Pilot Ladders - Do or Don't

Providing a legally compliant pilot ladder in accordance with the latest International Maritime Organization (IMO) requirements, particularly the rigorous standards set forth in SOLAS Chapter V, Regulation 23 and recently reinforced by the 2025 adoptions of Resolutions MSC.572(110) and MSC.576(110), is absolutely critical for safeguarding the lives of maritime professionals during one of the most inherently hazardous operations at sea. The physical transfer between a small, rapidly pitching pilot boat and a massive, moving commercial vessel exposes pilots to severe risks—including fatal falls, crushing hazards, and drowning—which are drastically magnified if the ladder features defective construction, improper rigging, or non-compliant securing methods such as unauthorized deck shackles or degraded side ropes. 

Barry uses his experience of climbing 4000+ ladders during his 25 year career as a pilot to describe the requirements and highlight some of the faults that may result in a pilot not embarking the ship causing expensive delays to the ship owner.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

A very warm welcome everyone to the Maritime Education Podcast. My name is Barry Sadler, and it's great to have you all back on board. For those of you new to the podcast, a very warm welcome to you especially, and uh I hope you find something in the podcast that is both interesting and perhaps more importantly informative and educational about the maritime sector and indeed the intricacies shall we say of running a ship at sea, general navigation and maritime matters in the uh in general. Today I'd like to talk about pilot ladders. Now, obviously, being a Southampton pilot for the last twenty five years, pilot ladders have featured in my daily work activities for all of that time. The dynamic risk assessment, the assessment of pilot ladders as we approach a ship, the use of pilot ladders, the problems with pilot ladders, the little idiosyncrasies that they have are all now very, very familiar to me, having climbed many, many of them in my time as a pilot. In fact, if you think about the amount of pilot ladders that we do climb, um here in Southampton we do an average of about 220 acts of pilotage a year. Now, at the end of the day, uh that means that if every one of those acts of pilotage involved a pilot ladder, then I will have used somewhere in the region of about five and a half thousand pilot ladders. That's not the case. Um acts of pilotage are sometimes shifts on berths, which you board the ship on its gangway, you disembark on its gangway, uh, and there may be other acts of pilotage that uh that come in which do not have anything uh not have any climbing uh associated with it. But let's say that uh over the course of my career I have perhaps climbed or descended somewhere in the region uh of between four and a half thousand and uh and five thousand pilot ladders, and of course uh that's uh that's quite a lot. The fact that I have managed to do so in relative success and indeed safety is something that is controlled very very closely by numerous organizations, and the requirements for pilot ladders is where I want to start this podcast today. The fundamental requirement to provide a pilot ladder and safe means of access for a pilot are contained in SOLAS. SOLAS Chapter 5, Regulation 23. Now, SOLAS Chapter 5 is a major chapter within Solas. Um, the whole of SOLAS is major. We shouldn't really single out one chapter and say it's more important than the other, because every chapter of SOLAS has its importance, its means and direction. But for a deck officer, SOLAS chapter five is of course safety of navigation, and uh the safety of navigation is something that we are all contributing towards. Um, it has things like meteorological services and warnings in it, ice patrol services, uh you've got all sorts of different um chapters within uh SOLAS Chapter 5. Uh but um right at the end, of course, very, very important bit of SOLAS Chapter 5 is of course uh regulation um uh regulation 34, uh avoidance of dangerous situations, and you know, the SOLAS Chapter 5 itself is a uh is an incredibly important chapter. And at the end of the day, um Regulation 23 is the one that I have perhaps worked with the most during my time, um my career as a as a pilot. So the fundamental principle for the provision of safe access to the pilot uh international standard, so last chapter 5, regulation 23. Now, there are also numerous other documents that are involved with the setting of safe pilot ladders. Now, those documents are varied abroad as they are as they are wide, but I want to focus really on uh the pilot transfer arrangements that were agreed at the IMO Maritime Safety Committee meeting number one hundred and ten, which are the latest mandatory uh instruments that were created by the IMO that define the necessary legislation for pilot ladders and in particular define how these pilot ladders should be rigged. Now, every single member state at the IMO that adopts uh SOLAS will have its own legislation regarding pilot ladders. In the United Kingdom that legislation dates from 1999 and fundamentally sets out a legal requirement for masters to rig their pilot ladders in compliance with the statutory requirements of the IMO, and those statutory requirements are currently contained in an IMO MSC circular, so Maritime Safety Committee circular, very very fresh one dated the 5th of September 2025, and it contains all the technical details required to rig safe access to the ship. Now that fundamentally sets up a poster which a lot of you will probably be familiar with, uh quite a big poster with a lot of the requirements set out in graphical format for you to be able to look at. But at the end of the day, if you Google that that circular, then you will come up with that poster. The resolution that was derived from the hundred and tenth meeting of the Maritime Safety Committee, uh resolution MSC five seven six sets out the performance standards for pilot transfer arrangements, and that's the text. That's the text that is actually used to create that poster contained within the circular. Now that text has changed quite a bit uh at that Maritime Safety Committee meeting because there were a lot of issues being encountered with pilot ladders that perhaps hadn't been anticipated when the original pilot ladder requirements were set out way back in the the last major revision, which was back in uh in 1987. Now the requirements for uh pilot ladders are very easy to follow. They're very, very basic. There's nothing in there that you would turn around and you would say that's difficult for a master to implement on board the ship. Although the requirement should be the responsibility of the master, the approval of pilot boarding arrangements comes in under the passenger ship safety certificate or the cargo ship safety equipment certificate, and therefore ultimately is approved by either the flag state of the ship or the recognized organisation on behalf of the flag state of the ship. So although the master has the ultimate responsibility for provision of safe access on board the vessel for the pilot, the pilot boarding arrangements themselves will be approved by either the flag state or the classification society of the ship themselves. So there are multiple organizations that are have a vested interest in this, but of course, the biggest stakeholder in the provision of a safe pilot ladder is of course the guy that's going to be swinging around on that uh that ladder, him or herself, and that's the uh the actual pilot. So that's how we uh we control the um the pilot ladders. Yep. Starting with SOLAS regulation uh Solas Chapter 5, Regulation 23, setting out the general requirement, the Maritime Safety Committee's circular and resolution setting out the technical requirements for the uh for the provision of pilot ladders, the merchant shipping, pilot ladder and hoist regulations 1999 in the United Kingdom, setting out the uh the legal requirement to provide in the in the UK. And then really we then swing across to the harbour authorities themselves or the uh the provision of the pilotage services themselves, which of course in the United Kingdom is the competent harbour authority. As far as um Southampton is concerned, obviously the the competent harbour authority within the ports of Southampton is uh associated British ports, and they issue notices to mariners every year. We have recurring notices to mariners here in Southampton, and uh one of our recurring notices to mariners this year is number four of 2026, uh which is the uh the Port of Southampton pilot boarding and disembarking arrangements, non-compliant counterfeit or defective pilot ladders. Now a local notices to mariners will bring the master's attention to the requirements of both SOLAS Chapter 5 Regulation 23, but will also mention the IMO resolutions and the IMO circulars that provide the guidance for the embarkation and disembarkation of pilots. The Pilots Code of Safe Practice, which is uh published by the International Maritime Pilots Association, also contains information on the rigging of pilot ladders, but that code focuses on the general operation of taking a pilot rather than focusing on the pilot ladder itself. And today I want to discuss the pilot ladder itself. Here in the port of Southampton, that local notice to mariners is very unambiguous in its statement to captains. Let me quote from that notices to mariners. Vessels presenting themselves with unsafe or non-compliant pilot boarding arrangements which do not meet the requirements set out in SOLAS Chapter 5, Regulation 23 and the associated IMO resolutions will be refused boarding and will be instructed to rectify the non-conformity, go to anchor or will be refused entry into the port. This can cause lengthy delays and may incur additional charges. So that's a very unambiguous statement made by the Port of Southampton to Masters. It says if your boarding arrangements are not compliant, then we're not going to board you, and if we don't board you, then any delays that incur will be to your own account. Now at the end of the day, it goes on to say that the Harbourmaster and Associated British ports give their full support to pilots refusing to board non-compliant vessels. Defective and non-compliant arrangements reported by pilots are shared with the MAIB, the local MCA, Marine Office and the United Kingdom Maritime Pilots Association. So again, a very very strong statement there to the master and the ship owner that if a pilot refuses to board because he or she considers the ladder to be non-compliant and or dangerous, then they have the full support of the harbour master and the competent harbour authority in refusing to use that ladder. It's an important statement because it empowers and allows pilots to operate in complete safety, knowing that any refusal to board a ship based upon unsafe or non-compliant pilot ladders will be fully supported. So it removes all of the commercial pressure on pilots in Southampton to board the ships. Another practice that we have adopted within the port of Southampton is the fact that we now question the ship on the pilot channel via VHF, a conversation which is recorded and kept on record, we actually ask the ship to confirm that their pilot ladder arrangements comply with SOLAS Chapter 3 Regulation sorry, SOLAS Chapter 5 Regulation 23. This is a practice that we've been doing for some years now, and therefore if we go out to the ship and the ladder is non-compliant or dangerous, then we also have this verbal confirmation over the VHF that the ship expected its ladder to comply, and therefore uh we have not been notified of any deficiencies with the pilot ladder. So if deficiencies are found, then they are obviously um outside of the statement made by whatever officer has contacted us uh on channel nine to give us our three-hour notice of intention to uh to require a pilot, and uh and therefore we can use that uh with the ship in order to show that uh that they confirmed verbally with us that the ladder was fit, and when we got there we found it unfit. It uh it closes the loop, shall we say, on the uh the actual going to the ship to um to board in the first place. There are lots of different uh types of pilot ladder arrangements that we find when we go to ships. There's not just one type of arrangement. The type of pilot ladder that uh that most people imagine when they imagine a pilot ladder is of course the the standard ladder that goes up the side of the ship. So that's just a continuous rope ladder. When we say rope ladder, uh it's a very, very robust rope ladder. A pilot ladder is a or should be a very very solid piece of equipment. Um the steps are are very solid, made of hardwood. The the ropes that hold the steps in place uh are normally made of manila. Um they are normally made of manila because manila doesn't stretch so much, but some um administrations will allow uh solas approved other types of rope to be used. The trouble with that is, and we often find this when boarding ships that are registered in America or operate primarily in America, uh, where they will use SOLAS approved polyproperly, is that the rope stretches. So when you board a ladder where you've made of natural fiber rope, uh such as manila, that natural fibre rope does not stretch much. You get on the ladder and there'll be a bit of creak and groan as your weight comes onto the ladder, but the ladder itself won't stretch. If you're using Solas approved polyprop, you get on the ladder, and your first couple of steps sometimes uh you you step on them and the steps will drop uh three or four inches uh due to the stretch in the line. So until that stretch in the line has gone, you've not got the uh the solid ladder. Once you've stretched it out, once your weight has uh has stretched out the polyprop, then the ladder itself becomes a lot more sturdy. But that initial two or three steps when you get on as the rope stretches can feel a bit unnervy, particularly if you are boarding in a a bit of a lumpy sea and want to get clear of the deck of the pilot launch nice and quickly. Having a stretchy pilot ladder just makes that uh a little bit trickier. So, personally, I prefer um man um sorry, start again. Personally, I prefer natural fiber rope, the non-stretch rope, makes it a lot easier to climb the pilot ladder and a lot easier at the end of the day to get clear of the pilot launch quickly in a bit of choppy seas. Now, um the steps are hardwood steps uh except for the bottom four steps that are made of rubber. The reason that they're made of rubber is because those four steps are likely to come in contact with the pilot launch. Uh, when we come alongside, we try very, very carefully not to trap the ladder or uh or crush those bottom four steps with the pilot launch. Uh we have a deck hand on the foredeck and we approach in such a way that if the ladder has been rigged just a little bit too long, we're able to grab the bottom of it and move it out of the way as the launch comes alongside. But nonetheless, those bottom four steps do occasionally get a bit of a squeeze from a pilot launch, and therefore the bottom four steps are made of rubber. The fifth step is always what we call a spreader, which is a much wider step, and every ninth step after that must be a spreader. Spreader bars are there to stop the ladder twisting around. As you climb a pilot ladder, the natural body movement of climbing, combined with the fact that you've got normally quite a breeze blowing down the side of the ship, because don't forget the ship's moving, and in our case it's doing between six and eight knots, uh, that combined with any other wind means that the um you're being blown sideways uh by the prevailing uh wind, by the relative wind, if you like, and therefore the tendency is for for the ladder to try to uh to try to twist as you climb. Those spreaders are um uh are much wider than a regular step, and uh a spreader will prevent the ladder from uh from twisting around. You don't want to be on the inside of the ladder suddenly trying to climb up. Uh you'll very very quickly lose your grip if that ladder is allowed to uh to twist around. So the fifth step is always a spreader. Your steps are then um spaced out above that in hardwood uh at between 31 to 35 centimetres. Uh there must be a minimum of 40 centimeters across. So it's not too uh not too big a step to uh to make uh particularly uh people like me who uh a little bit shorter legs, uh you don't want them any more than uh than about a foot uh a foot in between steps as it becomes difficult for you to uh to raise your foot up to the next step. So uh that one foot, sometimes under a foot spacing, uh, can be uh can be quite uh quite comfortable even for guys like me with uh with shorter legs. Man ropes, we don't use man ropes in the uh in the port of Southampton. We ask them to derig the man ropes, but uh IMO requirements say that there must be a couple of freestanding ropes that come down the sides of the ladder, and uh they're occasionally used mainly to uh disembark, where uh some pilots will hold on to the man ropes and uh and walk down the pilot ladder by holding onto the two ropes at the side, and that allows them to push themselves clear of the pilot ladder while still holding on to man ropes. We don't use that technique here in Southampton, we will simply use the full steps of the ladder, climb right down the ladder and uh get to the just above the launch where the deck hand will count us down to the last few steps to take and we'll uh we'll get off the uh get off the ladder. So we don't have uh man ropes. Now, when the freeboard of the ship is uh nine meters or less, then at the end of the day uh we use just this straight ladder. Okay, so the ladder as I just described down the side of the ship. At the top of the ladder, lots of important bits of equipment. There must be stanchions, so stanchions are really important because when you get to the top of the Ladder, you want something to grab hold of so that you can continue to climb those last few steps onto the deck of the ship. Stanchions are perhaps one of the most important bits of ancillary construction outside the actual construction of the rope ladder itself that we have in order to facilitate safe boarding. You've got to be able to grab those stanchions and pull yourself onto the ship. If the stanchions were not there, imagine getting to the top of the ladder and there literally being nothing there to hold on to. You'd literally just fall forward onto the deck, or you'd have to almost crawl onto the deck like a slug if the um if the stanchions weren't there. So yeah, really important for them to be there, um strong, in good condition, solid, not wobbling around. I got on a uh a ship last night and uh I did have a uh a word with the captain because although the stanchions were there, uh the right-hand one uh was uh was very very wobbly. I couldn't I couldn't see it from the pilot launch, so I couldn't judge it on uh on approach, but as I got to the top of the ladder, it was only about a four or four metre ladder, wasn't particularly high. As I got to the top of the ladder and grabbed to the right-hand stanchion first, it moved about two inches towards me. Um and I gave it a shake to make sure that it was uh that it was steady before continuing up the uh the the pilot ladder, grabbing hold of the left stanchion and coming on board the ship. So stanchions at the top, there must be a light boy with self-igniting light, uh and normally there's a heaving line to be able to pull up the uh the pilot's bag, and perhaps most importantly, uh there must be a responsible officer there who has unique communications with the bridge to be able to advise the bridge on the progress of the pilot boarding and advise the bridge of any problems that we have with uh with the boarding of it uh of itself. Now, a straight climb on a ladder is what we get when the freeboard is nine metres or below. When there's more than nine meters of ship above the water, we have what's known as a combination ladder. Now, uh a combination ladder can uh can be really two forms. Um it can be a combination ladder with uh an accommodation ladder that comes down from the deck. Uh the accommodation ladder uh is positioned just uh forward of the uh of the um pilot ladder, so the idea is that you climb up less than nine meters of pilot ladder till you get to the accommodation ladder, uh which is of course you know a bit like a permanent gangway if you like, and then you step sideways from the ladder onto the accommodation ladder and climb the rest of the freeboard on the accommodation ladder. Now, normally there's about five meters of pilot ladder in between the uh the water line and the accommodation ladder itself. Uh the maximum that can be, of course, is nine meters of ladder, but uh five meters of ladder is the minimum amount because obviously, if there's a bit of swell, you don't want the pilot boat getting too close to the accommodation ladder, it might come up on a swell, give the accommodation ladder a bit of a whack. So that's a combination ladder that would happen if the freeboard is above nine meters. Another type of um, if you like, combination ladder is a trapdoor arrangement. Now, trapdoor arrangements are are quite unique. They're basically an accommodation ladder, but at the end of the accommodation ladder, there's a great big platform with a trapdoor in it, and the ladder is fixed to this platform. The ladder's fixed two meters above the platform, it's not fixed to the bottom of the platform, so you're still climbing a pilot ladder when you get to the platform. So the idea is that you climb the pilot ladder again, five meters of ladder below the platform to the waterline. Uh, you climb up that uh that five metres of ladder, that takes you through the trapdoor. As you climb through the trapdoor, you continue to climb until your feet are level with the platform of the trapdoor. You then step off the pilot ladder onto the platform of the trapdoor and uh then up the accommodation ladder. Um this uh is a fairly common arrangement, the uh the trapdoor arrangement. Um the latest amendments uh to um uh the IMO resolutions that were created in the 110th uh Maritime Safety Committee meeting uh did address the uh rigging of ladders in association with the trapdoor. There were two very unfortunate incidents um over in the States where uh pilots lost their grip as they tried to transfer from the ladder onto the uh onto the platform of the trapdoor itself. And um this was mainly due to the fact that there wasn't enough pilot ladder going above the actual trapdoor platform. So as you climbed through, you ran out of pilot ladder and then had to grab hold of the railings, if you like, of the of the platform of the trapdoor arrangement at the bottom of the accommodation ladder, and these railings at times proved difficult to get hold of, and and sadly two guys lost the grip. So uh that requirement to have at least two metres of ladder above the trapdoor itself is a is a fairly new requirement to come out of these um uh of uh the latest uh uh Maritime Safety Committee uh meeting. I say the latest, it was last year. Uh it was in June last year, 2025, the 110th Maritime Safety Committee. Um the 111th is in May of uh of this year, and uh hopefully I'll be uh I'll be attending that one. So I'm looking forward to my uh my my first uh stint as a delegate uh at the IMO. That's with the uh the Nautical Institute. So that's what we would do if the freeboard were uh above nine metres. Now there are a couple of additional uh means of uh of accessing the ship. A ship side opening uh and a ship's shell door. Now what's the difference between the two? Well a ship side opening is basically an opening that's just off the pilot ladder itself. The ladder is still rigged up the side of the ship, but where the freeboard is more than nine meters, the side opening of the vessel is there at a distance below that nine meters. It's not a shell door. Shell doors are different. A shell door is where the pilot ladder is rigged from that door. So unlike a ship side opening where the ladder is actually rigged the entire length of the freeboard, so you know that freeboard could be well in excess of nine meters, but the side opening is at or below nine meters. With a shell door, the ladder is actually rigged at the shell door. So it's rigged to come out of the shell door, and the shell door itself is of course no more than nine meters above the waterline, despite the freeboard potentially being much greater. Shell doors are of course most common on cruise ships, they're also very common on ultra-large container vessels that have uh that have shell doors down below. There are just a couple of uh of decks below the underdeck alleyway on a on a ULCC. So, two different types of door there. Let's talk about the side opening first. Side opening doors are a bit of a challenge to climb. The reason that they're a challenge to climb is because you're actually climbing on a ladder that is way, way longer than nine meters. So the freeboard could be as much as 15-16 meters, that means you've got a 15 or 16 metre ladder. Now you're only climbing up to nine meters of that ladder and then stepping across to a platform and in through the side opening, but the length of the ladder makes the ladder quite unwieldy at the bottom. Now there must be fastenings at the side opening to secure the ladder to the ship's side at the height of the side opening. So you're not trying to fight with a 15 meter long ladder. But even though those fastenings are there, the ladder itself still feels a bit unwieldy when you get on it. The other big mistake that's often made with a side opening is because we ask the ship to rig the ladder one and a half meters above the water, which is the freeboard of our pilot launches, this sometimes coincides with a spreader. And sometimes they rig it really, really poorly so that the spreader obscures the side opening. So the side opening is literally right next to the ladder, so the spreader being much wider than the ladder obscures the side opening. So instead of making the ladder just a little bit longer than we've asked for and allowing that spreader to come down, they sometimes rig it with the spreader across the side opening. If you're my height, it's not too bad dipping underneath it, but obviously it's an obstruction that you don't want and you don't need, and so if it's posing a risk, we will ask them to re-rig the ladder and move that spreader away from obstructing the side opening itself. Side openings will have a platform that you step right onto. Obviously, you're not going to swing into a side opening without a platform, so you step onto a platform then in through the side openings, and those platforms are also specified within the latest uh IMO resolution on the rigging of pilot ladders. Side door arrangements. Um I would go so far as to say that um when you are the pilot in a port with lots of ULCCs and lots of cruise ships, a side door arrangement is is the arrangement that you would normally see. Um it's one that does have its hazards and the new regulations that came out of the Maritime Safety Committee 110 are fixing a lot of the issues that we found with uh side door arrangements. One of the big issues with a side door arrangement was that the pilot ladder used to be rigged from uh two strong points at the top of the uh the side door, the shell door, I should call it. I shouldn't call it a side door. Side door is what we've just described, the shell door arrangement. Um the pilot ladder was sometimes rigged running from the top of the shell door arrangement. So when you got up to the height of the shell door, you either had to step through the pilot ladder or you had to swing around the side of the pilot ladder to get in through the uh the shell door. Now this was addressed at uh MSC 110, and that you are now long no longer allowed to secure your pilot ladder to the top of the shell door. The pilot ladder must be secured to the deck inside the shell door, the same way as it's secured to the deck when it's um when it's rigged as a uh as a regular pilot ladder with stanchions uh and um and uh strong points on the deck itself. So you climb the pilot ladder, you get up to the stanchions, and instead of pulling yourself on deck, you're now pulling yourself through those stanchions and into the um into the shell door access itself. Um another requirement, new requirement that came out of uh a 110 was that the stanchions on a shell door must not be any further than 0.12 meters or 12 centimetres from the entrance itself. Now, this is something in Southampton that we have an unfortunate experience with, in that one of our pilots was faced with stanchions that were much further away than those 12 centimetres, and uh was trying to grab hold of them whilst boarding through a shell door arrangement, didn't quite reach the stanchion, and uh due to the uh the boat moving around on the ladder, actually fell back onto the boat. Now, luckily uh he sustained uh a minimal injury uh mainly because he was wearing a half decent hard hat, but it highlights the fact that if those stanchions are too far in board, reaching for them is to when you get to the top of the ladder in through the shell door can be really really hazardous. So they're the different types of transfer arrangements that we generally see. We do, of course, um come across problems still at the port of Southampton, and uh when we do uh we use the United Kingdom Maritime Pilots Association app to report these issues. Um those issues are are then copied to our own harbourmaster and they're also copied to the UK MPA and to the Maritime and Coast Guard Agency, who, depending upon the severity of the problem with the pilot ladder, will normally come down and survey the ship. Now, if they find that the pilot ladder is unsafe, then they will detain the vessel because it becomes a dangerously unsafe ship. So a dangerously unsafe ship, of course, is a ship which, if it were to proceed to sea, would be a direct threat to the safety of somebody. A ship with an unsafe pilot ladder that's been reported inbound, if it puts to sea, then the pilot is ultimately going to use that ladder. So if that ladder is unsafe, then the ship becomes a direct threat to the safety of the pilot. And therefore, pilot ladder repairs, alterations must be done before the ship would be allowed to sail, once the MCA have attended as the port state or flag state officers and inspected the arrangements, particularly those that have been reported as being deficient. There are some recurring deficiencies that we see here in the port of Southampton. One is the condition of the actual pilot ladder itself. The condition of the pilot ladder, albeit compliant in its construction, may be poor. The pilot ladder may have broken or uneven steps, it may have frayed ropes, it may have ropes that have been left out in the sun and have rotted to the point where they no longer straighten out. It may have steps that rock or are uneven, it may have damaged steps. Um the bottom four rubber steps may be damaged or broken where a pilot launch has impacted with it. So ladder condition is is one of the top things that we find. Counterfeit ladders have been a problem. And uh the the latest ABP Marin uh uh Mariners, notice to mariners that we have issued here in the Port of Southampton, one that I talked about uh earlier on, number four of 2026, that actually mentions counterfeit ladders and gives the master advice on identifying counterfeit ladders. Uh and in particular uh looking for the plaques that uh state that the ladder has been created to the correct ISO standard. So the constructional aspects of a pilot ladder are controlled by ISO, ISO 799-1. Uh that's the actual regulation that talks about the technical construction of the ladder, uh, and uh the plaque on board will conform that that ladder has been made and approved to ISO. A really good robust manufacturer of these ladders will have things like QR codes on a plaque on the ladder itself, and the plaque on the ladder is a requirement of SOLAS so that you can verify that the ladder is not a counterfeit ladder. Another problem we see missing stanchions or damaged stanchions. Missing stanchions are easy to spot from the pilot launchers. If there's no stanchions there, we call up for the pilot launch, put some stanchions in place, you've forgotten your stanchions. If the stanchions don't arrive or they're not there, they're not provided them. Uh if we've got any climb on a pilot ladder at all, we will not climb that ladder without stanchions. One of the things I don't like about stanchions is sometimes, as I described earlier on, they can be loose, they can move around. That's something that you don't discover till you're at the top of the ladder trying to grab hold of them and they move. Trapdoor extensions. We did go through a period of the trapdoor extensions being unsuitable. So that's that two-meter extension of the ladder above the trapdoor platform. Um, there were uh several container ships that were non-compliant in this respect. Their pilot ladders were basically stopping barely half a metre above those platforms. Then you were having to grab hold of the framework of the platform itself. Uh, if we see that the pilot ladder in Southampton doesn't go that two metres above the platform, again we won't board the vessel. Um deck tongues is another thing that we see far too often. Ladders must be secured using the tails of the rope that are on the pilot ladder themselves as part of the ISO construction, and these tails are made fast to the deck normally using a rolling hitch, and the the rolling hitch then goes around the strong point of the uh of the deck itself. Deck tongues are the name that we give to a metal plate that's been crafted so the ladder can literally be hung on this bracket and then put over the side of the ship without even being tied to the ship. The other day we came across on a large container ship a deck tongue combined with the required rolling hitch lashings, but the rolling hitch lashings were so slack that all the weight was being taken on the deck tongue. The steps are not designed to take the weight of the ladder. The weight of the pilot is what the steps are designed to take. They are not designed to hold the weight of the pilot and the ladder. So the use of a deck tongue is very, very dangerous. One because the step could break, because it's under so much duress, and two, if the ladder is pushed up by the pilot launch or the ship rolling, then it's possible for the step to jump out of the deck tongue. So we don't like those at all. The ladder must be secured in the approved method, which is using two bits of the standing rope round on themselves and a rolling hitch against the main ropes of the pilot ladder that hold the step. Condition of combination ladders is sometimes very very difficult to spot from the pilot launch when you're underneath it. And indeed, a few years ago, I was on a bolt carrier coming into Southampton, and I got to the top of the accommodation ladder, and the pin holding the platform on the top of the accommodation ladder had almost rusted all the way through. The MCA attended that ship and required major works to be done on the accommodation ladder that was rigged as a combination ladder with my pilot ladder, uh, to the extent where the ship was actually delayed about a week trying to do these repairs, they were that serious. Something else that we see combination ladder problems. Very, very difficult to spot from the launch itself. Another recent issue that we've had in the port of Southampton is ship design. Now, ship design can be any type of ship, but recently in the port of Southampton we found that some warships, our hulls are so designed that they do not allow the ladder to rest alongside the ship's hull. That's one of the requirements of SOLAS and the IMO resolution, is that the pilot ladder rests firmly against the ship's side. Warships are sometimes constructed with a chine, so the pilot ladder doesn't do that. Unless you've experienced trying to climb a pilot ladder that's not against the ship's side, it's difficult for you to imagine how difficult that is to do if the ladder's not hard against the uh the hull itself. Uh warships, sometimes that's an issue. We recently found a warship with a counterfeit pilot ladder. Now that was probably the uh the ignorance of the uh of the warship and the uh the state involved itself in not realizing that it was purchasing a counterfeit ladder. But that's another problem that we have is that SOLAS does not directly apply to warships. They have their own codes, but they are goal-based codes. They are not statutory codes that can be enforced. Now, politically and out of courtesy, they will comply with their goal-based requirements for rigging pilot ladders in conjunction with SOLAS. They will um they will comply as far as they can. But we have to be very, very careful when approaching warships, we inspect the pilot ladders very carefully because there's a very good chance that they are rigged either against a hull with a strange form or things like stanchions are missing, the securing arrangements at the top are not great, and indeed I've seen a pilot ladder hung from a crane on a warship and been invited to get on that, which I I obviously turned down because that's not an agreed way of rigging the pilot ladder. We are very lucky as I've said before in the Port of Southampton in that our decision not to board a ship is supported wholly by the management of the port and the management of the company as a whole. Therefore Southampton has got itself a bit of a reputation a reputation that ship owners are well aware of that if the pilot ladders are not compliant and in good condition the pilots will not board. And this is a reputation that Southampton is quite rightly proud of. Some people say it's not good to have that reputation because ships will be cautious about coming to the port. That's not the case. Ships that are coming to the port will just ensure that their pilot ladders are rigged correctly. And when a ship comes to the port of Southampton for the first time if it hasn't been here for a long time or if it comes here for the first time and the ship is any age at all we often find that the pilot ladder is new. And why is it new? It's new because they don't want to risk the pilot coming out spotting a defect with the ladder turning round and telling the ship that they're not going to board it. A ship that's not boarded will be turned around by VTS and either sent to anchor or sent away to drift and we'll need to verify with the port that the defects have been rectified before we'll even go out with the launch and have a look at the ship to ensure that that is indeed the case. That takes a long time it incurs delays it incurs problems it may incur demurrage in which case that's two the ship owner's account because the requirement to provide safe access for a pilot ultimately the master and the ship owner. So just to end this podcast by saying if anybody listening to this manages ships, owns ships or is in command of a ship please do recognise that pilots and the pilot boarding process and disembarkation process is one of the highest risk operations undertaken by any ship or person. So ensuring that your pilot ladder is both compliant and in good condition is not just a legal requirement. You owe it to the men and women that are using these pilot ladders that you provide them with the safe access that they legally deserve to get.