Boarding via Tug Boat - Is this safe?!

IMPA has published examples of best practice together with a letter from Capt. Simon Pelletier, President of IMPA.

What a dangerous situation. Never seen that before.

"Although this should not happen, pilot ladders sometimes suddenly slip one step. Always grip the sideropes firmly and you can handle this!"

"Person over board - all pilot boat crewmembers and pilots should be trained in recovery as realistic as possible. Don’t wait for a real emergency to find out that something doesn’t work as intended!"

As part of our Port Perspectives series we have captured the perspective of what is like to work in Dublin Port from some key members of our team. This video features Robert Cox, a Marine Operative at Dublin Port Company. Robbie as he is better known provides an insight into his varied role at the Port from operating Pilot Boat Camac, delivering Pilots safely to vessels, to placing fenders at the quay wall no two days are ever the same! Robbie also captures some amazing images of Dublin...

A handy and simple tool to determine in a minimum time what is really needed as tug assistance, is the Bollard Pull Calculator which calculates in an approximate way the total required tug power for ships in various conditions of wind and current. This tool can be loaded as an app on the smart phone.

The container ship "Mumbai Maersk" ran aground off the island of Wangerooge. A first rescue attempt failed.

This is the Ben Madigan pilot boat, one of the hard working fleet of Belfast Harbout pilot boats. ( I'm not sure but I believe this might be a Redbay Stormforce, built by Redbay boat builders at Cushendll. )
These fast, sturdy, boats have to ferry Belfast pilots out to large vessels coming in to Belfast harbour. Piloted vessels range from large tankers, bulk carriers, container ships, ferries and cruise liners, right down to barges and fishing boats. Not only this, Belfast Harbour pilots...