Pickup the marine pilot

This video is another Look at Life Documentary from Volume 1 - Transport - and features the Weather Adviser - a UK Weather ship from April 1965. In all conditions, special ships maintain a constant scientific watch on the weather.

It has been shown that a majority (51%) of pilot ladders is secured by means of D-shackles, when secured at intermediate length. Previous research (Evans, 2020) has proven that this method has only about 50% of the strength of the pilot ladder when secured at full length (“double ended ladder”), or by means of the “endless-sling” method.

Jacobsen Pilot Service and Los Angeles Pilot Station published a notice to all ships to inspect pilot ladders before the pilot boards.

Reason is an incident happened at the port of long beach in July 2020. Pilot ladder rope broke while the pilot was on the ladder - luckily the pilot was able to hold on.

Pilot boat L243

Ships have reported an increasing number of cases of significant GPS interference and jamming in recent months. The geographic areas with more than one reported incident include the eastern and central Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf, and multiple Chinese ports.

Here’s a pretty cool video covering the recent sea trials we undertook with the La Coruna pilot boat. Some nice gale footage 20 miles offshore, and the fun we had trying to land the drone back down in high winds as well as alongside ship handling trials with the Taccola, operating out of Cork Harbour at present.