Pilot viewpoint: bridging the gap between port risk and towage safety

I raised this issue with the harbour master in Shannon, where I work as a pilot, a few days after the Dali accident, and his response typified the industry, which is to look at accidents in a very narrow field: “We do not have any bridges.”

Ironically, the upper reaches of my pilotage district are defined by a bridge, accessible by ship. However, that was not my point. We need to look at our towage requirements.

Are they sufficient? What about any choke points on the river? Should we have escort towage in these choke points? After all, on Ireland’s west coast, we have a lot of rock.

The port industry typically focuses on local incidents to inform its risk management and standard operating procedures, often overlooking international accidents. Although the Dali blackout occurred in the US, it could happen in Europe.

While commercial shipping operates globally, harbour safety regulations remain fragmented and managed at the national and regional level, creating operational silos that treat systemic risks as local anomalies. This parochial approach to risk management is exactly what leads to major accidents.

A major blind spot in the port sector is fragmented knowledge and reactive learning confined to local experiences, despite operating in a global industry.

Instead of waiting for incidents, ports need stronger legislation, investment in training, and resilient institutions grounded in international best practices.

Unlike the shipping industry, which relies on an international body, IMO, that typically acts only after a major casualty, harbour safety cannot depend on that model.

Harbour safety may be exercised locally, but the consequences of failure are national and sometimes global.

Consider the Ever Given accident, which blocked the Suez Canal for a week. When a state allows outdated legislation, weak or no oversight, or commercial convenience to shape pilotage and towage policy, it exposes critical infrastructure, the natural environment, and supply chains to foreseeable and preventable risks.

Ports in Ireland

Pilotage is not simply another port service; it is part of a state’s safety infrastructure and should be treated accordingly.

Ireland is a textbook example of outdated thinking and regulation. Our harbours are governed by the 1996 Harbours Act, with a section dedicated to pilotage, an update of the 1913 pilotage act.

Ports may churn out bye-laws and marine notices, but these piecemeal efforts fall short of what modern shipping demands.

Worse, our pilot training standards are non-existent, with no rigorous national benchmark based on IMO A960 recommendations on training and certification and on operational procedures for maritime pilots, other than deepsea pilots.

It is a dangerous game of chance: in one port you have an authority which follows best practice in training, in another, just the bare minimum, or perhaps none. Relying on patchwork laws and uneven training is gambling with safety.

It is important to note that some countries have excellent standards for pilotage and harbour safety, enshrined in law and enforced through oversight, while others do not.

I am not trying to paint all nations with the same brush. There are examples of best practice like in the Netherlands, as well as cautionary tales, like Ireland.

The problem is the inconsistency. Ireland needs a wake-up call; a bold, national overhaul that puts robust, modern training and unified standards at the heart of harbour safety.

If we keep patching up the old system, we’re practically inviting the next disaster.

The lesson from the Dali and Ever Given accidents is not simply that ships can fail, but that ports and states cannot afford to fail with them.

In a maritime system defined by low-frequency but high-consequence events, safety cannot be built around routine efficiency alone.

It must also be built around resilience: the capacity to absorb mechanical failure, human error, and sudden loss of control before they escalate into national or international emergencies.

That is where pilotage and tug operations matter most, not as commercial add-ons, but as the final practical safeguards between a shipboard incident and a catastrophe ashore.

For too long, the port sector in some countries has treated harbour safety as a matter of local custom, incremental adjustment, and lessons learned after the fact.

That approach is no longer sufficient. The scale of modern vessels, the concentration of traffic in constrained waterways, and the economic dependence of states on uninterrupted port operations, demand a more serious response.

Ireland, like many maritime nations, still relies on a framework the foundations of which were laid for an earlier era and are anachronistic.

If pilotage and towage are to remain effective safety barriers, they must be supported by modern legislation, clear national standards and sustained investment in training, capability, and oversight.

The real test of maritime governance is not how well it manages the ordinary day, but how well it prepares for the exceptional one.

The danger is not whether ships will experience technical issues; they will. The danger lies in how well we are prepared to deal with those issues when they arise.

If the industry continues to wait for disaster before reforming pilotage and harbour safety, then the next casualty will not be a surprise; it will be the foreseeable result of a system that choses convenience over preparation. The time to strengthen the pilot–tug safety buffer is before the next Dali, not after it.

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