Preparation & Rigging of a Pilot Ladder

The Cosco Shipping Galaxy alongside Felixstowe Berth 9 cargo operations come to an end with the cranes beginning to boom up. Mooring gang in attendance and the tugs begin to go to station. The pilot requests for both to make fast on the centre lead fore and aft. Svitzer Kent makes fast centre lead aft while the Svitzer Sky makes fast centre lead forward. The Sky comes under the bow to pick up the heaving line but the crew slackens the head lines before the last crane had boomed up. Sky...

When I was a deck officer back in the early nineties I worked on a ship that used to load grain at different ports along the Mississippi river. The name of the ship was Golden Hope, a 600 feet long dry bulk carrier with a 95 feet in beam. An average size vessel for those days' standards.

Finnish Pilots at work.

The "MTM Potomac" is a 180 meter tanker, without a thruster and a fixed pitch, right handed propeller (like most).
This particular maneuver consisted of backing her about a ship´s length, then swinging to port with the help of 2 ASD tugs.

In Novorossiysk (Russia, Black Sea), a marine pilot died during a pilot transfer and an investigation has been launched. The incident occurred on the evening of 14 March at about 21:40.

After 30+ years of service, the vessel needed to be re-powered. A $1.7 million re-powering project was initiated and completed during 2004.

EC135 Helicopter Marine Pilot Transfer. Safest type of transport there is for our port pilots at Hay Point!

For 174 years, the San Francisco Bar Pilots have been safely navigating the world’s largest ships through some of North America’s most challenging waterways.

I have had the privilege of being at quite a number of meetings, conferences and seminars, sometimes representing The Netherlands, but mostly representing the Netherlands pilots. I have had many discussions about the role of pilots and pilot organisations, which lead me to write an article “What is the added value of pilotage?”, published in the February 2020 issue of Seaways.

Enjoy the tour from Bridge to Pilot ladder, disembarking of Danpilot.