Port and Terminal Navigation and Control

Extract

In this paper, which was presented at an Institute meeting held in London on 26 May 1971, Captain Brandenburg discusses the problems of port and terminal navigation control in the 1980s and takes up the questions whether such control will be needed and how much control will be appropriate.

This paper is not concerned particularly with problems in Rotterdam, or indeed with any particular ports, but rather with an overall evaluation of probable port developments in the near future, say the 1980s, and with the steps which may be necessary to meet the problems that will arise. In speaking of port and terminal navigation one should distinguish between pilotage, which may be defined as conducting a ship in safety from one manœuvring area to the next, and manœuvre, which is the handling of a ship in confined areas with whatever aids are available. It is well known that the danger and difficulty of manœuvre varies greatly in different areas and this was the subject of an analysis by Captain Wepster, but I shall consider manœuvres common to all terminal areas:

(i) picking up the pilot and lining up into the fairway channel,

(ii) docking and undocking,

(iii) lining up into the fairway channel again,

(iv) dropping the pilot and heading up for destination.