Maritime Education #5: Pilotage Operations on General Cargo ship

When the bow thruster has been in operation for a while, pilots often notice that the ship not only turns but also gains speed. But why is this? Opinion by Capt. Hugues Cauvier.

RINA ACT Technical Meeting
23 November 2021
Port Ash Australia: Ship Handling Training & Research Centre
By A. Beazley, Port Ash, Australia

This video explores the question of why ships are so difficult to manoeuvre in reverse.

In this video, you can take a look at what happened when the Napoli broke her back and was run aground on the south coast of the UK.

The role of a Tug Master undertaking harbour towage activities is a very specific one. He/she has to, alone or in cooperation with other Tug Masters, assist a ship in a safe and efficient way using his/her tug to the best of its qualities. 

Within seconds after the AIS MOB personal locator beacon easyONE-DSC is submerged into the water, the unit activates automatically and starts trasnmitting AIS and DSC alerts into vicinity of up to 7 nauticval miles.
You can also see the bright and strong red LED flare flashing which increases visibility of the victim in darkness drastically.
More product information

Each pilot association and each country can get a good overview of how other colleagues approach safety.
Ship crews can see which rules apply in which country.
In any case, this list from IMPA is worth looking through and reading.

This pilot course is the first of the capacity-building efforts of the three-year project on enhancing regional research, capacity building and convening of stakeholders towards a safer maritime domain in the Gulf of Guinea.

Interesting video by "JeffHK" from Hong Kong about the job of a maritime pilot.