Dublin Port | MOB (Man Overboard) Exercise

According to various reports, the motor vessel "Else" damaged the gate of the Kiel-Holtenau lock at 5:00 a.m. on 29 August when it entered the closed gate without a pilot.

Kollision mit Holtenauer Hochbrücke / NDR Schleswig Holstein Magazin 19:30

A containership arriving in Taiwan hit the berth after traveling in excess of the harbor speed according to reports from the port authority and Taiwan’s Maritime and Port Bureau. They are confirming media reports that the pilot assigned to the vessel was legally intoxicated at the time of the incident.

Going down the accommodation ladder with neither lifevest nor safety line must have been based on similar, past, successful operations, which may have never been challenged on board. This ‘slippage’ in safety is a pernicious and common phenomenon.

The United Kingdom Maritime Pilots Association (UKMPA), is the representative professional body for Maritime Pilots in the United Kingdom. Almost every ship entering or leaving a port, is required under UK law to engage a duly Authorised Maritime Pilot, who either boards the vessel in port or at sea and takes conduct of the safe navigation of that vessel. This undertaking is critical to protecting the country’s national infrastructure and environment from damage or pollution, supporting the UK’s economy, and ensuring the safe, timely and efficient movement of all trade.

A week of ship traffic on the seven seas, seen from space. Get a glimpse of the vibrant lanes of goods transport that link the continents.
The vessel movements were captured using newest terrestrial and space-borne AIS technology from FleetMon and its partner Luxspace. The records cover the world's merchant fleet with some 100.000s of cargo ships, tankers, ferries, cruise ships, yachts and tugs. FleetMon provides advanced fleet monitoring services, software APIs, reports and analyses of...

River Mersey Pilot Boat going slowly inbound on the river before turning and heading northbound again.

Here’s a nice video of the recent sea trials with ‘South Esk’, a new Interceptor 48 pilot boat for the Montrose Port Authority in Scotland. It was fairly rough during our sea trial days with a fair bit of wind, and although it was touch and go flying the drone, we managed to capture some wonderful video of her and Ederra 7 at the entrance to Cork Harbour in a gale.

It has been exactly one year ago that a pilot from Sandy Hook (New York), Dennis Sherwood, died in the line of duty while attempting to board the container vessel Maersk Kensington.
What has happened since then? Has safety been improved for the pilots?

Here’s a cool little video of the 12.5m Barracuda SV we have just launched out on her rough weather sea trials recently, with some great Arial drone footage of her going through some fairly big breaking seas offshore.
Built for ‘Future Defence’ in the USA she is designed for search & rescue and coastal patrol duties. She is fully self-righting, able to recover if capsized by a large breaking sea and capable of all-weather operations. Powered by a pair of Caterpillar C8.7 650hp engines, ZF...