Land and Sea: Sea Harbour Pilots

There are some problems that never seem to go away and one is the perennial difficulties in providing a safe way of getting pilots on and off a ship.

It turns out that supertankers and cruise ships have valets. They're called maritime pilots, and they're among the most elite ship handlers in the world. So where does one go to learn how to park the largest ships in the world? To the Maritime Pilots Institute in Covington, La. There, they use mini-versions of the behemoth boats to teach the basics. All aboard!

Reflections on his work on the Mississippi River (2014)

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 ...

Time Lapse Video: An inbound LNG carrier arrives at the Port of Rotterdam. At sea, in the Eurogeul channel, two maritime pilots have joined the vessel. Between the breakwaters four harbour tugs (Smit Harbour Towage) make fast to assist her manoeuvre. In the Beerkanaal channel the LNG carrier is stopped and swung before entering the Nijlhaven harbour. While approaching LNG Jetty 1 the ship's mooring lines are taken ashore by mooringboats (Koninklijke Roeiers Vereeniging Eendracht).
Pilot...

A marine pilot who sadly died after a ‘fall from a pilot ladder’ in the Humber Estuary has now been named. Video credit: BBC Look North/BBC News Hub

Safehaven Marine based in Ireland have just delivered a pilot vessel for operations at the Port of Berbera in
Somaliland, Africa. ‘Sanaag’ is one of Safehaven’s Interceptor 38 pilot vessels, at 11.9m LOA, a very capable design which proves economical to operate, yet capable of dealing with very rough seas and challenging boarding conditions when required.

Great pictures from Estonia

Vos Pace is a Dutch registered ship being seen out by Puffin Pilot vessel at Great Yarmouth 8th June 2021. Vos Pace is 83m long and 18m wide and made in 2015. Puffin is as long as Vos Pace is wide at 18m and 4m wide itself
I run over and managed to grab some nove shots even though the sun was facing into camera some of the time. As Puffin came back it looked even better I thought.
Music by me.
Internet search 'Calvertfilm'.

MT DELTA PIONEER sailed from Europoort, in Port of Rotterdam to sea. On arrival at the pilot station the Pilot Station Vessel PROCYON was on station to pick up the pilot from this 250 m long vessel.