From our deck 12 cabin balcony, some footage of the pilot boat coming alongside Virgin Voyages' cruise ship Scarlet Lady in the Solent between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. If you're expecting action and excitement then brace yourself for not quite that at all, but it is fairly impressive how close the pilot boat gets to the larger vessel, bouncing around on the waves. I did want to see the pilot leap from the ship to the boat but in truth got tired of waiting so if that's the bit...
Kewatec builds the twelfth pilot boat and the ninth Pilot 1820 boat for Buksér og Berging in Norway. The boat is of the same series as the previous Pilot 1820 boats that have been delivered during the last five years. The boats have a total length of 18.2 meters and are the flagships of Kewatec's pilot boat range.
Research on hydrodynamic interaction indicates that if the speed of the ship near a bank is too high, the rudder may be less able to cope with the forces induced and control will be lost. The Nautical Institute highlights this in its latest Mars Report, in which an LPG carrier hit a barge being towed by a tugboat as a result of hydrodynamic forces.
