Those Who Serve: Columbia River bar pilots risk their lives to guide cargo ships

A 35-year-old male sea pilot of the Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) fell into the sea from a crude oil tanker near the N Shed Wharf in the port of Durban. A rope of the pilot ladder is said to have snapped for an undetermined reason when the man disembarked while leaving the crude oil tanker which was leaving the port of Durban.

Pilot disembarkation from ship (kakinada)
Editors note:
The shown protections are very massive in our opinion.
What does our community think about?

ABP Southampton: NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that some ships have a pilot transfer arrangement consisting of an accommodation ladder / pilot ladder combination with a trapdoor that does not meet IMO standards in effect since at least 2012.

The US Coast Guard "Safety Alert 04-22" has been released. The alert addresses the importance of verifying the correct arrangement of handholds in embarkation gate arrangements aboard merchant vessels.

In this eye-opening episode of Sea Views, host Julia Gosling speaks with Captain Andrew Moll (Chief Inspector, UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch), Ari Palmers (Senior Maritime Pilot, Netherlands), and Adam Parnell (Director, CHIRP Maritime) to confront the serious dangers faced by maritime pilots — especially during pilot transfers, where fatality rates remain alarmingly high.

After years of looking, the Port of Grays Harbor has its new pilot boat, the Vega, to replace the 60-year-old Chehalis.

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...

A pilot ladder is a highly specialized form of rope ladder, typically used on board cargo vessels for the purposes of embarking and disembarking pilots.