Marine Pilot, Port of Cape Preston

A Pilot with the San Francisco Bar Pilots boards off the ATB Cape Ann, sailing out of San Francisco.

Fremantle Ports in Western Australia has awarded local boatbuilder Dongara Marine a contract for the construction of two new pilot boats.

Rough seas yesterday! We're picking up Unit 17 and 14 from the Carnival Breeze outbound Galveston.

If you fancy seeing what it’s like aboard during some rough weather sea trials, here’s a pretty cool little video of our Interceptor 48 pilot built for the Port of Sines. Some really great Arial drone footage and interesting POV (Point of view) with narration from aboard her in 5-6m seas and in 50kt winds 25 miles offshore.
How difficult is to land a drone back down on the boat in 5-6m swells and 45-50kt wind gusts? Pretty damn difficult as it turns out! Sometimes we fail as you’ll see at...

Pilot launch Griffiths onboard and off Point Lonsdale, Victoria, Australia.
Ship spotting at Point Lonsdale and other water activities by Wally on Water.

SF Bar Pilot transfer- offshore pilot station.

As the sun comes up on the last day of 2021, the last shipping day for Brisbane Marine Pilots, our pilots out on the water serving the Port of Brisbane Pty Ltd, as they have done every day since 1st January 1989.

Here’s a nice video of the rough weather sea trials of San Ciprian’s new Interceptor 42 Pilot boat ‘San Ciprano’. With the Covid-19 travel restrictions in place and the Guys from San Ciprian unable to fly here at present we’re having to do a remote ‘on-line handover’. So we made this video to give them every confidence that she is performing well, as she handled comfortably the stormy conditions prevailing on the South Coast of Ireland last Friday nicely, with winds of 50kts at the entrance...

My personal impression is that a lot has changed in terms of safety in the last two years. Non-compliance with current legislation that directly affects the safety of pilots is now no longer tolerated by many stakeholders. Something is happening. And that is a good thing.