Relief Marine Pilot (Self Employed, Part Time)

From "Casual Navigation": In this video, we investigate the Pilot Ladder. It is a crucial piece of equipment, used for embarking and disembarking a harbor pilot at sea.(contains advertising)

The Ever Act, the worlds largest and the second to be built out of a series of 12 record breaking vessels prepares to depart Felixstowe Berth 9 with a maximum draught of 10.2 metres for her next port of Hamburg.  As the DFDS ferry was heading inbound at the North Shipwash, Harwich VTS had asked then to make best speed so they planned to get the Suecia Seaways through before the Ever Act broke away. A Harwich Haven Pilot Launch heads over from Harwich with a pilot for the Ever Act....

Breaux’s Bay Craft, Loreauville, La., delivered the new 90’x23’x12’4″ aluminum pilot boat Spindletop to the Sabine Pilots on March 6. The Sabine Pilots, Port Arthur, Texas, serve the Texas ports of Orange, Port Arthur and Beaumont. “This is the biggest pilot boat built in the U.S.,” said Roy Breaux, the shipyard’s owner. “There are bigger ones in other parts of the world, but this is the largest in the U.S.”

With a long tradition in building high performance vessels using composite material Hart Marine now produces some of the finest pilot boats available. European Design. Australian built. hartmarine.com.au

The massive container ship that ran aground in the Suez Canal, halting traffic in one of the world's busiest waterways, is still stuck. The ship, called the Ever Given, became horizontally wedged in the waterway following heavy winds. Nearly 19,000 ships passed through the canal during 2020, for an average of 51.5 per day, according to the Suez Canal Authority.

Wind was blowing strong from the NE and the waves were becoming bigger and bigger by the time we reach a new client.
Crew didn't consider the rolling effect about to happen while changing heading in order to give lee when they prepared pilot ladder, so the requested 1.5m above the water was not that good.
I decided to abort and to give the vessel the chance to shorten it. In the next attempt they did it right and I was able to board safe

There are some problems that never seem to go away and one is the perennial difficulties in providing a safe way of getting pilots on and off a ship.

Puget Sound Pilots (PSP), the organization representing the elite mariners required by law to guide ships in and out of Puget Sound, has established a formal maternity policy. The historic June vote means that PSP is the first pilot association in the U.S. to implement a dedicated maternity plan for member pilots.