Delaware Pilots Order New Launch from Gladding-Hearn

The Bridgemans Services Group has taken delivery of a new search and rescue (SAR) boat that can also be used for pilot transfer, firefighting, and pollution response duties.

A Sydney harbor pilot boat tries to get a pilot off the MS Amsterdam leaving Sydney on November 28, 2018. Due to the rough weather the pilot boat needed several attempts before the pilot was able to disembark the MS Amsterdam safely.
A Sydney harbor pilot boat tries to get a pilot off the MS Amsterdam leaving Sydney on November 28, 2018. Due to the rough weather the pilot boat needed several attempts before the pilot was able to disembark the MS Amsterdam safely.

Earlier this year ABP announced an investment of around £9 million to build nine new pilot boats. These vessels were ordered from Goodchild Marine Services Limited and are being built in Norfolk along with much of the supply chain coming from East Anglian suppliers.

Although it cannot be said that ship piloting is the world’s oldest profession, most maritime experts do agree that pilotage does date back to antiquity.

Here’s a nice video of the recent sea trials with ‘South Esk’, a new Interceptor 48 pilot boat for the Montrose Port Authority in Scotland. It was fairly rough during our sea trial days with a fair bit of wind, and although it was touch and go flying the drone, we managed to capture some wonderful video of her and Ederra 7 at the entrance to Cork Harbour in a gale.

The massive container ship that ran aground in the Suez Canal, halting traffic in one of the world's busiest waterways, is still stuck. The ship, called the Ever Given, became horizontally wedged in the waterway following heavy winds. Nearly 19,000 ships passed through the canal during 2020, for an average of 51.5 per day, according to the Suez Canal Authority.

By going trough this poster, you’ll find the regulations accessible by tapping on the various items in this poster.

Like many seafarers I have long been a keen follower of The Nautical Institute’s MARS programme, and along with many other members I listened to the recent webinar on that topic. One theme which was repeated more than once was that it is better to learn from someone else’s misfortune rather than have it happen to you. Having personally been involved in two near misses resulting from unsafe pilot transfer arrangements in a relatively short space of time, I asked how experiences and knowledge specifically about pilot ladder safety could best be promulgated to avoid repeating common accidents or near misses.

The world watched as the grounding of the Ever Given in the Suez Canal played out. In a 2-part Quadcast Shipping Special, the "Quadcast" reviews the consequences and legal implications of a major maritime incident of this type.

Navigation in constrained waters is a cognitively challenging task for seafarers requiring the combined assessment of various elements to perform it with safety. This paper presents a approach to make sense of the dynamic, uncertain,and complex work domain of sea pilotage.