The Boats That Built Britain - The Pilot Cutter - Part 2

Many consider the Bristol Channel pilot cutter to be the finest sailing boat design ever. Fast, seaworthy and beautiful to behold, the pilot cutter is the perfect combination of form and function - a thoroughbred perfectly adapted to a life in one of the Britain's most treacherous stretches of water. Sailor and writer Tom Cunliffe explores the life of the pilots and sails a perfectly restored cutter to find out just what drove these men and their wonderful machines.

Let us start a journey back in time. Back to the black and white films of history. The times have changed, but it is good to know what kind of things have changed and where are the roots of pilotage.

Look at Life Vol 01 Transport Pilot Aboard 1963
The story of Britain's pilotage services.

A new £1.35 million pilot vessel, Stainsby, was added to the Pilot Boat fleet last year. The vessel was built in Wales by Holyhead Marine Services, an experienced builder of pilot boats that delivered Teesport the similar Saltholme in 2014. The 16.5 metre boat is powered by twin Scania DI16 diesels, producing 525BHP @ 1800RPM. Transmission is via Twin Disc “Quickshift” MGX-5136SC Gearboxes.

Day two at the offshore Pilot station out of San Francisco. https://instagram.com/sea_weathered?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

The sinking of the oil tanker "Erika" off the French coast in 1999 is known as one of France's worst environmental catastrophes. Following the disaster, the E.U established the European Maritime Safety Agency which operates the vessel traffic monitoring system, SafeSeaNet. How does it protect us? READ MORE : https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/27/maritime-safety-how-vessel-monitoring-can-help-protect-our-waters Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/euronews?sub_confirmation=1...

When I was a deck officer back in the early nineties I worked on a ship that used to load grain at different ports along the Mississippi river. The name of the ship was Golden Hope, a 600 feet long dry bulk carrier with a 95 feet in beam. An average size vessel for those days' standards.

Brightlingsea Harbour - a mixed leisure and commercial port on the East Coast of England
has recently signed contracts with Seaward to have a new pilot boat built, The demands of Pilot duties as well as working as a patrol boat and harbour launch, and the sea conditions that can occur in the area made the Nelson hulled Seaward the natural choice of vessel.