Senior Marine Pilot

It does not happen very often that we have a Eurochannel bound ship to sea. In this case the MARIA P LEMOS, 333 m with a draft of 20,7 m left Rotterdam underway to the Far East .

Baltic Workboats have won under the category of "Best Small Pilot Boat" the Best builder of a Small Pilot Boat Award for 2019 for their model PILOT 15 WP.

Every ship transporting goods to, from or through the Arctic wants to find the fastest and safest way through or around the ice. Even service ice breakers save considerable amounts of time and fuel when they choose an easy path through the ice opposed to a straight path.

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.

The Bollard Pull value, which can be interpreted as the maximum thrust that is developed for a specific amount of time by the propulsion systems of any vessel to the fullest , when it has zero speed in the forward direction, is the criterion that allows us to understand how suitable a tugboat is for a port maneuver or a towing operation.

The March edition of The New Zealand Pilot has been published (link in article).

Itajai, Brazil. Photo and video

Taking the Pilot ashore

In this paper, a maritime pilots’ risky behaviour related factors questionnaire is designed to identify and quantify the factors of maritime pilots’ risky operational behaviour.