Smartship Australia

by Rhys Davies, current Apprentice. Published already in Feb. 2020 by ABP.

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.

Of course, as a Nautical Specialist, I also deal with the international discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of satellite-based navigation, e-navigation and conventional terrestrial and astronomical navigation.

Improvements to pilots’ situation awareness (SA) in maritime navigation are critical to reducing human errors, which have caused 75% to 96% of marine accidents over the last few years.

Ro-ro cargo ship FESTIVO struck pier at Ceuta while berthing on arrival from Algeciras, at around 1300 UTC Jul 6. Cause of accident unknown, both ship’s bow and pier sustained damages.

This study presents a novel decision support process for a pilot dispatching problem in the St. Lawrence River. It integrates a comprehensive set of time-based performance measures, including working time, waiting time, and skill level differences, to optimize fairness and operational efficiency in pilot dispatching.

Ship pilot transfer from container ship with first person view

Impatience is triggered when we have a set goal (for example berthing a vessel) but realise it's going to cost us more than we thought to reach it (the vessel is only making 6 knots against the tide and is taking much longer than predicted).