Update: Guidance to ships for safe Rigging of Pilot Ladders (1st May)

Shri Sanjay Bhatia former Chairman of Mumbai Port and Indian Port Association (IPA) expressed pleasure while releasing the All India Marine Pilots Association’s (AIMPA) maiden Issue of “Marine Pilot’s Journal” and applauded the efforts in taking out this kind of Journal to help highlight issues of pilots.

The PDF of the second issue is available for download here

The All India Maritime Pilots' Association has released its new journal for October.

SWATH build by Abeking & Rasmussen (Germany)

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.

A pilot ladder is a highly specialized form of rope ladder, typically used on board cargo vessels for the purposes of embarking and disembarking pilots.

pilot boat general cargo ship seaman captain marine

The P and O ship Adonia leaving Lisbon on 3-11-14. This was the Pilot's second attempt to leave the ship. A smaller cutter found the seas too rough to take off the Pilot so this larger cutter took over.

According to Captain’s visual observance and overheard radio talks, bulk carrier OLIVE BAY anchor chain entangled with the chain of another ship, on Jan 8 or 9, in Yangtze estuary between Chongming island and Taicang, Shanghai area.

Going down the accommodation ladder with neither lifevest nor safety line must have been based on similar, past, successful operations, which may have never been challenged on board. This ‘slippage’ in safety is a pernicious and common phenomenon.