Pipavav Shipyard
"Cold-move Pilotage Assignments"














Karnataka Minor Ports.
3M had its first pilotage contract when we were contracted to the Govt. of Karnataka Minor Ports Directorate - Karwar.
During the currency of our contract (2013-2014) - we completed 64 ships / 128 shipping movements, without incident or accident. The largest ship that called at Karwar Port during our tenure was the ‘Ince Fortune’ LOA 190m with a (second port) parcel of Rock Phosphate.
The vessels that called at Karwar Port carried Pipeline as well as Break-Bulk cargoes.
An interesting aside to this contract was – that the two KMP in-house Master Mariners/Port Officers had been discharged from their duties on account of - one being under a legal cloud & the other perceived to be in the act of an impropriety.
We were brought in on an emergency basis - because of our proximity & pilotage experience and actually started work at Karwar-Port - without the assistance of prior familiarization.
The two in-house mariners have now been re-instated.










Bharati Shipyard - Old Mangalore Port
We have had movement my movement basis - pilotage contract, for Bharati Shipyard – Mangalore works. The movements were all cold moves involving the transit of pre-fabbed hull/s either from or to - their works on the coast. The hull/s were all - 75m loa OSV-DP vessels. The moves would be both ways – from Sea entrance to transit via the Old Mangalore Port Commercial & Fishing areas to the Bharati Shipyard – a distance of about 4.0kms up the Gurpur/Phalguni River.

Sadly now – on account of the down-turn in the industry, the shipyard itself has become defunct & staff laid off. There is still one partially completed DP/OSV awaiting a sale!

Hotel Leela group – Sal River (Goa)
This was an interesting assignment that I carried out. A 40m LOA / 300 pax / twin screw Catamaran ‘The Leela’ was bought by the Hotel Leela group to operate as a ‘floating casino’. She was brought as top cargo-deck load by a mother vessel and discharged at Goa-Port Anchorage.
Our brief started at the discharging stage at Goa-Port anchorage, taking charge of the vessel once she was safely afloat.
I made a couple of berthing/un-berthing manoeuvers at Goa-Port & once the right tide was reached, I took her into the Sal river entrance – Mobor (about 20nm away to the south) where the Hotel Leela had their property.

As even her minimum speed of 6.5kts was excessive for the river transit, I towed her in (with local boats) roughly 4.5km upriver in a two tide operation. The river mouth is unmarked with submerged rocks & changed shallows. The transit passage is narrow and congested with fishing boats – both on the move & tied up along the river bank. Bearings were by tree / house / flower garden / river side resort, etc – etc!

Even though there is a busy fishing traffic at the local government jetty there - this was a never before done operation in the river! My job - apart from being Master / Pilot / Handler was to survey the river – it’s present course , width, depth & banks vis-à-vis a reference to pre-colonial historical charts & plan the 4.50km riverine passage for this maiden transit.

Once safely at position, she was moored at a make-shift jetty, where I left her in the safe hands of the Owners - to carry out necessary internal modification/s for their specific need.

My only blot in this operation was that during transit - I brought down the local TV operator’s cable which spanned the river, with vessel's mast.

When I surveyed all points on the passage – Depths, Sides & Ahead, I did not look up!