The Rotterdam Pilot

When coming alongside with the tender to pick up our colleague from an outbound ship, it appeared the spreader on the pilot ladder was broken. This is an example of how dangerous our job can be. It it had not been noticed by the tender crew and if the pilot had stepped on it, he would certainly have ended in the cold Northsea!

The inbound container vessel VISTULA MAERSK , 200 m long, was inbound to APMT terminal in the Europahaven, in Port of Rotterdam , assisted by 2 tugs MARS and ADVENTURE. Excellent and very professional job by ships crew, bridgeteam, tugs and linesmen.

The recent storm Ciara has forced us to use the helicopter for boarding ships for an extended period of time since this weekend. The inbound MT RYMAN , 250 m long and drawing 13,6m deep came into port today, underway to BP jetty 1 in Oil harbour 6 in Port of Rotterdam . Thanks to the professional crew and bridgeteam of RYMAN it was a pleasant and smooth operation from start to finish.

The job of the Maritime Pilot involves transferring from the piloted ship to a tender or fast launch vice versa. In the below video the outbound ELBCARRIER is disembarked at Maascenter pilot station, on a winter night. All procedures and safety measures are in place to make this critical operation succesfull.