Connor Foss Pilot Boat in Astoria

Vlaanderen is één van de drukste scheepvaartregio’s ter wereld. Loodsen assisteren schepen bij het aanlopen en verlaten van de havens in Vlaanderen. De bemanning van Vloot zorgt ervoor dat de loodsen aan en van boord geraken van de te beloodsen schepen. Op zee maken ze hiervoor gebruik van de Wandelaar, een SWATH en een jol.

Safehaven Marine undertook an 800nm 4 day cruise in Thunder Child II to Scotland, living off the boat to visit a place called the Gulf of Corryvreckan. A pretty wild yet beautiful place. The Corryvreckan whirlpool, or ‘Maelstrom’, as would be a more appropriate description, is formed as the tide enters the narrow stretch of water between the Islands of Jura and Scarba that is the Gulf of Corryvreckan. Here the tidal flow speeds up to 8.5kts as it is squeezed between the islands, and there...

Here’s a video of recent Sea trials during ‘Storm Bram’ aboard the ‘all weather’ Interceptor 48 ‘Northeast Pilot III’ we built for the North East pilots at Newport, Rhode Island in the USA. With winds of Storm Force 11 and heavy breaking waves conditions were pretty wild, and proved a good test for her seakeeping abilities, especially her stability where she recovered nicely from a hard 90 degree knock down. Also respect to the seamanship of the captain aboard Fokko Ukena whom we filmed and...

A few shots from the day, with Elisabeth-S and H&S Fairness plus the pilot boat. I put music to it as it was such a windy day.

"Person over board - all pilot boat crewmembers and pilots should be trained in recovery as realistic as possible. Don’t wait for a real emergency to find out that something doesn’t work as intended!"

All five crew of pilot vessel POLLUX PILOT VESSEL, Dutch Pilotage Service, came up with positive test after self-testing on 9 January 2022.

Over the past few years a number of pilot transfer accidents have occurred resulting from total failure of the side ropes, one school of thought is that the methods of securing a pilot ladder is a factor in such occurrences.

Tips by Captain Kris.
kris@mes.de
krisdedecker

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