Pilot boarding speed

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[nzlpilot]

Interesting to see that pilot boarding speeds (or any intership transfer from high speed craft) is around 2 knots.
In practice speeds are closer to 6 knots... in fact I have boarded vessels at 12-15 knots. 

You certainly don't want less than 4 knots unless you have an old pilot boat... and I mean old!
Most modern pilot boats have speeds in excess of 20k; older cutters have 13k.

Looking from another prospective dead slow speed on a container ship is around 6 -7 knots minimum, and whilst they can reduce below that (ie stop engines) that is the typical boarding speed. 

Maybe the missions need tweaking, but then it maybe much harder to maintain greater speeds, but at least that makes it more realistic.   


 

[Destrega]

It all depends down the type of vessel and situation, there is no strict speed.

The faster you are going the more stable to pilot boat will be.

[Traddles]

Hi nzlpilot,
You will find that the 2 knots you are referring to is actually 2 knots RELATIVE to the other vessel. For example the ship to be boarded may be travelling at 10 knots in which case if the pilot launch is travelling at between 12 & 10 knots she will activate the waypoint. I hope that clarifies it for you. If you have a go yourself you will see what I mean. From your title, I do realise you know exactly what you are saying but you will also understand well the concept of relative speeds.

Angus.

[Ule]

In real life it depends upon the Pilot gear. For eg. we work on our sea position with a Pilot cutter and its boarding boats can only do 4-5 kts. We are dealing mainly with car carriers which have most of the times a minimum speed of 6 kts which means that they have to make lee with stopped engines while boarding (which makes it a tricky manoeuvre when its windy). Speed boats like we have in the ship sim are doing the boarding manoeuvre at abt. 10-12 kts. If you have more speed its difficult to get the pilot boat off the ship again because there is suction between the ship's hull and the boat which is increasing the more speed you have.

Greetings Uli