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

Tuesday, October 1st is the start date of the latest International Maritime Pilot Association's annual Safety Campaign.

Previous campaigns by the association have consistently shown results of pilot ladder deficiencies around the 20% mark.

The individual pilot operates as part of a pilotage organisation. And, as with so many things, the whole is (much) more than the sum of the parts ...

This article was first published back in February 2022: According to the International Group of P & I Clubs’ “Report on P&I claims involving vessels under pilotage 1999-2019”, over the last twenty years, there were 1,046 incidents in which pilot error either caused or contributed to those events.

Training sometimes years, the pilots of the world never get enough credit...especially those of the Cape Cod Canal! This ones for you! Compiled from video taken over the past 4 years, this features a unique collection of various types of vessels that go through the canal. Enjoy!

A Pilot Boat alongside a Cruise Ship

Register your pilot or embarkation ladder today and receive a free 30 months mandatory load test, when the ladders been delivered to one of our factories in Rotterdam, Singapore, New Castle UK or Houston Texas.

Awesome video from Denmark

PTR Holland® are aware that certain parties have copied and supply, low-quality imitations of our rope ladders through several ship-chandlers in Rotterdam, Houston, Greece and in Turkey.

This video shows an introduction on the Spiral-Test-Manoeuvre and describes the procedure how to steer through this manoeuvre and measure the data needed. The results will be displayed in a characteristic diagram allowing to identify stable and unstable conditions and related, detailed information, e.g. spiral loop width and height, rudder angle of neutral effect. Samples of stable and unstable ship behaviour demonstrations will be shown by Fast Time Simulation using the SAMMON Planning tool.