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.

"Mizar" is a 165 LOA containership, which follows a liner route between the caribbean and the US.
It has a fixed pitch propeller and a bow thruster, which makes it easier to handle. This maneuver consisted of basically just pulling her off the dock and then doing a 160 turn.

@Captain Ertan Ozgur, Senior Maritime Pilot

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 followers of our large community of Marine-Pilots.com can be found not only on LinkedIn or Twitter, but also on Facebook.

When a vessel navigates in confined waters, such as in a harbour or narrow channel, it is well known among experienced pilots that the ship handling is greatly affected by the hydrodynamic forces and moments acting between ship and bank or sidewall of the channel.

In this episode of the Wayfinder Podcast, we sit down with Captain Joost Mulder, a maritime pilot with over 20 years guiding vessels through the Port of Rotterdam, to break down how pilotage decisions actually get made in adverse weather. Captain Mulder walks us through: - How captains, pilots, and the harbor master share decision-making authority, and what happens when conditions turn borderline mid-transit - Why wind, more than current or wave height, is the biggest factor in port...

This section should give a short introduction to: Operational aspects of AIS Functions and features Human aspects Key Points The AIS transponder unit. Automatic communication. SOLAS requirements. AIS Information sent by ships. Static information update. MMSI Dynamic information update. Voyage related information update. Checking AIS data. BIIT Display Of AIS data. Recommended AIS symbols. Sleeping target symbol. Activated target symbol. Selected target symbol. Dangerous target...