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.

This video seems to be slow and boring for non maritime people, but doing the job in a good way needs a lot of experience and knowledge. And it's the very the best job in the world.

Spectacular (silent) film footage of the construction of the Panama Canal more than a century ago. The film shows the construction of the Miraflores and Gatun locks in detail as well as the digging of "The Culebra Cut" including steam trains, steam shovels and steam dredgers at work and scenes of the locks an the Canal in its first days op operation in 1914. Wikipedia: The Panama Canal (Spanish: Canal de Panamá) is an artificial 82 km (51 miles) waterway in Panama that connects the...

The local harbor pilot boards the 2GO Maligaya on the port side during her Monday noon arrival to Cebu from Manila
See my photos at https://www.flickr.com/photos/dareleven/

Maritime pilots board ships when waters are crowded or treacherous or when a passage is narrow to guide the captain and ship safely through the waters. The Cat operates between Bar Harbor, Maine, and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada.

From this "tender" the bring pilots to Big vessels with a small boat. You see this small boats on the deck. AIS Name LOODSBOOT 7 PILOT Type Pilot tender FleetMon Pilot tender Icon Flag Belgium Flag of Belgium IMO 8424927 MMSI 205110000 Callsign ORBG Year Built 1978 Length 51 m Width 9 m Draught 3.6 m / 1.3 m / 13.6 m Avg/Min/Max Speed 9.3 kn / 17.4 kn Avg/Max

China has already submitted proposals to the IMO regarding changes to SOLAS, Chapter 23, and IMO A.1045(27) in early 2021.