Good old times: PLA Thames Pilots at Work

Many people wonder how ships made it across entire oceans without getting lost in the seventeenth century. Aaron introduces seventeenth century navigation to us today by beginning with piloting.

This documentary made in 1959 in the popular Look at Life series is from Volume 5 - Cultural History and takes a journey along the River Thames passing several famous buildings and monuments such as - County Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Shell Mex House which has the biggest clock face in London. Cleopatra's Needle, St Paul's Cathedral, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Port of London Authority, Prospect of London Pub, Port of London Docks.

Location: England Various shots following a river pilot. He is seen disembarking from one boat and climbing up a rope ladder onto a large ship. Various shots of another river pilot, dressed in a cap, woollen jumper and sea faring jacket. He is seen at the wheel of his boat. Various shots of two river police pilots on the River Thames in London. They are filmed in the cab and on the deck of their boat. They pull up alongside some riverboat houses and talk to a woman who owns one of the them....

Topic: Technical or human error?
Ed Verbeek already published this interesting article about the proportion of human to technical errors on LinkedIn last week.

A good possibility to make the job of a maritime pilot much more visible!

"Mariners may receive financial compensation for current and future medical expenses, rehabilitation costs, present and future lost wages, and pain and suffering."

A valuable campaign managed by Chris Young, Kevin Vallance and others, which we found on Facebook .

When the world locked down, Australia’s marine pilots continued bringing ships safely into the nation’s ports to deliver the goods we depend on. Around 6,000 ships visit the ports of NSW each year and meeting them at sea to help them navigate into our ports and harbours are Port Authority’s marine pilots and cutter vessel crews. ••• Port Authority of New South Wales manages the navigation, security and operational safety needs of commercial shipping in Sydney Harbour, Port Botany,...

Pilot Vessel "COMETA" #CanalAccesoAPuertoLaPlata #pilotstation #pilotboat  #LaPlataHarbour #LanchasDelEste #BuenosAiresProvince #Argentina/ 15.12.2021. This video shows the Pilot Vessel "COMETA" inside the #CanalAccesoAPuertoLaPlata when she arrived at #PilotStation #LanchasDelEste #LaPlataHarbour #BuenosAiresProvince #Argentina. The video was filmed by @ultrabarqueros You can watch the full video by clicking on the following Link: / Puedes ver el video apretando en el siguiente Link:...

The entrance to Cork Harbour situated on the South coast of Ireland can produce some pretty extreme sea states during the winter storm months. There are two main factors that influence the sea state at the entrance, the first being the ebbing tide, the second being shoaling waters over the Harbour Rock, this is situated at the entrance to the Harbour off Roches Point lighthouse, right in the middle between the Western and Eastern channel entrances.