Sunday, November 12, 2006

Minerva II (again)


Since my dear friend Pedro Magueta (pilot at Funchal) is so interested in the cruise vessel “Minerva” I decided to post this image of her first call at Viana do Castelo two or three years ago.
Unfortunately due to the thick fog, visibility was reduced to less than 50 meters, making it unsafe to proceed up the river.
The pilot went onboard (the pilot boat almost crashed against the stern of the ship) and there was another pilot at the pilot station providing information about the visibility inside the port. The plan was, if the visibility improved inside (as most of the times does), we would also monitor the approach of the vessel to the bar entrance (sort of shore based pilotage).
The fog stayed for the next hours, the pilot waited for two hours onboard until the captain decided to proceed to the next port of call.

All decisions were taken as a team, between captain, the pilot onboard, the pilot at the pilot station and the harbourmaster.
The next calls were performed under beautiful sunshine and excellent visibility (as you can see in one of the first posts of this blog)!

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