(Senior) Marine Pilot, Southeast Africa

Finally!!! The last section of the ship was removed from the site and taken to port for final salvage. While there is still a lot of clean up remaining this is a big mile stone in the salvage operation of the Golden Ray which capsized over 2 years ago on 9/8/2019 in the sound of St Simons Island, Georgia. Included is the movement of the section along with footage taken from a boat trip at the site and at the port. Some of my best video in the 2 years I've been filming. So I hope you enjoy...

Watch the Maritime pilot disembark Ocean Liner, Queen Mary 2

The pilot boys on the river Haven.

Safehaven Marine undertook an 800nm 4 day cruise in Thunder Child II to Scotland, living off the boat to visit a place called the Gulf of Corryvreckan. A pretty wild yet beautiful place. The Corryvreckan whirlpool, or ‘Maelstrom’, as would be a more appropriate description, is formed as the tide enters the narrow stretch of water between the Islands of Jura and Scarba that is the Gulf of Corryvreckan. Here the tidal flow speeds up to 8.5kts as it is squeezed between the islands, and there...

In this video, you can take a look at what happened when the Napoli broke her back and was run aground on the south coast of the UK.

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.

Awesome video by Herman Broers, "The Rotterdam Pilot".

This article was first published back in February 2022: According to the International Group of P & I Clubs’ “Report on P&I claims involving vessels under pilotage 1999-2019”, over the last twenty years, there were 1,046 incidents in which pilot error either caused or contributed to those events.

Case Study Video:
BHP - a global mining company and port owner – asked us to develop a test set-up to see what happens during a snapback event and evaluate their safety protection fence. The test data helped in the development of a safer protection fence and gave real insight into snapback behaviour.
Collaboration with BHP, Geobrugg and Wilhelmsen.

The Cosco Shipping Galaxy alongside Felixstowe Berth 9 cargo operations come to an end with the cranes beginning to boom up. Mooring gang in attendance and the tugs begin to go to station. The pilot requests for both to make fast on the centre lead fore and aft. Svitzer Kent makes fast centre lead aft while the Svitzer Sky makes fast centre lead forward. The Sky comes under the bow to pick up the heaving line but the crew slackens the head lines before the last crane had boomed up. Sky...