Puerto Rico: San Juan Bay Pilot Boat

Chapter 3 from the book "Crossing the Bar, The Adventures of a San Francisco Bay Bar Pilot" by Captain Paul Lobo, available on Amazon (link below)

Container ship CAP SAN ANTONIO contacted landing pontoon of Santos – Guaruja commute ferry in the afternoon Jun 20, while leaving Santos, Brazil. The ship dragged pontoon for some time, and sustained portside hull breach above waterline, probably in ballast tank area. CAP SAN ANTONIO was taken to outer anchorage and anchored, for investigation, survey, probably for some temporary repairs. She’s bound for Paranagua.

At the end of the disembarking procedure, the pilot jumps on ropes onto the pilot boat. Is this often seen practice safe? Can the pilot resolve the situation better?

We we’re out on sea trials with the two newly launched Interceptor 48 pilot boats when the Port of Cork pilot boat ‘Failte’ passed by to undertake a pilot transfer from an outbound ship. It was a nice opportunity to capture some cool video of the action as the boats ran alongside before the ship turned to create a lee for the pilot to disembark. Although the seas weren’t very big, it was blowing hard at the time with gusts of over 50kts recorded at Roches PT lighthouse as we passed.

Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding, Duclos Corporation delivered a new Chesapeake class pilot boat to the Associated Federal Pilots in Venice, Louisiana.

According to a report today by www.MaritimeBulletin.net a mooring boat was rammed from a container ship and sunk.

Here’s a nice little video of the sea trials of ‘Svitzer Oued Martil’ including some cool on-board 360 camera footage of her going through some pretty big breaking seas during rough weather testing, and some nice foggy day drone footage and trials alongside the Brittany Ferry ‘Armorique’.

The Princess Royal toured state of art Pilot Boat that serves the Port of London

PSA Marine (Pte) Ltd (“PSA Marine”) joins the global movement towards sustainable shipping by reducing carbon footprint with the use of a digital solution – Vessel Pilot Communication (“VPC”), launched on 25 August 2020. With VPC, PSA Marine ensures that critical and timely updates on pilot boarding times and traffic conditions in and around the pilot boarding grounds are communicated to vessel masters.

Vishva Preeti