Module 16 - Pilotage
Pilotage Plans
What you will learn
Build a cockpit-ready arrival or departure plan from current charts, publications, tide, weather, traffic, vessel and crew constraints.
A pilotage plan should make the next safe action legible at a glance. It carries the critical limits and cues into the cockpit while the current chart and publications remain the authority.
Start with corrected charts and relevant sailing directions, notices, tide data, weather, harbour instructions and traffic information. The MCA expects a voyage assessment appropriate to the vessel and crew that considers navigational dangers, weather, tides and other relevant factors; pilotage is the detailed end of that same plan.
For each leg record course or track, distance, expected time at a sensible speed, marks and lights in sequence, transits, clearing limits, minimum planned depth and the next decision point. Add speed limits, VHF or signal requirements, traffic pinch points, no-go areas and where the vessel can wait or turn away.
Keep the cockpit version selective. Long prose forces heads-down reading at the worst time. Use a simple sketch or table supported by the chart, and brief roles, communications and contingencies. Recheck the plan if the actual tide, visibility, traffic, equipment or crew readiness differs from the assumptions.
Worked example
Check an entrance depth before committing. The least charted depth on the planned line is 1.2 m, predicted height of tide at the time is 1.8 m and the yacht's draught is 1.7 m.
- 1Calculate water depth: 1.2 m charted depth + 1.8 m height of tide = 3.0 m predicted water depth.
- 2Calculate predicted clearance: 3.0 m water depth − 1.7 m draught = 1.3 m predicted under-keel clearance.
- 3Apply real margins: test that clearance against the plan's allowance for prediction uncertainty, pressure and wind effects, waves, squat, heel, silting and echo-sounder offset.
Sense check: The arithmetic gives 1.3 m before allowances; it does not by itself approve the entrance. If the actual depth trend is shallower than expected, use the abort or holding point rather than defending the calculation.
Brief a night arrival
The route crosses a bar, follows a lit leading line and then turns between harbour traffic signals and a ferry berth.
1. Sequence the evidence
List the landfall light, bar depth check, leading lights, turn cue and berth-sector hazard in the order the crew should see them.
2. Allocate voices
One crew member reports depth trend, another identifies lights; the helm repeats course changes and the skipper retains the whole picture.
3. Name the escape
State the last safe holding or turn-away point and the conditions that trigger it.
Sense check: The plan is cockpit-ready when a crew member can state the next cue, the safe limit and the response without reading a paragraph.
Common mistake or limitation
- A waypoint list is not a complete pilotage plan: it omits visual confirmation, depth, traffic and failure responses.
- Predicted tide and charted depth are planning inputs, not guarantees of the water actually under the keel.
Recap
- Prepare from current authoritative information and actual vessel constraints.
- Compress the plan into short legs with observable evidence and limits.
- Brief the crew and keep a safe response ready for changed conditions.
Optional quick check
Section 2 of 8
A 1.2 m charted patch has 1.8 m predicted tide above datum and the yacht draws 1.7 m. What has the calculation established?
Continue studying Pilotage
This public lesson is part of Revision Module 16. Full revision access adds the guided Learn, Practise and Test flow, flashcards and revision progress.