Ship Report Podcasts: Pilot boats - a special breed

We were lucky to come across the Tom Crean whilst offshore putting some hours on the Interceptor 60 pilot P&O Sahm. Taking the opportunity to undertake some alongside handling trials, we captured some cool footage of Tom Crean pushing through the waves.

Based in Estonia, Baltic Workboats is a long-tenured boatbuilder for multiple markets, including the demanding pilot boat sector. Late in 2025 in New Orleans BWB debuted a new hybrid electric 17m model, a boat that leans on more than 15 years of accrued experience building larger hybrid electric vessels. Carl Mahler, BWB’s North American sales lead and a harbor pilot himself, discussed with Maritime Reporter TV the value proposition offered by the shipyard, from manufacturing process to...

A few shots from the day, with Elisabeth-S and H&S Fairness plus the pilot boat. I put music to it as it was such a windy day.

We’re doing another day of testing with the self-propelled scale model of T-2000. Obviously the conditions here do comprehensively exceed the designs operational envelope, as in scale proportion to the model, the waves must be I guess around 10-20 metres in size. However it’s interesting to understand the designs ultimate limits. The model is built to a scale of fourteen to one, and this equals 20 metres in real life size. Later, by slowing down the video, so that it matches the speed of...

The San Francisco Bar Pilots are one of the important cogs in our supply chain wheel. They are tasked with boarding the vessels eleven miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge via a rope ladder often in rough seas and taking control of the vessels en route to the Port of Stockton. Once on the bridge of the ship, the Pilot oversees navigation and ensures the safe passage of ships into the Bay and through the Delta until it is secured alongside its berth at the Port. Without these Pilots the...

The pilot at Nagasaki Port fell into the water at around 0530 Tokyo time on 5 May while boarding the cruise ship DIAMOND PRINCESS, which was about to enter Nagasaki.

Baird maritime awards: Southerly Designs & Dongara Marine

A new 1:25 cruise ship manned model, the "Voyager", was added to our fleet in 2014. She is 311 m long and is fitted with 2 azimuthing pods (and one Fixipod) and powerful bow thrusters. Training is conducted in emergency conditions like engine failures, crash stops, tight turns ...