by Nick Lee, T&TC Chairman, UK Pilots - published on 4 February 2020
Personal Locator Beacons (PLB) and other individual MOB devices have been available for some years now and have evolved to incorporate a variety of different alerting methods and combinations. However, usage of these additional enhancements within UK Pilotage is still in its infancy.
Qualified pilots are usually employed by the local port or maritime administration, and provide their services to ships for a fee, calculated in relation to the ship’s tonnage, draught or other criteria.