Pilotage in a strong current

At the end of the disembarking procedure, the pilot jumps on ropes onto the pilot boat. Is this often seen practice safe? Can the pilot resolve the situation better?

Die Lotsenbrüderschaft Elbe ist ein geschlossener Kreis, der sich nicht gern in die Karten schauen lässt. Wer dort Mitglied werden und bis zu 400 Meter lange Containerpötte in den Hamburger Hafen steuern möchte, muss hohe Anforderungen erfüllen. Bewerber müssen mehrere Jahre lang zur See gefahren sein, um ausreichend Fahrpraxis zu haben. Aber es gibt immer weniger deutsche Seeleute, weil die Reeder billigere Kräfte aus dem Ausland bevorzugen. Dadurch wird es zunehmend schwierig,...

Pilot Boat build by Abeking & Rasmussen, Germany.

It is time to depart Miami on our 5 Day Florida & Bahamas cruise aboard Norwegian Sky - follow along as we pass South Beach and watch the pilot leave the ship and head back to Miami!

Editor's note: The pilot boarding seems a bit improvised and unsafe to me, but that's certainly business as usual, isn't it?

The good old times: 1940. Found on YouTube. Created by "British Pathé" Titles read: "PILOT AHOY! A PATHETONE SPECIAL" New York, United States of America. Good aerial views of dozens of merchant ships entering New York's harbour. Various shots of life aboard a New York pilot cutter. The pilot is rowed out to a merchant ship, goes aboard and then is picked up again. Apprentice pilots on board a training ship scrub the decks, lower a rowing boat over the side and study charts with a senior...

Pilot Boat 68 heads out in choppy seas in the Dardanelles

In fact, the pivot point that we “see” is a trick of the eye, it looks like the ship is rotating about this point but in fact it is elsewhere, a point that you cannot see.

Built by Luke Powell and his working Sail Yard in Truro, Cornwall, launched in February 2020. The lines were taken from the Vincent, a Falmouth Pilot cutter built in 1852 for the Vincent family of St Mawes. She worked for 70 years as a pilot boat, finally retiring in 1922 and ending her days as a houseboat on the Percuil River very close to the yard where she had been built. When the idea to build a new pilot cutter of considerable size was born, the lines of Vincent were seen as the...