MARITIME RULE PART 90PILOTAGE

Nigel Meek

Sea Empress –Milford Haven 1996

If one specific incident focussed all our minds in recent years it is this one.Sea Empress ran aground and spilled oil in Milford Haven.Recommendations from the enquiry for the local employer and for otherauthorities to consider:•For vessels >30,000 DWT, changes to the number of pilot training qualify tripsincluding day and night transits•Improved standard of examination for each additional pilot license authorisationincluding orals and practical demonstration•Trainers to consider the use of simulators for training and examination•Pilot was found guilty of incompetence but not misconduct and was demoted byhis employer.•The rest of the western world began examining their own processes andprocedures.

Harbours Act 1950 Local Government Act 1974 Maritime Transport Act 1994 Maritime Rule Part 90 – Pilotage New Zealand Port and

Harbour Maritime Safety Code Local Government Act 2002

The New Zealand context for such a review was framed up within several piecesof legislation with which you are no doubt already familiar.Harbours Act provided local harbourmasters with authority to organise pilotage intheir jurisdictionWhen it was repealed the authority was split between the Maritime Transport Actand the Local Government ActThe first of several versions of Rule Part 90 developed out of the perceivedvacuum that existed in that regulatory regime.Along came the Sea Empress and a perception grew that a layer of riskassessment and risk management was missing at a local level.The result was the voluntary code known as the New Zealand Port and HarbourSafety Code.In my opinion the industry has struggled ever since with the national regulator’sdesire for a national standard and the local regulator’s use of the Code for localrules in local conditions

Manukau Harbour Bar

A good example of New Zealand’s unique environment and regulatory regime.Before Rule 90 this very large harbour with its dangerous west coat bar was not acompulsory pilotage district.The Auckland Harbour Board did offer a pilotage service if required using pilotstrained and licensed by the local harbourmaster.The pilot boarding position was inside the bar because there was no boatavailable to board outside in the often dangerous sea conditions.In those early days Holm and Company, Northern Company and many othersused the harbour to the extent that perhaps eight ships were alongside atOnehunga and others waiting at anchor.There are now only two companies that call regularly and three ships in total.Their masters were “grandfathered” into pilotage exemption certificates, (PEC’s)through Section 47 of the MTA when maritime rule 90 created a compulsorypilotage district. Several of them continue with that regime to this day.We have papered over the cracks with regulations but there is even lesseconomic viability now for a pilot boat to go over the bar so there still isn’t one.

Taharoa Express

Another unique environment is centred on the Taharoa ExpressA huge lump of a ship (146,000 dwt tonnes – 74,000 tonnes cargo – 270m loa)loading New Zealand Steel ironsand from a single point mooring in the Tasmanocean off the Waikato Coast.A risk assessment several years in the making has yet to see the light of dayA harbourmaster assigned by Maritime New Zealand has taken off for greenerpasturesA poisoned chalice is passing backwards and forwards between MNZ and theWaikato regional council.MNZ currently supply a deputy harbourmaster.Even I was asked at one point if I might like to take the job.The whole environment held together by good luck and the extremely goodpilotage skills of one very senior pilot.He is attempting to train a replacement while wearing several other hats.

Akaroa harbour and the cruise liner Millennium

An example of an industry moving faster than a legislative framework.Cruise passengers apply considerable pressure for new experiences on everyvoyage.At 294m the Millennium always makes a spectacular sight when it enters theconfines of Akaroa’s extinct volcano. It is at liberty to wander around in therewithout any pilot because the area is not a compulsory district.Just next door in the very similary sized Lyttelton harbour, there are several verycompetent pilots who operate in a compulsory pilotage district and offer theirservices to ships as small as 500GT.

Super-yacht “Ice”

In a similar vein, the super-yacht industry.At 90m loa. 16m beam. 3268 GT the mega yacht Ice is considerably larger thanmany of the Pacific island cargo ships that regularly trade in and out of NewZealand. As a private yacht it does not require the master (foreign going)certificate of competency which is necessary on an international tradingcommercial vessel. A new marina is about to be constructed in Auckland. Thisvessel has been used as a model for required size. Requests have been receivedto allow such vessels to tour unaccompanied by a pilot throughout the WorldHeritage Area of Fiordland National Park which is quite reasonably a compulsorypilotage district. It has been my personal experience that ship masters on suchvessels will accede to the owner’s orders before any other consideration. Pilots inBluff and Otago hold the necessary licenses but cannot leave their own ports forthe extended periods demanded.

This training scheme has been developed by the regulatory authorities listed below. The scheme is the property of: Northland Regional Council Auckland Regional Council Marlborough District Council Environmental Southland

Master’s Pilotage Exemption Training Scheme for Superyachts

MNZ and NZMPA were both approached about the problem described.In the absence of a national standard and with the blessing of MNZ the regionalcouncils listed on this slide, Northland, Auckland, Marlborough and Southland,have stepped into the vacuum and developed a draft for a pragmatic regionalapproach to the vexing problem of pilots for super-yachts.

Master’s Pilotage Exemption Training Scheme for Golden

Bay Cement

All port companies have approved pilot training schemes.I have highlighted Golden Bay Cement for praise because it is the only domesticshipping company that has a PEC training scheme approved by MNZ. A veryproactive operator who instigated new discussions to modify the scheme inconjunction with PoAL and the ARC harbourmaster upon the commissioning oftheir new facility in Auckland. There appears not to be one other NZ operator whohas taken a similar approach. All others appear to rely on internal processes andat some point a discussion with local pilots and a harbourmaster whose regionalcouncil might provide a format for generic pilot exemption training scheme.

Bunker barge – Awanuia

Another vexed question that looks like finding a resolution only as recently asearlier this week.The only operational bunker barge in New Zealand introduced in 2009 andalready completed more than two hundred fuel oil transfers as well as severalcoastal voyages to and from Marsden Point. She has 3900cu m fuel oil capacity insegregated and double skinned tanks and manoeuvres very easily with azipodunits and a bow thruster. Compare this to a regular container ship caller to thesame port, which carries more than twice that volume of fuel oil in single skintanks along its full 291m length. The master of the container ship could gain aPEC if he achieved sufficient transit visits. Yet tankers of any description arespecifically excluded from the possibility of being operated by the holder of amaster’s pilotage exemption. It does appear that a section 47 exemption may nowbecome possible.

Recommendation Maritime NZ should consider

amending current legislation and the Port and Harbour Marine Safety Code so as to make harbour Authorities and Harbour Masters directly accountable for the issue and renewal of pilotage exemption certificates

The qualifying requirements for PEC renewals should also be reviewed

This reiew in 2006 made two recommendations that have yet to be acted upon. Inthe meanwhile one ferry company uses the practice of allowing the chief mate toexercise the privileges of a pilotage exemption certificate by the device of callinghim the mate/master in what the competing company claims is an unfaircommercial advantage because they have a smaller crew.

The Australian Experience

National Marine Safety Committee National Standard Competencies for training marine pilots draft for public comment September 2009

Draft regulatory impact statement November 2009

Australasian Marine Pilot’s Institute

While the several amendments and reviews of Rule part 90 have been severalyears in development an entirely different direction has been created in Australia.An enormous amount of lobbying and direct action, firstly by the Brisbanemaritime pilots’ association and then by the Australian maritime pilots associationover several years has resulted in the publication of a draft national standard forpilot training, as recently as September 2009. AMPA has become AMPI and haspositioned itself to uphold these standards. Victor and I have both been toAustralia as observers during the development phase of these standards.Prospective pilots must demonstrate their understanding of key competencies in aunits of learning format. The Australian proposal does not require CFG as anentry level qualification. This is more than a little radical and controversial forsome pilots. However the idea of competencies and unit standards is well understoodthroughout the NZ educational sector. My own view is that it merely reflects Government educational policyfor the time being, until somebody presents yet another “new” direction.

HMS Orpheus

Mikhail Lermontov

In ending I ask you to consider these two incidents.HMS Orpheus was wrecked when it ran aground on Manukau Bar. The captainwas carrying two different sets of sailing directions. Only one seaman on boardprofessed to know the area but was ignored because of his junior rank.Mikhail Lermontov has been the subject of screeds of written material. She wascarrying a pilot whose every word was gospel and yet she too ran aground.Can Maritime New Zealand and the maritime community bring the wisdom ofSolomon to these two events and create a Maritime Rule Part 90 Pilotage that willavoid these disasters.