Pilot getting on pilot boat in Corpus Christie ship channel

Vessel Review by BairdMaritime.com. The Pilot boat was build by Safehaven Marine.

Recently Capt. Troy Evans did a research into the breaking strength of various securing methods. To quantify the problem of unsafe practices, now is time to have a survey into the number of the various securing methods used worldwide.

Due to many incidents involving pilot ladders and man ropes in South Australian ports, and in effort to improve pilot safety, from 1 January 2022 Flinders Ports will require visiting vessels and their Masters to take additional precautions

The hazards of Pilot boarding
Throughout 2016, the International Maritime Pilots’ Association (IMPA) held a safety campaign focused upon the standard of pilot ladders and associated equipment. CHIRP supported this campaign and received many reports on the subject.
This first report describes issues concerning pilot access near
the non-parallel ends of a ship, and use of a retractable platform.

transfer of Marine Ship's Pilots by helicopter hoist is a demanding task.
Berthing means bringing a vessel to her berth until the ship is made fast. ... The berthing and unberthing manoeuvres require great knowledge and skill by the master, officers and the crew, as well as an excellent team-work with the rope-runners and the mooring party ashore

SOLAS/IMO/IMPA Regulations require additional safety measurements for pilot's boarding and disembarkation since recently. These magnetic holders of two types, one is manually set and the other is a remotely controlled one, fixes both pilot ladder and accommodation ladder (gangway) strongly onto the hull of the ship. Thus, the pilot can climb more safely. We are negotiating with ISO, IMO, IMPA etc in order to standardize these items for pilot safety.

This video shows how to use the TRENZ Pilot Plug with an iPad and the app Wärtsilä Pilot PRO.
Wärtsilä Pilot PRO can be bought from the Apple AppStore: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wärts...
Please visit https://trenz-pilotplug.com/ for more information.

Since 2022, there is a solution in Germany that helps pilots to report defects in pilot ladders or pilot transfer arrangements quickly and easily. The apps are available for Android & iOS.

Caught at Cuxhaven, Germany