• Prácticos de España, Colombia, Argentina, Guatemala y de la Federación Europea se reúnen en la sede de Valenciaport y refuerzan la relevancia de la eficacia en las labores del practicaje

• La jornada fue organizada por el Colegio Oficial Nacional de Prácticos de Puerto; la Federación de Prácticos de puerto de España; los Prácticos de Valencia; la APV y la Fundación Valenciaport

València, February 14th, 2024.- Pilots are generators of port maritime safety, and for this reason they are an essential service in ports. It was under this premise shared by all those present that yesterday, in the Assembly Hall of the Port Authority of Valencia (APV), the technical conference on Port maritime safety, organised by the National Association of Port Pilots; the Federation of Port Pilots of Spain; the Valencia Pilots; APV and Fundación Valenciaport, opened yesterday.

In addition to the Spaniards, the conference was attended by pilots from ports in Colombia, Argentina and Guatemala, as well as the vice-president of the European Maritime Pilots Association (EMPA), Miguel Castro, also a pilot from the Port of Sines in Portugal.

The president of the Port Authority of Valencia, Mar Chao, as host of the meeting, highlighted the importance of pilotage services for maritime safety and thanked the València Pilots Corporation for its efforts in setting up a simulator that will reinforce the efficiency of the pilots’ work.

The event focused on key maritime port safety issues with presentations from experts in various areas, starting with the delimitation of captain/practitioner responsibility in port waters, a topic presented by the Valencia Maritime Captain, Elena Delgado Gutiérrez.

Port pilots have public service obligations to be available at all times to the Maritime Captain and the Port Authority to intervene and cooperate in the prevention of accidents, in rescues, salvage and in the fight against pollution, to solve the emergency situation together with the port towage and mooring services.

During the conference, cases of maritime port emergencies were dealt with in which the work of the technical-nautical services of pilots, towing and mooring prevented what could have been a catastrophe, such as the case of the passenger ship Britannia, presented by José Antonio Pérez, Pilot of the Port of Palma de Mallorca and Eva González, head of the Port Operations Department of the Balearic Islands Port Authority. This ship, moored in port with some 4,000 passengers, suffered the consequences of a tornado which, in a matter of thirty seconds, caused all the moorings to break and it sailed some four hundred metres until it collided with the tanker “Castillo de Arteaga”, which was unloading hydrocarbons. The prompt intervention of pilots and tugs resolved a situation that could have ended in tragedy with the explosion of the tanker and a cruise ship on top of the tanker.

On the other hand, the Cadiz pilot Antonio Sanchez explained the emergency that occurred while sailing outbound in the Cadiz Bay Channel with a tanker, which suffered a “blackout” (engine shutdown) and how he was able to solve this situation, avoiding marine pollution.

Coordination and maritime safety was the main theme of the intervention of Agustín Garrote, pilot of the Port of Valencia, who stressed that maritime safety depends on many factors, especially coordination between general and port service providers.

Next, Manuel Cabezón, pilot of the Port of Seville and the Guadalquivir Estuary, presented how they carry out the pilotage service in an estuary characterised by a lack of draught and an increasingly narrow navigation channel; and Gerardo Álvarez, head of Maritime Operations of the APV, spoke about the general service of organisation, coordination and control of maritime traffic in the ports and about the technologies applied to Port Control.

During the afternoon, Isaac González, head of Business Development of Amura, explained to the attendees the working method of the 300 pilots operating in the Panama Canal and José A. Giménez, director of Port Logistics of Fundación Valenciaport, dealt with efficiency in maritime-port operations, as well as the initiatives and applications that are being carried out in the port of Valencia.

Finally, emerging issues such as port security and safety were addressed, a subject presented by Javier Gesé, deputy director of Safety and Security of Puertos del Estado; and new approaches in the pilotage service related to autonomous vessels, an issue analysed by Javier Portales, partner lawyer of Albors Galiano Portales.

The conference was closed by Amador Gutiérrez, president of the National Association of Port Pilots; José Luis Saura, president of the Spanish Federation of Port Pilots; and Javier Felis, president of Prácticos de Valencia.