Tuesday, October 1st is the start date of the latest International Maritime Pilot Association's annual Safety Campaign.

Previous campaigns by the association have consistently shown results of pilot ladder deficiencies around the 20% mark.

On August 5, 2020 at approximately 10:30 pm, Sandy Hook Pilot Captain Timothy M. Murray was involved in an incident while boarding a tanker vessel inbound to the Port of New York & New Jersey. He sustained injuries after falling from a pilot ladder and was evacuated to a local hospital where his injuries proved to be fatal.

Pilot transfer arrangement is a sensitive topic to be discussed among the pilot’s fraternity. Although ships are designed and operated with compliance to the SOLAS requirements in all respects including the pilot transfer arrangements, there has been numerous deficiencies observed related to pilot transfer arrangements. The small deficiencies from the part of ships cause life threatening accidents for pilots and sometimes to the ship staff themselves. There are many instances of defective ladder and complacency in proper rigging of ladders has been reported almost every day in different parts of the world. Many pilots lost their life, severely injured for life and face many minor to major accidents. The latest incident being the Capt. Timothy Murray of Sandy hooks Pilot.

It was in fact 25 June 1871 when King Vittorio Emanuele II of Italy, by Royal Decree 345, established a Pilot Corps in the port of Civitavecchia (60 kilometres north of Rome).

The world's first 24,000 TEU container ship HMM Algeciras made its first domestic call to HPNT in Busan New Port on April 28th. HMM Algeciras loaded a total of 4,500 containers from Busan and headed for China.

With approval from the Danish Emergency Management Agency, DanPilot and Danelec are now initiating a test program for remote pilotage – the first of its kind in the world.

An accident occurred in the Kiel Canal lock at Kiel-Holtenau. A freighter crashed into the gate of the north chamber on Saturday. The Kiel Canal is the busiest man-made waterway in the world.

Please read this statement of Joris J. Stuip from PTR Holland, Partner of Marine-Pilots.com.

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Why do we see so many unapproved and low-quality pilot ladders? The answer is invariably price. OK, we all like a bargain, but ...

Consistently 99.9 per cent safe operation of large vessels: Marine pilots on Canada’s West Coast have an exceptional safety record in the world’s largest pilot-mandatory zone for large vessels including oil tankers.

Improved traffic flow converts waiting times into increased safety and bunker savings for large ships in the narrow Swedish and Finnish archipelagos.
Found on YouTube. Created by "Sjöfartsverket".
In the STM EfficientFlow project, the Baltic ports of Rauma and Gävle implement efficient port calls using real-time information. Improved traffic flow converts waiting times into increased safety and bunker savings for large ships in the narrow Swedish and Finnish archipelagos.