chengkp75

Which are well outside the normal shipping lane through the channel.

The North Sea pilots are unusual, and not required, though most ships take them, due as you say to the amount of traffic in the area, providing another set of eyes to the bridge team. While pilots are well paid, they also have one of the most dangerous jobs around, a recent report saying that 1 in 20 will die on the job. Typically, before taking a pilot's job, you must get a merchant marine license and sail on that license for a time to gain experience in handling ships. Then there are the exams, that in many cases requires you to hand draw a chart of the area you are looking for pilotage for, including all navigational markers, and obstructions, in their proper locations. Then, there is the professional bond, of several hundred thousand dollars, that you have to have. Then, you start out as an apprentice, under another pilot, making not much money. After a while, if the other pilots approve, you can move up to handling small ships, and then over time, you move up to larger ships. The pay is based on the number and size of ships you handle. You typically also have to "buy your way in" to the pilot's association, to the tune of another few hundred thousand dollars.

The pilot stays onboard the entire time the ship is in the Channel and North Sea.

From looking it up, cardioversion is different from defibrillation, so an AED would not be a proper device.

The only time that a birth certificate/driver's license combination is legal documentation for cruising is for a closed loop cruise, one that starts and ends at the same US port. Your cruise is not a closed loop, so this form of documentation is not allowed.

Depends on what kind of pilot boat. A harbor pilot boat would not venture far out of sight of land, but a bar pilot boat is designed to come alongside a large ship, while that ship is still doing 6-7 knots, in open ocean waters, and many pilot boats (like the Columbia River bar pilots) will operate in breaking seas of over 10' (and are as self-righting as any RNLI boat. In the UK, for instance, the North Sea pilots board several miles offshore of Brixham harbor, in some of the worst weather I've seen small boats operate in.

I knew John as well from my time with NCL.

Yes, doing surveys out of synch with others gets expensive, so they should be stretching and compressing intervals to bring things into line.

Well, I'm assuming you are in the DNV Vessel Register, and entered the ship name. This will display a page with all the POA data on it. A "dry dock" is not a required survey/inspection, under "Surveys" you will see the "Bottom Complete Survey", this is the dry dock survey of all things under the waterline. This is showing as "next due" 6/29/2024. There is leeway there in the date range for the due date, so a few weeks either side is possible, allowing for dry dock availability. This date is somewhat out of sequence, as her last docking was June 2021, so this June is 36 months later, when it should have been no more than 30 months, so this must have been a covid exemption (shipyards not working), as her main class renewal date (the 5 year cycle of major inspections/surveys) is March 2025, and ships are normally required to dry dock for the renewal survey. Also, her class certificate is due in June 2025, which is again out of line with the renewal date of March 2025, so things are a bit muddy, but Covid tended to do that.

NCL has had azipods since the Dawn class, back in 2001. Spirit, POA, and the Jewel class all had azipods, then NCL returned to shafted propellers for Epic, and then back to azipods for Breakaway. Hawaii requires tugs to be on hand for docking/undocking in most ports, but they are almost never called on, and don't have to escort to the sea buoy. Can't remember if Hilo had tugs or not. Most tug work on cruise ships is "on a line" pulling, not pushing up against the ship, where the black tires mar the white hulls.

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Oystein was Staff Chief on the Sky when I joined as observing First Engineer (had been sailing Chief for about 20 years, but took a step back to start with cruise ships) for a few months prior to the reflagging of the Aloha. Wonderful guy. Reflagging and dry docking the Sky was accelerated about 4 months or so, due to POA sinking.

No more than I am, just a simple boat mechanic.

I can't remember, but I don't think there are any tugs of any real pulling power based in Hilo, so if POA has an azipod out of service, she needs a tug escort for the entire (acknowledgedly short) maneuver out of harbor, so they may be getting a tug down to help out. Only real reason I can think of to delay the ship a full day in harbor.

Yeah, looked her up, Lindsey Smith. She was hired by NCL as a third engineer, as one of the original Pride of America crew. She actually made it to the shipyard, I was due to fly out to Germany the day the ship sank at the dock, so everyone was transferred to the Pride of Aloha (Norwegian Sky) for familiarization and reflagging. She has spent nearly her entire career with NCL, and on the POA in particular. While for senior engineers (Chief, Staff Chief, First) longevity on the ship leads to a lot of institutional knowledge and consistent maintenance, junior engineers can benefit from experiences on other ships and types of ships. Having said that, Linds was a good engineer.