Interview with Charlie Sarafian, New Caledonian marine pilot

Many thanks to Capt. Pilot Evan Simkus for the insight into the working day!

Ahmed is an ideas man. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, he came up with a way to protect pilots from infection by driving incoming ships remotely, allowing his team to virtually board foreign ships rather than encounter new people in person, which would have put his colleagues at risk.

How do marine pilots work? Example: Bringing a bulkcarrier alongside to „Hansaport“ in Hamburg. Here the tugboats „Prompt“, „Resolute“ and „Bulldog“ are involved. The master has to rely on the pilot. One reason is, that he can‘t know how to deal with these tugs. A maneuver like this is only safe, when the pilot has a lot of practical experience. A master who is doing a maneuver like this only about once or twice a month and each time with tugs he doesn’t know in areas he hasn’t been to...

The pilots make docking mega-ships look easy despite the meteorological disturbance.
Great pictures from Morocco

Northwest passage

Pilot Boat Mouth of River Boyne - Escorting ship towards the port - Friday 25th February 2022

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Entrainement sur simulateur des pilotes du Havre-Fécamp : pilotage des barges transportant les embases gravitaires du champ éolien offshore de Fécamp. Plus de 500 H de formation et de travail préparatoire ont été nécessaires pour préparer ces opérations de pilotage portuaire exceptionnelles

To monitor the vessel’s progress, the pilot had set up his portable pilotage unit (PPU). He had connected the rate-of-turn generator to the vessel’s pilot plug and had set a variable range marker on the radar with a radius of 0.5 nm.

Recording of cruise ship Pilots boarding from boat at speed