Editorial 08/04

August 15th, 2004 by JCB
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EDITORIAL

In June I attended a Nautical Institute Seminar in Bristol entitled the Master/Pilot Relationship: A training need? Organised by Bristol pilot Avald Wymark it brought together a full spectrum of maritime experts to explore various problem areas of the Master pilot relationship. The seminar con.rmed what most of us are aware of in that the law covering pilotage is far from clear cut. The seminar explored typical scenarios where the Master/Pilot relationship may become strained and the outcome from the legal and P&I clubs was very informative. The most interesting fact to emerge was that in the case when damage is done whilst manoeuvring with a pilot embarked. Both the legal and P&I Club representatives present con.rmed that when it came to apportioning blame there was no real interest in who was responsible for the damage since the P&I Club picked up the bill regardless of who caused it. This has long been of concern to pilotage organisations since when the Master submits a report following damage in pilotage waters, human nature dictates that he will naturally blame the pilot and this obviously distorts the statistics! P&I Clubs are publishing statistics revealing that “pilot error” is responsible for 30% of port damage claims and expressing deep concern at the escalating costs of each claim and statistics are being used by the anti-pilot lobby to depict us as an unnecessary and expensive (even dangerous!) accessory to the bridge team. IMPA has calculated that a more accurate .gure is 7%-10% which is a vast difference. However, care is needed in challenging the status quo since one of the reasons that the P&I Clubs don’t feel the need to delve too deeply into apportioning blame is a result of the limitation of liability covering pilots. This historical limitation is also starting to be questioned and indeed challenged and there is an increasing lobby to get the legalities covering pilots “modernised”. The Master/Pilot relationship is therefore a debate that pilots need to be fully involved with.