The historical Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter - Part 1

Many consider the Bristol Channel pilot cutter to be the finest sailing boat design ever. Fast, seaworthy and beautiful to behold, the pilot cutter is the perfect combination of form and function - a thoroughbred perfectly adapted to a life in one of the Britain's most treacherous stretches of water. Sailor and writer Tom Cunliffe explores the life of the pilots and sails a perfectly restored cutter to find out just what drove these men and their wonderful machines.

Let us start a journey back in time. Back to the black and white films of history. The times have changed, but it is good to know what kind of things have changed and where are the roots of pilotage.

Look at Life Vol 01 Transport Pilot Aboard 1963
The story of Britain's pilotage services.

Built by Luke Powell and his working Sail Yard in Truro, Cornwall, launched in February 2020. The lines were taken from the Vincent, a Falmouth Pilot cutter built in 1852 for the Vincent family of St Mawes. She worked for 70 years as a pilot boat, finally retiring in 1922 and ending her days as a houseboat on the Percuil River very close to the yard where she had been built. When the idea to build a new pilot cutter of considerable size was born, the lines of Vincent were seen as the...

The entrance to Cork Harbour situated on the South coast of Ireland can produce some pretty extreme sea states during the winter storm months. There are two main factors that influence the sea state at the entrance, the first being the ebbing tide, the second being shoaling waters over the Harbour Rock, this is situated at the entrance to the Harbour off Roches Point lighthouse, right in the middle between the Western and Eastern channel entrances.

Approche d'un navire gros colis par mauvais temps en 2014. Pilotone Troenn de Lorient

Here’s a nice video of ‘Miami’ the Interceptor 48 pilot we built for the Biscayne Bay Pilots, Florida on sea trials, with Voyager helping out as the camera boat.

SWR-120 is a multi-purpose, heavy-duty, high-speed planing boat for operation in costal sea areas, in open sea as a daughtercraft and in lakes and rivers in any climate zone

Study from 2020: Precise assessment of complex maritime navigation requires reliable and valid assessment frameworks. The purpose of this research was to examine the reliability and validity of the proposed CAPA-tool.

Port Authority of New South Wales manages the navigation, security and operational safety needs of commercial shipping in Sydney Harbour, Port Botany, Newcastle Harbour, Port Kembla, Eden and Yamba.