Explosions and major fire on oil tanker MT. JAG LEELA at Belawan, Indonesia.

A pilot boat caught fire near the entrance of the Port of Recife, on Saturday morning (15 January). The fire would have started around 11h. In a note, the port authority explained that the two people who were in the pilot boat were rescued by another pilot boat "Serrambi".
The causes of the accident had not yet been identified, but would be investigated.

Emergency Fire Drill On Pilot Boat

One person was taken to hospital after a small boat caught fire off Seraya Buoy, located in the waters off Singapore's south-west coast, on Monday (Sept 4) afternoon.

EMPA has released their latest newsletter.

The desire to improve efficiency and crew comfort has resulted in a new approach to hull design. Built from the ground up this new Pilot Boat design utilises an Extra Long Waterline (XLW) to maximise the waterline length.

PSA Marine (Pte) Ltd (“PSA Marine”) joins the global movement towards sustainable shipping by reducing carbon footprint with the use of a digital solution – Vessel Pilot Communication (“VPC”), launched on 25 August 2020. With VPC, PSA Marine ensures that critical and timely updates on pilot boarding times and traffic conditions in and around the pilot boarding grounds are communicated to vessel masters.

For the first time, the ports of Antwerp, Barcelona, Hamburg, Los Angeles, Montreal and Rotterdam come together to showcase their most advanced digital transformation and sustainability projects at their dedicated ‘Smart Ports’ exhibit

Tug power has increased considerably over recent decades. Today, some ship handling tugs have a bollard pull of more than 100 tons. In addition, high tug power can be installed in ever smaller compact hulls.

Article originally published in SWZ|Maritime September 2022

Through the years, the Dutch Pilots have developed a system of selection, initial education and continual professional training. What is the current state of affairs?

Sanmar Shipyards has signed six vessel contracts together totalling US$33.46 million with the Port Qasim Authority (PQA) in Pakistan for four high-performance state-of-the-art tugboats and two pilot boats. The tugs are scheduled to be delivered in 12 months and the pilot boats in 10.