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VTS - Pilot, Who's in Charge

18K views 71 replies 30 participants last post by  jmcg 
#1 ·
Following on from the obvious thread it would be interesting to hear from respective members their thoughts on this topic. I sensed some tension between the two on my visits to European ports in the final couple of years of my career.

Brgds

Bill Davies
 
#2 ·
Irrelevant I know , but one of the first jobs I applied for after being made
redundant was with the VTS service on the River Schelde ( Dutch Side).
Got knocked back as they said my radar experience was so much out of date
it would cost € 36,000 to retrain me.

The explanation that my radar experience was from the time that you learned
to interpretate what the CRT was telling you rather than having electronics
do it for you didn't seem make much impression .

Sorry Bill , not really relevant but perhaps shows how experience does not
seem to figure greatly in VTS schemes - over here anyway.
 
#8 ·
I guess the Pilot and the VTS person work for the same employer so if they can't get on together that's their problem. The job of the Master is to make sure it doesn't become his.

I looked at some web sites dealing with the collision in the Mersey between a vessel and the Incat and was surprised at the low quality of the radar pictures.

It appears to me (as a layman) that the Cat should have been told to stop or hold her position while the other ship sorted herself out. This incident doesn't reflect very well on anyone, Pilot, Master or VTS or Port Control (what is the set up in the Mersey?)
 
#11 ·
I guess the Pilot and the VTS person work for the same employer so if they can't get on together that's their problem. The job of the Master is to make sure it doesn't become his.


Tacho,
That is my concern.
Detected an atmosphere from Pilots in several European ports in particular one UK Oil port where the VTS intervention was not welcome.
Much talk about the V103 qualifications of the VTS operatives and their lack of practical experience. Conveniently ignoreing the recent STCW qualifications of the trainee Pilot.

Understand the consecutive Dublin Bay grounding in 2005 were VTS/Pilot related due in the main to the Pilots poor relationship with the VTS (they are ex ratings with V103 ' a Pilots comment').These men, the Pilots, have Mate (HT) and a few with Class 1 Deck.

If we did the job we are paid for rather than massage 'egos' we would doing ok.
 
#9 ·
here is an article by Carl Nolte at cnolte@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 10 of the San Francisco Chronicle today

which hilights the Pilot,Master,VHS situation


Ship may have strayed from course before spill, records show
Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

At 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, Capt. John J. Cota, the bar pilot in charge of navigating the container ship Cosco Busan, radioed the Coast Guard vessel traffic service on Yerba Buena Island with an urgent message.

"I touched the delta tower," he told the traffic service, which monitors ship movements in and out of the bay. It may have been the understatement of the year.

Cota was reporting that the 902-foot-long container ship, displacing 65,131 tons, had run into the wooden fender surrounding one of the towers that hold up the Bay Bridge. The ship was traveling at about 11 knots, senior Coast Guard officials said.

The "touch" caused a tear in the side of the ship - a gash 160 feet long and 4 feet deep - rupturing the fuel tanks. Approximately 58,000 gallons of diesel fuel spilled into the bay - the biggest oil spill there in 20 years. It was a historic event, too - the first time a ship had ever hit the Bay Bridge since work began on the suspension towers almost 74 years ago.

"The cause of this accident," said Adm. Thad Allen, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, "was human error."

Allen was careful not to fix blame on any individual.

Cota's lawyer, John Meadows, told the Associated Press that his client thought the impact was minor. "He told me that you could hardly feel anything on the ship," the lawyer said.

This version of events, however, was disputed by Coast Guard officers. They said a man of Cota's experience should have known that a ship traveling at that speed would do a lot of damage.

Rear Adm. Craig Bone, the senior Coast Guard commander on San Francisco Bay, compared a moving ship to an elephant. "An elephant doesn't touch you," he said. "An elephant hits you."

Neither the Coast Guard nor the National Transportation Safety Board has released a transcript of the incident, but using information from ship pilots, captains, mariners who monitored the conversations between the ship and the Coast Guard vessel traffic service (VTS), and electronic tracks of the ship's course, it is possible to recreate the chain of events.

The Cosco Busan also was equipped with radar, a Global Positioning System, radios and an automatic identification system, a device that transmits the ship's position automatically every few seconds. The identification system made it possible to track and record the Cosco Busan's movements.

The track of the ship shows the Cosco Busan making a wide turn to the southwest, then swinging on a sharp right turn that took it into the bridge tower.

The track can be seen on www.boatingsf.com, a Web site for recreational boaters. BoatingSF picked up the identification system's transmissions on receivers in Berkeley and at the Corinthian Yacht Club in Tiburon.

A senior Coast Guard source said the Web site's information is "generally correct."

On Wednesday morning, the ship was docked at Berth 55 on the Oakland Estuary. It was chartered to Hanjin Shipping of Seoul. The vessel had just changed ownership, and the 21 officers and crew were making their first voyage with the ship.

The officers and crew were all Chinese. Though the navigating officers and the helmsmen were required to speak English, it is not clear how fluent they were.

Their fluency is an issue, because the accident's cause may include what mariners call "bridge resource management," or how the pilots and crew interact.

Cota, the bar pilot, came aboard about an hour before sailing. He met the captain of the ship and the officer of the watch. He probably was introduced to the helmsman, who would actually steer the ship under his orders.

The four men on the bridge were the key characters in what was to follow.

Cota, 59, is a graduate of the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo and holds a license to command any ship in any waters. Additionally, he holds an endorsement on his license as a pilot on San Francisco Bay and its approaches. But the ultimate responsibility of the ship is borne by the master, or captain, whose name has not been released. The pilot gives advice to the captain on navigating the ship. It is rare to disregard this advice, and captains seldom do.

When the ship departed, the weather was foggy, visibility less than a mile. Cota checked with the vessel traffic service, using VHF radio channel 14. All commercial vessels monitor this channel, and all are required to check in with the vessel traffic service.

According to those familiar with the transmissions, Cota told the Coast Guard traffic service that the fog had lifted a bit, and he was prepared to get under way for sea. His intention, he said, was to go through the Delta-Echo span on the San Francisco side of the Bay Bridge. That passage is between the two towers closest to Yerba Buena Island.

The Cosco Busan was accompanied by a 78-foot tug named Revolution. The tug did not appear to have played any role in what followed.

First, Cota had to get his ship around the dredge Njord, which was anchored in the estuary.

Once in the bay, the approach to the Delta-Echo span is fairly straightforward in clear weather, according to several pilots.

But Cota was in dense fog. He had to rely on his electronic devices and the bridge team.

At some point, according to the automatic identification system, the ship steered left, away from the course that would take it to the channel between the two bridge towers.

It is not clear why this happened. Sometimes, the seaman at the helm will misunderstand the bar pilot's orders, said Capt. John Konrad, a master mariner who runs a maritime Web site called gCaptain.com.

But, he said, "the pilot is supposed to be checking the helmsman, the mate is supposed to be checking as well, and the master is there observing it all."

Capt. John Keever, commanding officer of the California Maritime Academy's training ship Golden Bear, said the bar pilot "is supposed to make sure they understand what he wants them to do. A lot of times they (the man at the helm or officers) don't do what they are told."

Coming out of the estuary, Keever said, "it is critical that (the ship) makes that right turn." Instead, the ship went left. "It had to be a mistake that they went left," he said.

Not long afterward, the vessel traffic service called the Cosco Busan to tell Cota that he was on the wrong course. The ship was heading parallel to the Bay Bridge, instead of on a course that would take it under the bridge.

Cota at first disputed the vessel traffic service message, saying, "That's not what I see here." After hitting the bridge, Cota proceeded to an anchorage off Treasure Island and stopped. He then reported the accident in more detail and said the ship was leaking oil.
JC
 
#10 ·
I have posted this note on the other thread regarding this same subject ... we have an interesting incident here in the San Francisco Bay which occurred last Wednesday 7 November at about 0830 hrs when the container vessel "Cosco Busan", outbound from Oakland, California, struck the concrete base platform for the "Delta Tower of the Bay Bridge (Oakland/San Francisco) at her starboard side, tearing an approximate 80 ft long by 10 ft high gash in her hull about 10 feet below the white painted sign HANJIN, releasing an estimated 58,000 gals of fuel oil ... ship otherwise okay. Had a pilot plus escort tug in variable heavy to dense fog conditions. See web site www.boatingsf.com for a video on the matter. Cheers, Snowy
 
#15 ·
The rationale behind VTS is to assist vessels to navigate safely within a port or port area. The VTS operator is able to give advice to vessels, either to assist manoeuvering (as in the case of Southampton VTS where the VTS give advice to large container vessels making the turn off calshot spit into Southampton water, where the largest vessels have an underkeel clearance of 0.6 metres), or to give navigational information (buoys out of position, tidal rates and directions or other vessel movements), or in extreme cases to avoid close quarters situations or collisions. However, in all cases, the VTS operator can give advice only and has no power to order the Master or Pilot of a vessel to take specific action.

In the UK, the majority of VTS operators are currently ex MN Officers or ex RN personnel, who one would hope, have at least some experience of ship handling. However, this does not mean that this situation will change in the future. some ports are already looking to recruit VTS operators directly from school!
 
#16 ·
I think the way to go is to train Pilots straight from school, a masters ticket and experience deep sea has very little relevance to pilotage in my opinion. Why does a pilot need to have spent years in the middle of the ocean miles from land? Give me a lad with three good "A" levels or a degree and I could train him to be a first class pilot in 5 years.
 
#18 ·
I would not disagree with you John and the USA Pilots are testimony to your thinking however, I am trying to address the Pilot/VTS interface. I have given a few examples I have witnessed where there is clear hipocracy. And, being well aware of the principle behind VTS (Control of Space etc, etc) should this not be considered a boon to Pilots. I would welcome such assistance. Unfortunately my experience has shown this potential assistance is reluctantly accepted and is akin to 'big brother'.
 
#17 ·
Also I remember an incident many years ago reported in our local paper when a master of a Norwegian ferry against, pilots and VTS advice insisted on picking his pilot up inside the Tyne piers in dense fog!!!!!after a VHF argument the pilot lay just inside the piers and waited and waited till the master screamed "Where is my pilot" unfortunately he had entered Sunderland by mistake, his ship handling skills prevented a disaster but his navigation skills were found wanting.
 
#21 ·
tacho, you are right, but the point i was trying to make is that a deep sea ticket may not be the best qualification for a pilot. I see the day when a pilot will be trained ashore in all aspects of his port, shadowing ships agents, tug masters, line handlers, port ops, the harbour master and most important of all other pilots and maybe a short coastal trip or two. This training along with college and simulator could I think produce a first class pilot without the necessity of years at sea. i do think the present system turns out excellent pilots but I do think a new way would produce pilots of at least as good quality and at an earlier age, extending thier pilotage career possible by another ten years.
 
#22 ·
There is no straightforward formula for the recruitment of pilots. Whether the applicant has a Master FG or 3 'A' Levels or whatever other qualifications. It is a fact that some of the above will never be suitable candidates. Years at sea as Master does not mean you are a good ship handler or ever will be. In my opinion the best candidates come partially trained, ie they have a proven experience of ship handling. The best training (again in my opinion) is the old fashioned 'tripping' where the new pilot can learn and be assessed by other pilots before being authorised.

As far as the Pilot /VTS interface is concerned, a lot of UK ports have a rostered pilot on duty in VTS and I have never experienced a problem. In fact it would be dificult to operate efficiently without VTS.

regards
Dave
 
#24 · (Edited)
I think a lot of the American Pilots are like that.
In a similar vein, I remember being aboard a ship heading into Brisbane a few years back and the Pilot we had aboard was on about shortage of personnel etc (primarily down to Aussie having a next to non existent fleet) available.
As I recall, he said one of the solutions they were looking at was taking men 'off the street' and putting them through some form of Portfolio based training, similar to the NVQ system we have in the UK. Whether this was ever implemented I do not know as I haven't been back there for about 5 years.
Both the Brizzy Pilots and the Torres Strait mob had those laptops connected to a GPS receiver mounted on the bridge wing - first time I'd seen an Electronic chart!
I'd have thought some of the more sensible systems were those found in the likes of Liverpool and on the Tyne, where young lads were apprenticed at 16 on the Pilot cutters, were then sent deep sea to get enough time for their tickets and then returned as Pilots (after a period of training). That way the had the best of both worlds in that whilst maintaining a working knowledge of the locality they were able to experience different ship types, ports etc.
Perhaps that could be an answer to the perennially personnel strapped shipping companies and Pilotage authorities?
 
#26 ·
That is a very important point , Bill, (post number 25). Whether it is one of your own on VTS, or afloat, you immediately know that he knows exactly what you are having to contend with. On one occasion I can recall, that rather than find myself in close quarters with an outward bound R.N. ship doing his own pilotage, I took a round turn out of the large spirit tanker I was piloting before entering the North Edinburgh channel. Anyone with memories of the TRUCULENT disaster would do likewise.
It is so very important to know what the out-bound ship is having to deal with, and you, in the inbound ship, feel assured that he knows what you are having to contend with. This awareness is denied to ship handlers who only occasionally pilot their ships in a district that is not too familiar to them.
 
#27 ·
Thankyou Pilot Mac
As many of you know the last thread on this subject produced a very heated discussion.
In the Uk VTS has become a very important tool in the operation of our Ports and Rivers It is not there to take away the lawful right of a Shipsmaster to Navigate his own vessel nor interfere with the Pilotage operation. It is there to advise and to control shipping in its designated area in order that it can help to avoid a major shipping incident.
VTS is an important function of Port Management as it monitors a vessel fom its arrival within the Port Limits until its Departure
It carries out Safety and Equipment Checks on Vessels
Gathers important information on Ships Carges and controls the passage and information of Dangerous Goods
Directs vessels to safe Anchorages
Directs vessels to Pilot Boarding Areas
Has an overview of the entire area it operates in and passes on navigational information to vessels as required
Has a series of reporting points to ensure other port users are aware of vessels on the move
Has a responsibility for the Navigational Aids within the area
Arranges Towage
Arranges Berthing with the Ports
Controls all marine emergencies within its area and has constant contact with the emergency services
These are only some of the duties carried out on a daily basis by the VTS people. They do a good job they are mainly Professional Mariners like yourselves Not Policemen. They are there to assist the Shipmaster and keep our Ports and Harbours safe,
TomS
 
#28 ·
Complementarity of the two would be obvious for everyone around here.
Pilot represent the on-site eyes of the vts operator who has an overview of the vicinity. I think that one is in need of the other and vice-versa. Tensions should be underconsidered as far as they are specific to every human being, not to services or entities. Suppose that there were no pilots and no Vts in the river Thames, who is the LNG Master who will dare to enter and reach Isle of Grain??
 
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