Maritime Pilot - Saudi Maritime congress - Episode 8

Opinion article by Ahmed Sati, Marine Pilot, Author of “Marine Pilotage - The Arabic book” and board member of ISPO.

The theory of the 'Swiss cheese' model of incident causation and investigation.

Can the #ship just #hit #breaks to #stop?

What happens when GNSS fails? In maritime navigation, this isn’t a hypothetical scenario – it’s a growing risk. Spoofing, jamming, and GNSS outages are increasing, especially in the Baltic Sea region. A failure can cripple navigation systems – with potentially serious consequences.

The Dutch coaster Mv. Stroombank is leaving the port of Figueira da Foz in Portugal. Normally operations are restricted to daylight only, but because bad weather was forecasted for the days to come we've received an exemption and were allowed to depart during dark hours. Cargo operations were running close to the departure deadline so we quickly secured the cargo and prepared the vessel for sea. The tide was running out so we used the forward spring to keep position as we went slow astern...

The Bahamas has imposed a compulsory maritime pilot rule for all vessels, including cruise ships, at its ports since September 2025.

APA says: “Pilots share NOAA’s goal of protecting the North Atlantic right whale, but this is the wrong approach.”

Video by marine pilot ESIL ABIBULA.

What do you think about this unusual manoeuvre here?

When publishing articles or pictures about pilots and their pilot ladders, very often we see the use of backpacks. The use of backpacks is controversial, since its weight, or buoyancy, can influence the functioning of the lifejacket used.