Article Origins of the IMPA pilot mark
by Kevin Vallance deep sea pilot and author - published on 24 October 2019
There are many things in both our everyday and professional lives which we take for granted and never question the origins of, an example of this might be the IMPA recommended ‘pilot mark or pilot line’, which is sometimes seen on the side of vessels indicating where a vessels freeboard exceeds 9 metres.
Article e-book and international book order available: "Theory and Practices of Marine Pilotage" by Capt. Santosha K Nayak
published on 7 August 2020
This book was only available in some areas, now the author has created an e-book version. Furthermore it´s available on amazon as a paperback.
Completely new book on Ship manoeuvring techniques based on new revealing facts which have been brought to light. Must read for all the mariners to understand the behaviour of ships and how to control her behaviour during manoeuvring.
Video Operation of POD Ships - Discussion on Efficiency comparing Conventional and IN-OUT POD strategy
published on 8 June 2022
In this movie the efficiency of two different pod operation strategies is compared: With azimuth propeller ships the Pods can be used in two ways to control the speed, e.g. for speed reduction: 1. by adjusting the engine orders, e.g. by reducing the RPMs to get lower speed - this means to drive the ship in the same conventional way as for twin screw vessels, 2. by turning both pods either in- or outward (TOE-IN or TOE-OUT) to reduce the forward thrust and therefore reducing the speed – the...
Article Risk analysis of collision accidents during underway STS berthing maneuver through integrating fault tree analysis (FTA) into Bayesian network (BN)
by Capt. Mustafa Sökükcü and Cenk Sakar - published on 3 May 2023
This research paper could be useful tool for marine pilots as well during the risk analysis of STS manoeuvrings. In light of the findings of the research, STS manoeuvres may be effectively planned in order to improve overall safety and avoid the unexpected incidents. On the other hand, there is a dearth of literature on STS operation. As a result, this work has a significant input on the current literature.
Article Psychophysical stress and strain of maritime pilots in Germany. A cross-sectional study
published on 12 June 2021
Video Port of Port Arthur Terminal 4K
published on 18 October 2020
The sun was out and was a beautiful day, I was searching for a light house in the area and there was one in Cameron, La. I started my way to the light house not thinking how bad Cameron was hard hit by two hurricanes. After a few dozen downed power poles I was met with the National Guard and the Po Po. Needless to say I turned around and I had passed the port so I decided to drone this area. Not a bad place and a ship was being assisted by two pilot boats. I never tire with maritime...
Video Rough weather sea trials of ‘Port Láirge’ punching through breakers and offshore in F10
published on 3 November 2021
Here’s a cool little video of the rough weather sea trails of ‘Port Láirge’ The Port of Waterford’s new Interceptor 48 pilot boat ready to be delivered next week. We had two days of rough weather, a Force 8 with 3.5m seas putting up some surf breakers over the Daunt and a second day with winds reaching Force 10 offshore, with 55kts of wind and 5m swells, allowing us to properly test her capabilities ensuring she's fully fit for purpose for the pilots and crew. Doing so we captured some...
Opinion What you can´t see still hurt you
published on 13 December 2020
This article was originally published on Baird Maritime (link below)
When a pilot is berthing a ship with the aid of tugs, it sometimes happens that the ship lands heavily and suffers minor damage. More commonly in my experience, it also happens that the crew discover a large dent for which they cannot account ...