Marine - Pilot

Ramsgate RNLI crews were called in to help a pilot boat beached at Broadstairs last night (December 7).

PortXchange Products B.V., the Netherlands-based digital solutions provider for predictable and sustainable shipping, is pleased to announce that it has successfully completed the migration of users from the Greater Houston Port Bureau’s (“GHPB”) Harborlights Vessel Tracking System (“Harborlights”) to its proprietary PortXchange PilotTracker (“PilotTracker”) platform.

On September 6th, 2023 the ONE INTEGRITY made her maiden call to rotterdam. With a length of 400m, 61,5 meters beam and a drift of 16,5 meters, she is one of the largest containerschips afloat today. Assisted by KRVE boatmen class of 2023 and three Boluda tugs, as well as an excellent ship’s crew, the inbound voyage was a real pleasure.

A unique 3D video endeavoring to raise the awareness of the seafarers about a very important, critical, and essential piece of equipment on board. Basic in design, but high on purpose, the mistakes incorrect handling of this equipment continue to result in Near Miss, Incidents and accidents.

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.

Required tug power and number of tugs needed in variable conditions of wind, current and waves isin most cases an assessment made by pilots based on their professional experience. However, assessments will raise questions by lawyers if something goes wrong. They will use tools to calculate what really is needed with respect to tug power and number of tugs. They have furthermore the advantage of time.

Theory on Wind drift will be shown together with demos using SAMMON planning on the effect of thrusters to have some effect on drift speed & direction