”In South Shields there were two people you aspired to be
– a Tyne pilot or a ship’s captain.”
Cygnus Leader’s chief and second officers check
progress on the ship’s ECDIS. IMAGES: ANDREW LININGTON
Cygnus Leader’s master, Capt Subra Arumugam,
with deepsea pilot Capt Paul Lanaghan.
IMAGES: ANDREW LININGTON
”Red line fever combined with
stupidity and ignorance is not
a good combination.”
FINLANDS SJÖFART J SUOMEN MERENKULKU 55
ship has its own specific characteristics and challenges,
and now that many containerships have become behe-moths
it is like being on a VLCC.’
Most deepsea pilots will typically do around 20 rota-tions
a year and the nature of these varies from vessel to
vessel. A VLCC may simply require a passage from
Brixham to Rotterdam, while a car carrier visiting as
many as eight or nine ports within 15 or 16 days in NW
European waters may need a deepsea pilot onboard the
whole time.
Although the practice of deepsea pilotage can be traced
back to the 16th century, its modern form owes much to
the period after the Second World War when expert local
knowledge was required to navigate ships through a
handful of narrow swept routes past minefields which had
been laid in the North Sea. Originally intended as a
temporary measure, the service expanded as operators
recognised its safety and economic benefits.
Capt Lanaghan argues that the need for deepsea
pilotage services has never been greater than today. ‘It’s
not just the amount of traffic out there, but also because of
things like the huge increase in windfarms and offshore
developments which have restricted naviga-tional
areas in the southern North Sea and
the Channel,’ he points out.
‘The boom in windfarm traffic has
created a lot of additional traffic and the
scale of some of the sites means that some of
the shortcuts that we used to use in the
North Sea have been lost,’ he explains. ‘This
is only going to get worse, and in some parts
of the southern North Sea we stand to lose
up to two-thirds of the sea area because of
the projected windfarm developments.’
Traffic separation schemes have done
much to improve safety in the area, he notes,
but they do have the effect of funnelling
vessels into concentrated areas and hubs.
‘This is exacerbated by what we call “red
line fever” with a lot of conduct dictated by
ECDIS and AIS, ships going for the same
point on the chart and being reluctant to use
the full width of the lane,’ Capt Lanaghan
says. ‘Red line fever with stupidity and
ignorance is not a good combination.’
As a perfect illustration of his point, Capt Lanaghan
makes good use of the available space to pass a group of
ships bunched up on the same track towards the Sandettie
light vessel and to put Cygnus Leader into a good position
for the approach to Wandelaar, where a local pilot will
come aboard.
On an average day there are around 400 vessel move-ments
in the Channel. Looking today at the significantly
reduced visibility outside and at the almost convoy-like
patterns of ships on the radar, as well as the numbers
seeking to cross lanes or radiate off onto different routes
after passing waypoints, it’s not hard to appreciate the
scale of the challenge facing navigators unfamiliar with
these waters. A