Thinking about the Bright Field? She lost propulsion coming up on the turn, and by pure chance avoided killing thousands of geriatrics on a river boat casino. The accident report is a classic horror story of neglected maintenance, worthy of a thread of its own. They uncovered fun stuff like cracked cylinder liners stick welded and “finished” with an angle grinder, but what finally killed the plant was lube oil sludge. This (or a similar case study) should be a mandatory part of the curriculum at the maritime schools.
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Well said on the safety advantages of the state franchised pilot system.
My main argument against many state associations was that these franchises became full of nepotism in the past. That has been and is changing. The issue, IMO, is with the inherent politics of the state boards that oversee these groups. That monitor or set the hiring practices, the training requirements and set the tariffs. These are political groups, at a clear expertise disadvantage to the pilot members, and susceptible to all the influenced a group of wealthy experts with a clear vested interest can excert.
That said, I have no clue what to do about that.
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Many years ago the US Flag ship I was on would switch back and forth on different trips between the Federal Pilots, and the State organizations. By far, and not even close, back 20 years ago the NOBRA pilots were inferior to the federal pilots, and even to the other state groups. I would imagine that has changed over the years.
From memory now - so could be wrong on the details. But I remember 1 NOBRA pilot who was involved in multiple incidents - maybe as high a 7, and continued to be allowed to work. Clearly this person was not suited for the job, and the Association or the State Pilot Board should have interceded.
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I do know that many industry groups, with an interest in the port and its operations, form groups/committees to voice their interests in port operations and costs. My experience with these is their effectiveness is variable. Better in some ports than in others. Or when the groups interests align - such as increasing the port activity. But the Pilots always have the very strong safety trump card to play, and as the acknowledged experts, are hard to argue against.
Could you expand on that? The equivalent of harbor pilots hardly exist in the flying world, maybe for one or two airports only.
Do you mean the airlines should listen to their pilot’s unions? That having two competing dispatch operations would be bad because the more permissive one would get the business? That is true, but dispatchers external to the company don’t exist AFAIK.
Thank you Klaveness for sparking my memory. It was “Bright Field”. I was referring to. That cartoon by the local newspaper continues to give me a chuckle when shit happens all over our seafaring world. Guy nailed it. …
In a sense, the flying world has ATC, which functions in similar manner by directing the course, speed and altitude of aircraft in a fairly comprehensive way, albeit in an environment that is quite different from the maritime. I’ve met a couple airline pilots who, when taking their personal vessels into an area with VTS were quite disappointed in that it wasn’t much like the ATC they were used to 
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Most of these matters are properly handled by VTS, Harbour Master (port authorities), ship agent, terminal operator, maritime architects (hydro/offshore engineering) and even sometimes by the ship’s captain. Of course, in cooperation with, among others the maritime pilot or his association(s), but most often only as an advisory body.
Captain. Not so fast 
. Having yourself advocated caution regarding conclusions and patience to wait for NTSB results , this change of heart and suggestion to introduce strike-outs beats me .
What was her max draft ?? as surely the max canal depth has not changed in the area . The breadth could change, due to furious salvors digging . She de-ballasted a lot prior final freeing effort - we do not know how much.
And I can bet she did not ballast again upon re-loading due to a) concern about her ballast treatment system ( engineers concern mostly) and b) inherently this babies have huge GM during coastal port rotation.
Draft on marine traffic site is AIS generated and it is a user -defined and entered input. We have no precise info about her fore and aft drafts on 2nd dep BAL as well as 1st dep BAL., as 13 mtrs could be max draft or mean or even keel depending on the whim of input handler irrespective whether it was master or OOW getting the bridge ready for departure .
The links to draft sensors are not provided yet to AIS ,due to their poor reliability and need for constant/continuous calibration by comparing them with eyeballed drafts at the pier. Let’s wait .
Spowiednick,
Allow me to explain my change in thinking once I noted the departure AIS track.
This incident has had very high public exposure, will incur significant salvage costs, has exposed shippers/consignees to general average claims, has exposed the Port’s poor infrastructure, has once again put Evergreen under the spotlight and additionally has brought attention to the Pilotage service provider.
Yet, on departure from Baltimore the vessel passes the grounding position at exactly the same speed as pre grounding. Being mindful that AIS data is freely available one would assume that if there was any doubt about the speed being related to the grounding then common sense would dictate that, on the first departure post grounding, all exposed parties would both demand and exercise a degree of caution. Although, this was not the case.
From this I have assumed that the investigating parties, having had access to both the VDR and involved personnel for 40 days, possess a reasonably good perspective on what occurred that night.
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Yes, competing ATC systems would be a huge mess. I have heard what were aparently airplane pilots obviously new to boats calling the USCG and VTS for vectors to someplace and not liking the answer 
The ship knew exactly what happened either within 30 seconds of running aground, or within 30 minutes if something down below happened.
It’s only a mystery to the rest of us at this point.
Even if a Federal pilot could take the ship up the bay regulatory wise, they have very little experience with something that big. The only vessels that take Federal pilots in the bay these days are the bigger ATB units.
Federal Pilots are restricted to USA flagged ships. And speaking for the Federal Pilots of Louisiana, are very good at it.
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The Federal Pilots of LA are probably the busiest and most experienced group of Federal Pilots as well.
The pilot boards hold the purse strings through their power to set pilotage rates. The “wealthy experts” would not remain wealthy if they get into an adversarial relationship with a healthy pilot board. The two entities are best off when they work together for the benefit of the port and the community.
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It is always in both the Pilot board and the Pilots interest to have a non - adversarial relationship - the issue is that friendly relationship always serve the best interests of those using the port.
This a unique set of tensions set up between the pilots, pilot boards, industry groups, environmental groups on the use of ports. They all may have competing interests, and still have the same ultimate goal.
As an aside - Within the last year or so, I was commercially involved with a vessel that was denied entry to a port because it had an LOA that was less than 3 cm too long - about an inch. When I first received the news I just assumed that this could obviously be managed in some way. However, that did not happen. And it turned out the ports pilots were the source of the denial. So I called, introduced myself and gave a little background so they at least knew I had some level of experience. Still assuming this could be worked easily, with some exercise of judgement from the Pilots. However, I was wrong again, there was no getting around this no was no. There explanation was we have to draw a line somewhere, and that is where we draw it and we don’t allow any waivers.
The issue itself was obviously workable, and while I understand the need to draw some line, that line should not be an excuse not to exercise good professional judgement.
I highlight this not because of the issue itself, but to highlight the level of power given to the group by the pilot board, and with little to no concern for any pushback from the industry groups using the port.
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The terminal that ship was going to knows what LOA the pilots will bring in. So lay blame on the terminal, not the pilots. They pilots have whatever restriction they have for their own reasons. You’re not the one bringing it in, they are. And if that’s the line, that’s the line.
There is also a legal argument involved with this issue.
Invariably, a set of shiphandling rules for each port are scientifically developed via simulation and experience regarding local conditions. This establishes the extremes for vessel size, draft and meteorological conditions. Should a Pilot work outside these rules and wind up having an accident then any half decent legal team is going to rip him/her a new …hole.
On a few occasions we were asked to work outside the rules and our response was……”Certainly on the proviso that you issue us with a letter of indemnity which has had full legal scrutiny”. The letter was never forthcoming and we did not work outside the rules.
Look at the “Ever Given” fiasco. The SCA issues a 352 page RON document which is not adhered to……speed outside the rules and no escort tugs. The whole matter is covered up in addition to Evergreen and the associated shippers/consignees being totally reemed. Because they worked outside the rules.
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this was a channel restriction - set by the pilots, not a terminal issue.