From the bridge
RSSPractical maritime compliance.
Plain-English writing for commercial operators — USCG rules, Sub M, STCW, cyber, and the free tools we built along the way. No regulatory fog. No SEO filler.
New York / New Jersey Pilotage: Dispatch from Ambrose to the Kill Van Kull
Sandy Hook pilots board offshore at Ambrose and take ships through one of the busiest, most complex harbors in the country — including the Kill Van Kull, a narrow, current-swept reach under an air-draft-critical bridge to the largest container terminals on the East Coast. Here's the dispatch challenge.
NAIS vs. Commercial AIS: Choosing the Data Source for Pilot Dispatch
Your dispatch board is only as good as its AIS feed. Terrestrial commercial feeds, satellite AIS, and the Coast Guard's Nationwide AIS each have different coverage, latency, and cost. Here's how to choose — and why some districts only work on NAIS.
The Master-Pilot Exchange (MPX): What It Covers and How to Standardize It
The Master-Pilot Exchange is the most important conversation on the bridge — and the one most often left to memory. Here's what a complete MPX covers, why investigators look for it, and how to make it a repeatable card instead of an ad-hoc chat.
Houston Ship Channel Pilotage: Dispatch in One of the Busiest Waterways in America
The Houston Ship Channel pairs enormous petrochemical traffic with a long, narrow, two-way-restricted channel and frequent fog closures. Dispatching it is an exercise in managing congestion and meeting situations. Here's the challenge and what helps.
Cook Inlet Pilotage: Dispatching Some of Alaska's Hardest Water
Cook Inlet pairs some of the largest tides in North America with effectively no commercial AIS coverage — a brutal combination for a dispatch desk. Here's what makes the district so demanding and what a purpose-built board does about the tide and the data gap.
Where US State Pilotage Is Required: A State-by-State Orientation
Federal law sets the floor, but state pilotage law decides who actually has to take a pilot in most US ports. Here's how state compulsory pilotage works, why nearly every coastal state runs its own system, and what it means for a pilots association's coverage.
Columbia River Pilotage: Dispatch Across the Bar and the River
The Columbia pairs one of the world's most dangerous bar crossings with a hundred-mile river transit serving multiple ports — and two separate pilot groups who hand off at Astoria. Here's the dispatch challenge of the whole system and what coordinating it actually takes.
Chesapeake Bay Pilotage: Dispatch Across a Long Bay to Many Ports
The Chesapeake is a long bay serving Hampton Roads near the mouth and Baltimore nearly 150 miles up — with Virginia and Maryland pilots and a handoff between them. Coordinating a multi-port corridor of that length is the dispatch challenge. Here's how it works.
Charleston Harbor Pilotage: Dispatch for a Deep-Draft Container Port
Charleston deepened its harbor to handle the largest containerships calling the US East Coast — which puts under-keel clearance and draft-driven timing at the center of dispatch. Here's the challenge of a deep-draft district and what helps.
Pilotage Tariff Invoicing and Detention Billing: Stop Eating the Standby Time
Detention and standby are the most under-billed line on a pilotage invoice. Here's how to stop eating it and tie every charge back to the transit.
Pilot Ladder Safety Under SOLAS V/23: Building a Deficiency Log Your Association Can Escalate
The most dangerous 90 seconds of the job. A tap-through boarding checklist, SOLAS V/23 rigging rules, and a fleet-wide deficiency log that changes operator behavior.
Rotation Equity: Settling the Fair-Share Dispute That Splits Pilots Associations
The deepest fight inside a pilots association isn't safety — it's whether turns and the lucrative jobs are shared fairly. Here's how to measure it.