Lesath and Procyon. Pilot vessels at the Port of Rotterdam

At the mouth of the Columbia River lies "The Graveyard of the Pacific"—the deadliest river bar crossing on earth. To get a massive cargo ship safely through these crushing waves, an elite Bar Pilot has to board a moving ship by climbing a rope ladder and get's hoisted off the ship by helicopter 10 miles off shore in the Pacific Ocean. In this episode of What do you Wanna Cook?: PORTS UNKNOWN, we get you as close to the action as humanly possible. We take you inside the cockpit for an...

A beautiful day, climbing up the (not-so-well-rigged) pilot ladder and then the stairs of the accommodation towards the bridge.

Pilot transfer arrangement is a sensitive topic to be discussed among the pilot’s fraternity. Although ships are designed and operated with compliance to the SOLAS requirements in all respects including the pilot transfer arrangements, there has been numerous deficiencies observed related to pilot transfer arrangements. The small deficiencies from the part of ships cause life threatening accidents for pilots and sometimes to the ship staff themselves. There are many instances of defective ladder and complacency in proper rigging of ladders has been reported almost every day in different parts of the world. Many pilots lost their life, severely injured for life and face many minor to major accidents. The latest incident being the Capt. Timothy Murray of Sandy hooks Pilot.

Footage of Cosco Thailand, a container ship part of the largest class of vessels able to call at the Port of Melbourne, navigating through Port Phillip Heads en-route to the port.

The chairman of the Suez Canal Authority has suggested a possible mistake by the captain of the Ever Given could have led to the grounding of the giant container ship in the waterway last month.

HADRIAN (IMO: 9222259) is a Pilot Ship that was built in 2000 (21 years ago) and is sailing under the flag of United Kingdom.
Her length overall (LOA) is 16.13 meters and her width is 5.3 meters.

Associated British Ports (ABP) the UK’s largest and best-connected port operator, has commissioned a fleet of nine new state-of-the art pilot boats from Goodchild Marine Services, representing an investment of around £9 million to further enhance port operations across its network.

The Spring 2022 edition of our magazine The Master, Mate & Pilot is available online.