Manoeuvring in Singapore Strait - Hosburg Lt house to PWBGC

Tripoto
Photo of Manoeuvring in Singapore Strait - Hosburg Lt house to PWBGC by Akshay Kumar

Ever since I have started sailing , I have realised how people in land either know nothing or very little of what happens on the sea , how the ships are manoeuvred through busiest strait and congested waters of the world , what commerical pressures are we dealing with , precarious and harsh weather we face during our course and the risks involved in dealing with such dangerous cargo . I realised how important it is to do your job diligently and not be complacent and negligent , cause even the slightest of errors have potential to create havoc .

Singapore is one of the busiest port of the world and so its Strait . High density traffic including ferries and skiffs , crossing vessels and the anchored vessels in between and strong currents make manoeuvring the ship an experience always to remember and also hones your skills in ship handling . This is a timelapse video of how we were westbound from Hosburg Lt house to Pilot Western Boarding Ground Charlie . We had our pilots booked at 0900hours and we crossed Hosburg Lt house around 0700hours . Now since we had miscalculated the currents that was originally supposed to be against us for greater part of the strait meant we could not keep our engines at manoeuvring RPM otherwise delay the pilot and wait for a day at anchorage costing additional charges and fines. So keeping the RPM at 130 and speeding through water at 14knots could only keep out hopes alive of reaching the pilot station at 0900hours . But that is a risky deal considering the amount of traffic and also that we do not engines at our disposal to lower down the speed if needed anytime . We had a few close quarter situations that the Vessel traffic system regularly warned us of . In the end we did reach pilot station at 0900hours which once seemed impossible .

Tagged:
#video