A Day in the life of a Port Pilot

Impressive pictures from Colombia: MV Malcom arrived on June the 20th carrying the first wind generators for the "Guajira 1" project.

• The Dutch pilots offer a contribution to the safe and quick pilotage of ships to and from the Dutch ports and the Flemish ports on the Scheldt River. Each year, they assist about 100,000 ships. • Loodswezen aims to play a leading role by excelling in terms of service provision, training and education, efficiency, technology and customer satisfaction. • The highly-trained maritime pilots and other staff members work closely together to ensure safe and efficient operations in all...

Malta Maritime Pilots

Unberthing NBCT ,Penang, Malaysia.
#marinepilot #shiphandling #manoeuvre #port #seaman #tug #ship #marine

The American Maritime Pilot has a special and important job bringing ships into port safely. In the history of pilots Robert Smalls stands out as one of the most heroic and able pilots in American History.
Watch the full video below:

Captain Matt Glass, a deputy pilot with the Houston Pilots, boards and guides the UAL Capetown on the Houston Ship Channel from the landing area outside Galveston Bay to the Manchester docks in Houston, a voyage of about 7 hours.

An entire day caught in a time lapse. Up and down the river twice.
Cool prospective 12000 TEU ship Turing min 2:00. !

I have had the privilege of being at quite a number of meetings, conferences and seminars, sometimes representing The Netherlands, but mostly representing the Netherlands pilots. I have had many discussions about the role of pilots and pilot organisations, which lead me to write an article “What is the added value of pilotage?”, published in the February 2020 issue of Seaways.

A routine station watch turns surreal as a massive container ship slowly emerges from dense fog. We board the pilot, complete the transfer, and watch the vessel disappear back into the mist.

It remains a sad fact that accidents and near misses continue to occur during pilot transfers with frightening regularity. Most of these fortunately do not result in injury, and a surprisingly high number of them are not even recognised for what they are.

Surveys into pilot ladder safety consistently reveal that unacceptably high numbers of pilot transfer arrangements are not compliant with the regulations.