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...

Video made for information only.

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.

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 .

More on the power of Simulation and Training: https://pages.wartsila.digital/simulation-and-training-yt
ISTLAB photos by SAMK / Pekka Lehmuskallio

Today, we embark on a voyage into the intricate world of ship types. From massive container ships to nimble oil tankers, we'll explore the unique challenges each vessel presents.

IMPA received the 2022 SAFETY4SEA Initiative Award for conducting annually its ‘Pilot Ladder Safety Campaign’ with the objective of reporting pilots’ experiences of ladders and boarding equipment to the IMO and the wider shipping community.

Pelican Pilot Boat offered by SC Chambers

While in many western countries of the world, pilots there have already been preferentially vaccinated against COVID-19, pilots in other countries such as Malaysia are struggling to get vaccinated.

When I was a deck officer back in the early nineties I worked on a ship that used to load grain at different ports along the Mississippi river. The name of the ship was Golden Hope, a 600 feet long dry bulk carrier with a 95 feet in beam. An average size vessel for those days' standards.