Associated Branch Pilots

For 170 years, the San Francisco Bar Pilots have been navigating the world’s largest ships through some of North America’s most difficult waterways. These state and federally-licensed master mariners are highly-specialized ship captains who rely on navigational experience, ship-handling skills, and local knowledge to transport more than $1.2 billion in goods to and from 200 Bay Area ports, docks, and berths every day. This critical service protects more than 1,000 miles of fragile coastline...

The transfer of pilots to and from seagoing vessels should not rely solely on mutual trust and good intentions.

Look at Life - Signposts of the Sea (1963)
Narrated by Tim Turner

Already published for the first time in September 2020: Maritime piloting operations involve on-call work schedules that may lead to sleep loss and circadian misalignment. The study documented pilot work scheduling practices.

This expert article is based on a presentation given by Capt. Pilot Sven Stemmler at the MCN's (Maritimes Cluster Norddeutschland e. V. ) event ‘On the Future of the Pilot Profession’ at Fraunhofer CML in Hamburg on 9 September 2025.

This video is about the people who work for South East Wales Pilotage, the Pilots and Cutter crew

The boat is specially designed for transport of up to 12 passengers and 2 crewat high speeds. Sheltered steering position with full enclosed front, raises the comfort onboard. The boat is significantly lighter than the market average which benefits fuel consumption and adds to the already proven seaworthiness. 9m ProZero P-top crew boat is designed for quick and safe transfer mission of personel and cargo. The boat is built in light-weight materials to decrease weight and enhance mission...

The P and O ship Adonia leaving Lisbon on 3-11-14. This was the Pilot's second attempt to leave the ship. A smaller cutter found the seas too rough to take off the Pilot so this larger cutter took over.

Who has ever boarded a helicopter? What was the feeling like?

At Safehaven Marine it was great to be able to launch a new pilot boat for the Port of San Ciprian in Spain after nearly 2 months of Lockdown. She was nearly finished at the start of the lockdown. It sure was nice to be on the water again, even with social distancing.
We wanted to do something nice to lift everyone's spirits during these challenging times around the World, so we did a fly past our home Port of Cobh in Thunder Child II (Safehaven’s Transatlantic record attempt vessel) in...