Torres Straits Compulsory Pilotage

October 15th, 2005 by JCB
Posted in Articles, Technical and Training | 1 Comment »

COMPULSORY PILOTAGE INTRODUCED IN PSSA

Following much debate and despite a considerable lobby of opposition, compulsory pilotage has been introduced into the Particularly Sensitive Sea Area (PSSA) of the Torres Strait. The International Maritime Organization has agreed to adopt the designation of Torres Strait as an extension of the Great Barrier Reef following an agreement between Australia and Papua New Guinea. It is expected that legislation on Torres Strait pilotage will be passed by December and that it will take effect in June 2006. Under the PSSA designation all vessels more than 70 m long and all loaded oil, gas or chemical tankers will require pilotage through the Torres Strait. With currently fewer than 50% of ships at present using pilotage in the strait the new area will require new pilots and the role will be undertaken by the existing Australian Reef Pilots who will initially increase their numbers from 31 to 35. Pilotage infrastructure will also be enhanced. Improved pay and conditions in recent years has reportedly resulted in good quality applicants applying for the vacancies.

One aspect which I hope to report in more detail in a future issue is that the pilots will be using PPUs but additionally the pilotage companies will have a tracking system

incorporate the latest technology developed by the New Zealand company HSA systems and the Australian Maritime Safety Agency (AMSA) in conjunction with Google Earth!

The claim is that this system called “Reefview”will provide:

· Graphical display of vessels in transit through the Great Barrier Reef Ship Reporting System with different vessel symbols to indicate the primary sensor that the vessel is being tracked with.

· Graphical display of the 10 minute look ahead vector for each tracked vessel

· Display of vessels at anchor or in port.

· Display of essential attributes, such as Name, IMO number, geographic position, course, speed, vessel flag etc.

· Display of layers of ancillary information, such as the SRS route network, mandatory reporting points , pilot boarding grounds and the coverage areas for Radar and AIS

· All vessel positions are updated every 10 minutes.

· The system also maintains a live web page that gives information about all vessels approaching the pilot boarding grounds. This page is also updated every 10 minutes.

If you haven’t yet discovered Google Earth, this is a Google program that has created a world atlas using aerial and satellite images mostly taken during the last 3 years. Of varying resolution (the major cities are in very high resolution) one can zoom around the world at will. Be warned though that this program is highly addictive and with new enhanced images being added all the time you will have trouble dragging yourself away!!

Download Google Earth free from:

http://earth.google.com (MAC OS is not yet supported but hopefully coming soon!)

JCB