1969 Pilot Boat in Italy

Many people wonder how ships made it across entire oceans without getting lost in the seventeenth century. Aaron introduces seventeenth century navigation to us today by beginning with piloting.

Look at Life - City of Sailors - Portsmouth - 1965
Portsmouth is no longer the sea-faring city it once was; this film from the Documentary Series "Look At Life" Volume 5 - Cultural Heritage in 1965 looks at its changing face.

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.

There are some problems that never seem to go away and one is the perennial difficulties in providing a safe way of getting pilots on and off a ship.

The US Coast Guard "Safety Alert 04-22" has been released. The alert addresses the importance of verifying the correct arrangement of handholds in embarkation gate arrangements aboard merchant vessels.

The Chinese container freighter "CSCL Star" belongs to the class of Ultra Large Container Ships (ULCS) and is one of the largest ships that can enter the port of Hamburg.

The "MTM Potomac" is a 180 meter tanker, without a thruster and a fixed pitch, right handed propeller (like most).
This particular maneuver consisted of backing her about a ship´s length, then swinging to port with the help of 2 ASD tugs.

The Port Phillip Sea Pilots launch Corsair working at Port Phillip Heads on a blustery day.

This what a normal work day looks like for a port pilot.
A 24 hour shift shown in 11 minutes.
Recorded in Santa Marta, Colombia.

Lately there has been a considerable increase in opinions of seagoing ship´s masters complaining about pilotage services, expressed whether as LinkedIn articles and comments or in some reputable industry magazines.