Swash@A&R "Explorer"

At the A&R shipyard in Germany, the successful principle of SWATH boats was further developed in 2013: The SWASH principle allows sea-going, smaller and more economical boats.

SWATH and SWASH are interesting technologies that allow a vessel to sail much more calmly in high waves. A stable and calm position of the ship is especially important for pilot boarding.

Cork based Safehaven Marine is most famous for dramatic videos of its boats during stormy weather sea trials. It’s ‘Interceptor 48’ are in service taking on all types of sea conditions around the world. The newest vessel the ‘Belgrano’ will be used by pilots on the River Plate estuary Montevideo, Uruguay.

Dublin Port Company has officially christened its new Pilot Boat, DPC Tolka, in a short ceremony held at Poolbeg Yacht Club. The state-of-the art vessel arrived in Dublin Port in December.

French operator Seine River Pilot Station has expanded its fleet of pilot boats with the recent acquisition of a newbuild vessel from local builder Chantier Naval Delavergne.

Here’s a nice little video of rough weather sea trials that coincided with ‘Storm Agnes’ last week in the Interceptor 48 pilot boat ‘Svitzer Oued Laou’. The storm produced some pretty big waves at the entrance to Cork Harbour, and strong winds during the height of the storm. We managed to capture some cool footage from Roches PT lighthouse. It was fairly rough, although by not coinciding with the ebbing tide conditions aboard were quite comfortable, and our Pilot 48 handled it effortlessly...

Video footage from the Florø rescue helicopter.

MOSES (autoMated vessels and supply chain Optimisation for Sustainable short sEa Shipping) aims to improve the SSS component of the container supply chain through a series of innovations including innovative vessels and optimisation of logistics operations: