Converted OSRV Added to Sandy Hook Pilots Fleet
Sandy Hook Pilots Association welcomed its new Pilot Station Boat New York, a converted Oil Spill Response Vessel (OSRV), which, at 208 feet long, is the largest in the Sandy Hook Pilots fleet.While welcoming the its new addition, Sandy Hook Pilots retired its predecessor, also named New York, which has been a familiar sight in the Port of New York and New Jersey harbor for nearly 50 years.On February 3, the new P/B New York sailed to its new home, the Sandy Hook Pilot base in Staten Island…
Digital Twins: Rivers, Oceans, Harbors Recreated
In 2001, George Burkley, a maritime educator, wrote a look-ahead article for Maritime Reporter and Engineering News, presenting the benefits and real-world payoffs from using simulators in maritime education. In the late 1990s, new tech and software advances were creating scenario programs that moved a student closer and closer to the realities demanded by, well, reality. “The future is here, and we are ready to simulate it,” Burkley concluded.Burkley is now executive director at the Maritime Pilots Institute in Covington, La.
USCG Recognizes Steamship Pilots Hurricane Isaac Heroics
One year after Hurricane Isaac scattered more than a hundred ships and vessels in the Lower Mississippi River, the United States Coast Guard (USCG) honored two New Orleans-Baton Rouge Steamship Pilots (NOBRA) for their fearless actions in braving gale force winds and a storm surge to rescue several crippled vessels and their crews and prevent further casualties from the Category One storm, announced Captain Michael E. Rooney, NOBRA president. The USCG award ceremony honoring the NOBRA pilots was conducted today at the Maritime Pilots Institute (MPI) in Covington, La.
From the Bridge of the Ship Simulator
When a pilot learning to guide ships along the Mississippi River makes a mistake and crashes into a New Orleans wharf, the only thing that ends up damaged is his ego. That's because the mistakes happen in a ship simulator housed in an old movie theater in Covington, La. The $1 million simulator can place a pilot on the bridge of a ship anywhere along the river between the mouth of the Mississippi and Baton Rouge. Scenes projected on the walls of the simulator, located in what once was the old DeLuxe movie theater in downtown Covington across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, accurately depict every aspect of the 240 miles of waterway.
