Princess Royal Explores High-Tech Pilot Boat in London

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.

Compilation clip highlighting some of the diverse custom boats Dongara Marine has built in recent years.

Spotted some Pilot Boats in the Port of Auckland, New Zealand and Melbourne & Fremantle Australia (Port codes: Auckland:NZ AKL ; Melbourne:AU MEL ; Fremantle:AU FRE).

The first of three Watercat 160 Pilot was delivered to the Finnish Finnpilot Pilotage Ltd. in spring 2022. This PILOT boat has a self-righting ability as well as the ability to sail in surface ice of up to five centimetres thick. It can also be operated in deeper offshore waters to accommodate transfers of pilots to deeper-draught ships. The Watercat 160 Pilot can operate even in more restrictive inner harbour waters. The bow has D-type rubber fendering while the hull sides are equipped...

Here's a nice little video of sea trials during the recent unseasonal storm we had last month, which produced some pretty rough conditions at the entrance to Cork Harbour. We managed to capture some nice footage of the Barracuda and Thunder Child II on the day.

Queensland and one of Australia’s longest serving custom commercial and recreational boat builders, Norman R. Wright & Sons, has secured the contract to build 2 new custom designed 14.8 metre Pilot Boats for PNG Ports Corporation from Papua New Guinea.

The Port of Cork company has ordered a new pilot vessel from boat builders, Safehaven Marine based in Youghal.

In this part two video of the man overboard drill series. In one continuous take and no speed adjustments. You can see once the dummy is launched in the water. How fast the crew can come to a complete stop. The boats captain moves to the stern control station, Deploy the stern scoop and rescue the survivor. All of this happing in less than two minuets. An amazing display of teamwork and skill. Filmed using a DJI Mini 2 If you are interested in purchasing a Mini here is a link to my DJI...

This updated video shows how easy it is to develop an arrival plan with the SAMMON Planning Tool. As a sample the arrival from appraoch until the berth to Ft. Lauderdale is used under strong current of 2kn. At the simulator training courses where we used this tool for preparation of a manoeuvring plan during the briefing sessions all nautical officers involved stated afterwards: "Why don't we have this tool on our ships?"

Big thanks to Geraldton Port Authority for allowing Bill and I to go out in one of their pilot boats and board a ship. It was a beautiful day for it.