Allen Garfinkle — The Making of a Bay Pilot | 8/7/2019

The article was written by Allen Garfinkle, Executive Director – Board of Pilot Commissioners for the Bays of San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun

Harwich, Essex. Several shots of buoys at a warehouse on the quay. Various shots show the Trinity House Vessel 'Siren' setting out to sea to carry out maintenance on buoys; a naval flag showing the Union Jack and the Trinity House Jack is hoisted; officers are seen using sextants and plotting their course on a chart. Nice M/S of a sailor tying on a life jacket. Sailors drop anchor beside a buoy, hoist weather balloons and ring bells on the ship. The buoy is cleaned of mussels and limpets...

Great film about sailing on Kiel Canal (NOK) in Germany.

Ahmed is an ideas man. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, he came up with a way to protect pilots from infection by driving incoming ships remotely, allowing his team to virtually board foreign ships rather than encounter new people in person, which would have put his colleagues at risk.

Experiences from Australia: No two days are the same for a marine pilot in a busy port such as Esperance, but Mr MacAdie wouldn’t have it any other way.

I am not a computer savvy. My knowledge in programming and robotics and those sort of things is nil. I get lost in the sea of social media and easily entangle myself in the web. All I have done for the last 25 years or so is to pilot ships through the Panama Canal. However, during the last couple of years I have done my best to catch up with technology, since it has enhanced our possibilities and improved safety in our field. But still, I have to admit that I am way behind the new guys in this important issue.

University of York: Here, Dr Kate Preston explains why we need to fully understand the complexity maritime pilotage before we can integrate technology like autonomy.

We frequently search the internet for our members and find job offers for pilots or Harbour Masters.

Everyone said, "You can't do that!" Until someone came along who didn't know that. Then he did it:
What do you think about this mooring solution?

IMPA has published examples of best practice together with a letter from Capt. Simon Pelletier, President of IMPA.