Welcome back to the Fluctus Channel for a feature on the important role of tugboats in navigating the bigger vessels in harbors and canal, as well as the open seas.

How do marine pilots work? Example: Bringing a bulkcarrier alongside to „Hansaport“ in Hamburg. Here the tugboats „Prompt“, „Resolute“ and „Bulldog“ are involved. The master has to rely on the pilot. One reason is, that he can‘t know how to deal with these tugs. A maneuver like this is only safe, when the pilot has a lot of practical experience. A master who is doing a maneuver like this only about once or twice a month and each time with tugs he doesn’t know in areas he hasn’t been to...

Clint Winegar, Presiding Officer, Houston Pilots, discusses the organization in the round, explaining how the Houston operation remains one of three in the country that still utilizes station boat.

Discover the final hours of packaging and preparations of the ESAIL satellite before it left Luxembourg. The ESAIL microsatellite for tracking ships at sea has completed its latest environmental and system performance tests and set off for Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. On 17 February the satellite left Luxembourg, where it was built by LuxSpace under an ESA Partnership Project with the Canadian operator exactEarth, sponsored by the Luxembourg Space Agency and other ESA member...

As the world struggles with the Covid-19 virus, the maritime world is being hit hard, not only economically, but also socially and operationally. Iin shipping there are no borders.

I have had the privilege of being at quite a number of meetings, conferences and seminars, sometimes representing The Netherlands, but mostly representing the Netherlands pilots. I have had many discussions about the role of pilots and pilot organisations, which lead me to write an article “What is the added value of pilotage?”, published in the February 2020 issue of Seaways.

Safehaven Marine have delivered one our Interceptor 48 pilot vessels to the San Juan Bay Pilots, Puerto Rico.
This marks Safehaven Marines 41st pilot boat delivered to portsWorldwide. ‘Harbor Thunder’ a very striking
design, she is powered by a pair of Cummins QSM11 engines at a heavy duty rating of 450hp, allowing the
vessel an economical continuous operational speed of 22-23kts.

When it came time to replace their 50-year-old station vessel New York, the Sandy Hook Pilots Association thought long and hard, weighing their options to determine the best possible solution.

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.

The Tampa Bay pilot association has taken delivery of Tampa, a newly refitted Chesapeake Class pilot boat built by Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding in 2003, when the Mass., shipyard introduced the class of mid-size, high-speed launches.