and sank!

The Port of Waterford is to invest almost €1m in a new pilot boat to be named Port Láirge, which as Irish for Waterford is a name long associated with a steam-powered dredger that served Waterford for more than 70 years until the 1980s.

Darwin Port has achieved its International Standard for Maritime Pilot Organisations (ISPO) certification for its commitment to safety and quality management systems. ISPO is a standard of best practice for pilots and pilot organisations, which focuses on improving safety and quality.

Such a function is also the result of hard work and at the same time an expression of high respect: Captain Erik Dalege (born 1962) is now the president of the umbrella organisation of European Pilots, EMPA for short (European Maritime Pilots Organisation).

Here's a cool little video of 'PORT LÁIRGE', the Port of Waterford’s new pilot boat we've just launched and it was wonderful to have built another pilot boat for Ireland. She's our 15m Interceptor 48 pilot and is the 48th pilot boat we’ve supplied to ports globally. Powered by a pair of Scania D13 500hp engines she has an operational speed of over 25kts and is capable of carrying of 5 pilots and 2 crew in fine comfort. I think she looks just fabulous in red and blue and look forward to...