Right.
You seem to have retired long time ago 
UMS 16 hrs and even 24hrs has been around since I remember which is abt 1982 ;-).
But to be honest I can not imagine safe ops of the ship w/o a good and reliable engineer who will tell me things He is unwilling to tell the management
UMS doesn’t mean a permanently unmanned engine room,
There are still some “sleeping beauties” ready to storm down to the control room when needed.
You are right, I have never served on a ship with EO / UMS class, but I have been able to learnt about the development of E/R automation from multiple sources.
PS>You don’t have to be present everywhere to learn about what is happening in the world these days.
You just have to be able to separate the relevant info from the BS. (which is getting harder by the day)
Dr.Bugge Dear. Do not be so touchy. You should have known me already
As Mr Hogsnort said earlier about the length and the separation of the props.
Also Maersk Masters are reluctant to twin screw due to simulator trials.
In reality the use of the split rudders and twin screwing does have an effect on the turning of these vessels but the pilot does have to be very convincing to get them to even try. Probably more effect in controlling the fore and aft speed than anything else.
Also the Sea Pilot will have little or no experience in actually handling ships, a major fault IMHO of the Sea Pilot/ Docking Pilot system.
I was a Sea Pilot but we were also the ones that Docked them as well.
The time on passage (4 hours Pilot Station to berth ) gives you some time to build a relationship with the Master so they have more confidence in you when you want to do something that is a little alien to them.
I would use the split rudders and twin screw if I could convince them to try it but truthfully there is more than one way to crack an egg so I could also work without if they insisted.
Don’t honestly know if it would work in this situation as opposed to giving it the gun under full rudder.
I think the mistake was easing the wheel in the turn.
It’s their ship at the end of the day.
Edit to add
Our simulator did not have the capacity to split rudders so we could only twin screw using both rudders together on the Triple E ship model.
I wonder if the simulator used by Maersk was the same
Have You ever asked them to explain the reasons of such possition. If so what did they say. ?
Another issue. Asking your opinion.
Is it valid to assume that, if the sea pilot and/or master had intimate knowledge of data contained in wheel house poster that includes but is not limited to tactical circulation data under different m/e settings would that have possibly contributed to avoiding the grounding ?
The master should be familiar with the manoeuvring characteristics of his/ her vessel but in truth they get very little chance to put that knowledge into practice in the class of ship that we are discussing here. IMHO a simulator course is not the same as doing it, of course it’s better than nothing. Mr 244 has a good handle on what pilots know of operations in Europe and I would imagine that docking pilots would have done a number of simulations manoeuvring and berthing vessels of this size and exchanged notes between them. A sea pilot not so much.
Blockquote
spowiednickRegular
Do You think it is a good idea???
The pilot should be familiar with the sea area he is piloting in and usually uses his own unit to help with situation awareness leaving an ECDIS display free for the OOW .
My reference to cruise ships is under pilotage they will all have two mates and the Master on the bridge and the modern ones have a bridge layout that fits with modern BRM practices. In the best circumstances the master will feel comfortable looking out the window with and occasional glance at the display, because he is being supplied with all the information he needs.
My only experience with a twin screw container ship had outward turning props and a single rudder. Low speed maneuvering was grey hair territory.
Think we are talking Big Whites here 
Yes they contributed towards my grey hair 
You mean Safmarine Whites ?
Spo.
The Triple E s were a totally different animal to anything we had seen before.
For example the E class which for a very long time were the only 400m container ships around are actually fairly easy to handle once you get used to the sheer size. They had a single engine that shoved out almost 130000 hp and was able to propel these things along at 27kts . They have very fine lines and one of the biggest problems was the lack of parallel body with IIRC around 130m so the danger of a crane strike if not landed parallel was high. Having said that equipped with powerful Bow and Stern Thrusters and a large rudder were fairly benign to handle.
The Triple Es came along and they were much boxier being more like a tanker in hull form. They gained nothing in length a small amount in beam and 2m loaded draft. I think loaded displacement was around 235000t . They lost the stern thruster but gained twin screw and split rudders. The most important thing from my point of view is that both engines combined produced 80000 hp, that’s a loss of almost 50000 hp a very significant amount with a much heavier ship.
The Captain’s of these ships had to deal with Pilots all over the world who had never handled what I term as the new generation of container ships. Unlike the Ocean Greyhounds of earlier years these things are underpowered and handle very much like tankers with the added complication of high windage.
They had to be self confident and very assertive.
Most cargo ship officers are not twin screw men. How many people outside of Offshore and specialist ships have used split rudders. Are the trainers at the simulators familiar with these systems and the capabilities.
As you well know Pilotage involves a dialogue between Master and Pilot, and also as you well know some Pilots will instill confidence while others will instill fear
What happens when you put a very confident assertive Captain on the same bridge as a very confident and assertive Pilot.?
A compromise is reached (or a fist fight breaks out )
So my attitude was . If it makes him happy then let him use automatic on the straight bits but have a helmsman for the turns.
Compromise
It’s his ship at the end of the day
From talking to these guys I also had the impression that hours of work regulations also played a part in this as having an extra man on duty could compromise this. You will know more about this than me when you are working several European ports one after the other with some very short sea passages.
The bridge manoeuvring diagram?
Truthfully can’t ever remember even looking at it 
Yup Saff big whites
Think P&O had some as well but my experience was with Saff
One other significant difference between E and Triple E.
They gained 4000 teu which is a decent sized container ship on its own
Honestly ???
What You have written there was like sweetest honey to me
And I mean it.!!!
There was one thing You did not mention but may be it is not important from the pilot perspective. I will mention it while answering @Hogsnort .
Well. You are excused as I understand your docking pilot experience does not require often using tactical circles near berth or on the river /channel while piloting these totally different animals
Anyway many thanks for your very comprehensive and very educating explanation and “very” should be in capital letters.
I am an avid reader of magazine below:
and have on my drives almost all issues.
As i figured almost 3 decades ago that knowing the Pilot’s perpective and way of thinking , strategy, tactics -you name it is as important as reading incident reports . It helped reaching compromise.
That is why I consider your input as extremely valuable even if I can not make much use of it except
arguing and pissing off some some gung-ho forum members
Let me guess basis above description.
Southampton?
