Marine Pilot / Port of Milford Haven

Ever wonder what it would be like to work on a Tugboat? Come along a for glimpse of one day at work in New York Harbor.

Sanmar Shipyards has delivered two pilot boats to the Port Qasim Authority (PQA) in Karachi, Pakistan, which operates the expanding deep-water seaport with an annual handling capacity of 89 million tons in the country’s largest industrial zone.

At 244 meters long, 42 meters wide, made up of 57,000 tons of steel and carrying approximately $41 million dollars’ worth of cargo, when the personnel at Teesport bring the Agathonissos – and vessels like her – into dock, there’s no room for error.
Watch this video to see how SafeTug helps to simplify this complex process, giving tug skippers, ship pilots and port personnel the vital information and situational awareness they need to bring her in safely.

"Person over board - all pilot boat crewmembers and pilots should be trained in recovery as realistic as possible. Don’t wait for a real emergency to find out that something doesn’t work as intended!"

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.

We are delighted to share the latest EMPA newsletter with our community here.
Thank you to EMPA President Miguel Vieira de Castro, and a warm welcome to their new Journal Editor, Arie Palmers.

This updated video shows how easy it is to develop an arrival plan with the SAMMON Planning Tool. As a sample the arrival from appraoch until the berth to Ft. Lauderdale is used under strong current of 2kn. At the simulator training courses where we used this tool for preparation of a manoeuvring plan during the briefing sessions all nautical officers involved stated afterwards: "Why don't we have this tool on our ships?"

Video by Fathom Safety: "When a pilot ladder reaches its 30 month anniversary it needs a retest certificate. It must be returned to the manufacturer or an approved testing station to be weight tested and inspected."

The Dutch coaster Mv. Stroombank is leaving the port of Figueira da Foz in Portugal. Normally operations are restricted to daylight only, but because bad weather was forecasted for the days to come we've received an exemption and were allowed to depart during dark hours. Cargo operations were running close to the departure deadline so we quickly secured the cargo and prepared the vessel for sea. The tide was running out so we used the forward spring to keep position as we went slow astern...

This video complements the earlier demonstration of wind effect on straight track and shows now wind effect on turning circles. It can be seen that during a turn under strong wind the ship reduces turning when it comes close to equilibrium on straight track - if the Wind-to-ship speed ratio is big enough then the ship even goes straight instead of turning. This is shown for three samples for Head, Stern wind and Beam wind. The turning can be increased if the ratio of Wind speed-to-ship...