Pilot Boat Damaged

Pilot Boat Damaged
Report No. 200128

While going alongside an outward bound ferry, the pilot boat approach was a little ahead of the ideal position. The skipper decided to come away from the vessel and do a rerun, rather than drop astern, which he felt risked damaging the boat's superstructure on the ferry's belting.

He therefore drove the launch ahead. Unfortunately, due to some interaction (possibly increased due to nearness of the bow) she was pulled underneath the vessel's belting forward of the shoulder, and damage to her safety rail and hand rails occurred. No one was injured and the pilot was taken off safely on the rerun.

The situation was made worse by the shape of the vessel and the location of the pilot door near to the ferry's shoulder.
At the time of the incident the crew of the pilot boat were positioned well clear at the aft end, waiting for instructions as to when the skipper considered the boat to be in a safe position for them to go to the ladder and call the pilot down. This is standard practice!

Although the boat was able to return and take the pilot off without further incident she was taken off station after close inspection of the safety rail showed that it could not be used in the midships area without repair.

The above raises the following issues:-

1. Means of boarding and landing of personnel by boat at sea with this type of vessel is not properly considered during the design stage:-

• The pilot door is high and close to the shoulder. There is no access midships.
• The standard pilot ladder is difficult to use because of the large size of the belting.
• The vessel cuts away below the belting. Not a problem if the pilot boat can lay against the belting and there is no swell or roll. However, on this vessel, the height of the belting and the cut away increases near the shoulder.

1. Interaction is used in most cases to assist in holding the boat in position while the pilot is descending the ladder. However, this can be dangerous if the ladder is not amidships.
2. Our pilots advise me that poor ladder location is not only a problem when dealing with ferries:-

• The ladder is often sited for the convenience of the vessel's crew towards the stern of the vessel rather than midships. This can mean that the lower part of the ladder is not resting against the side of the vessel.
• In some cases there is no gate midships.
• On one particular bulk carrier a combination ladder could only be rigged midships with the gangway leading forward. The gangway was permanently fixed this way from when the vessel was new. This created problems for the boat skipper in getting the boat near without getting underneath the gangway.

1. The importance of teamwork, discipline, training and experience for pilot boat crews. Special skills are needed that cannot readily be learned other than by working on a pilot boat

Further to the above, it is sometimes suggested that we can avoid such issues by arranging to board a vessel at a previous port. This is hardly likely to be a satisfactory solution since many vessels come to us from as far away as Australia and would need to deviate. In any case we usually do not become aware of a problem before the vessel arrives. Even with coastal vessels there may well be emergency situations when it is necessary to board a vessel by boat.

It is my view therefore that more effort is needed to ensure that boarding and landing of pilots is properly considered as part of the design and construction of vessels.