Holland America Blog
Safety Officer
Holland America Blog Has Just Posted the Following:
With our sightseeing done and a late Seymour Narrows tide the Zaandam took the wide route through Queen Charlotte Sound. This area is outside the compulsory B.C Pilots coverage and thus we could say goodbye to the Pilots just before 08.00 hrs. at Pine Island. Not that we saw much of Pine Island as once again we had restricted visibility and we were sailing inside a very small world. The B.C pilots are on board because we sail the Inside Waters of British Colombia. As with the rest of the world, the moment you come within the 3 miles of land, you fall under the jurisdiction of the country which borders at the sea. When you come within 3 miles of the B.C coast with the intention of going inland you need pilots. Understandable as the local government would like to have re-presentative on board to ensure that the ship coming in, knows what it is doing. Secondly, even if it knows what it is doing, it might not have enough knowledge to sail safely through the area. That is ever so true for the BC Inside Passage. You need a lot of local knowledge to sail safely through it. I think now with 35 years on the coast and with over 300 cruises here under the belt, I would be able to sail the area safely. But you never know what that other ship would do, if that was allowed to operate without a pilot as well. Thus we have pilots on board on every ship over 300 tons and the world is much the better for it. All these pilots have a lot of local knowledge and most of them have started out as deck hands on the tugboats. And if there is a way to learn how to deal with currents and “going around the corner†in the Inside Passage, it is with getting your experience on a tugboat.* Some tugs only make 5 or 6 knots of speed and with 6 knots against you, the phrase “making head way†suddenly gets a whole new dimension. Same […]
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With our sightseeing done and a late Seymour Narrows tide the Zaandam took the wide route through Queen Charlotte Sound. This area is outside the compulsory B.C Pilots coverage and thus we could say goodbye to the Pilots just before 08.00 hrs. at Pine Island. Not that we saw much of Pine Island as once again we had restricted visibility and we were sailing inside a very small world. The B.C pilots are on board because we sail the Inside Waters of British Colombia. As with the rest of the world, the moment you come within the 3 miles of land, you fall under the jurisdiction of the country which borders at the sea. When you come within 3 miles of the B.C coast with the intention of going inland you need pilots. Understandable as the local government would like to have re-presentative on board to ensure that the ship coming in, knows what it is doing. Secondly, even if it knows what it is doing, it might not have enough knowledge to sail safely through the area. That is ever so true for the BC Inside Passage. You need a lot of local knowledge to sail safely through it. I think now with 35 years on the coast and with over 300 cruises here under the belt, I would be able to sail the area safely. But you never know what that other ship would do, if that was allowed to operate without a pilot as well. Thus we have pilots on board on every ship over 300 tons and the world is much the better for it. All these pilots have a lot of local knowledge and most of them have started out as deck hands on the tugboats. And if there is a way to learn how to deal with currents and “going around the corner†in the Inside Passage, it is with getting your experience on a tugboat.* Some tugs only make 5 or 6 knots of speed and with 6 knots against you, the phrase “making head way†suddenly gets a whole new dimension. Same […]
Click here to view the article.
