Pilots and helmets

The most dangerous part of the pilot’s job (from the personal point of view) is the transfer between pilot boat/ship/pilot boat as the previous post clearly shows. The pilot’s personal protective equipment is therefore of paramount importance on the prevention of serious injury should an accident occur. For several years this equipment has been limited to the wearing of automatically inflatable lifejackets or “Seasafe” jackets which includes all the SOLAS requirements for lifejackets as well as an harness, strobe light and even a personal locator beacon (depending on model). Safety boots and non-slippery gloves are usually also standard equipment. All this equipment becomes quite useless should a pilot suffer a more than probable head injury on a falling accident. 

    

As part of our Safety Management System there is a constant formal safety assessment and an ongoing review of critical pilotage procedures. Due to previous incidents with pilots while transferring to or from the ship, the risk of head injury was identified and corrective action taken. Appropriate safety helmets (light, comfortable and with neutral buoyancy, which minimizes the risk of neck and spine injury for water impact) were ordered, also taking into account previous experiences on this subject on some US and North European ports.

        

        

Since the beginning of this year pilots at Viana do Castelo have been using these safety helmets on a regular basis as a complement to the other standard protective equipment.

         

Also taken into consideration was an eye opener text “Why Do Pilots Not Wear Helmets”, posted by Capt. W. A. Worth on Professional Mariner, March 2008:

“The recent spate of accidents, have shown that often pilots are rendered unconscious when they fall from a pilot ladder and are unable to take action to save themselves.  Working on a pilot boat puts both the pilot and the deckhand often 30 feet below the deck level of the ship that they are working, anything dropped from the deck from shackle pins to the pilot ladder itself can cause serious head injury.

Here on the Columbia River Bar, helmets have become standard safety gear.  From the beginning of the helicopter transfer system, they were mandated by the helicopter companies.  Simple kayak helmets offered the protection needed for being hoisted from the helicopter.  They have become routine, and are now used in both helicopter and boat transfers.  There have been several incidents in which a head injury has been prevented.
 
The big question is Why Not?  This is the easiest and cheapest way to reduce injury, and only vanity and tradition seem to be reasons to not wear some type of head protection.  All of the float coats, epirb's, and waterproof radios, fail if the pilot is unable to help themselves duecto a head injury.
 
Buying an off the shelf Kayak helmet, covering it with reflective tape, and even attaching a small light, is a simple way to increase the survivability of pilots.”