Harbour Master
The principal and fundamental role of a Harbour Master is:
To manage safely the movement of shipping within his or her area of jurisdiction.
The role will vary dependent upon the size of the harbour and the type of ships using it, but will typically include the management of:
- People, including vessel traffic services operators, port operators and associated staff
- Safe, secure, efficient and environmentally sound port operations
- Finances and marine assets
- The provision of pilotage
- The leisure use of the harbour
Worldwide there are approximately 3,000 merchant ports and the work of the Harbour Master can vary widely from country to country and from port to port even within the same country.
Latest News & Events
In the current context, marked by the effects of the Covid 19 pandemic, terminals are showing a considerable drop in overall port volumes. This is associated with a decline in economic activity, and with a large number of blank sailings due to shipping lines’ attempts to align capacity with existing demand.
However, the paradox is that despite the fact that calls and volume arriving at the Port of Barcelona's BEST terminal have decreased, moves per call have significantly increased. This was reported from the port on 29 June.
During week 23 (1-7 June), BEST terminal welcomed the largest vessel to call at the Port of Barcelona, MSC Sixin, with a capacity of almost 24,000 TEU.
Subsequently, similar ships from the 2M alliance (Maersk + MSC) have been arriving on a recurring basis on passage between the Far East and Europe, grouping together all the moves that a few weeks ago were made between different services of the same alliance and which were cancelled due to the exceptional situation currently experienced.
During May and June, BEST terminal saw how the number of moves per call had broken all existing records in the Port of Barcelona – starting with almost 8,000 moves in week 22, all move records broken to reach almost 8,500 moves in week 24.
This change in demand, with large cargo concentration peaks on large deep sea vessels and a smaller number of calls, directly impacts on the way terminals must approach the services they offer.
Marketing attraction
It was found that the way to put forward a valuable proposal to shipping lines with these types of calls, is to offer productivity per call that exceeds by far the average efficiency in container terminals. With this in mind, it is important to highlight the relevance of the important investments made by BEST, both in the number of cranes capable of operating these types of ship, and in the terminal operating system (TOS) at all levels.
Classification Society ClassNK announced from Tokyo on 2 July that it had released its annual report on Port State Control.
This document aims to assist ship operators and management companies in maintaining compliant operations by providing information about ships detained by PSC as well as deficiencies that were found on board from many port states in 2019.
In line with the International Safety Management (ISM) Code, PSC inspections ensure that vessels departing the port meet international standards and have proved to be highly effective in eliminating substandard ships that are in operation. They oversee not only the hardware of a ship, but also the software by examining the maintenance and operation methods being used. In addition to various figures, status of implementation and recent developments in PSC worldwide are included.
This Annual Report on Port State Control (PSC) summarises deficiencies identified during PSC inspections carried out in various countries around the world.
Class NK has prepared it with the objective of building awareness with the present state of PSC and thereby improving future onboard maintenance and inspections, and as well as Safety Management System.
