Cheap Pilot Ladders

Keeping costs down is an important  part of good ship management. Shopping around to get the best price is always a wise move not just in shipping but in life generally. However when it comes to safety critical equipment it’s important that the price is not the sole driver of purchasing. 

Cheap pilot ladders can bring with them other issues such as reduced durability, cheaper materials and as we have discussed before the very real possibility of getting a fake pilot ladder. Suddenly that $200 saving has caused the pilot for your vessel to refuse to board and the ship has been sent to anchor. 

So the question is ‘Is it possible to save money on pilot ladders without compromising on quality’ and the answer to this is a resounding yes and to explain how we’ll look at a case study.

So Fathom Safety as well as offering the most comprehensive pilot ladder training package also has a pilot ladder management service. Our end to end service sees us take over the supply, monitoring, replacement or retesting of ladders as well as making sure your vessels crew have the most comprehensive training available.

A recent addition to our ladder management service was a company with 16 Aframax tankers. As part of our onboarding service each ship gets a remote audit which includes looking at the current pilot ladder provision, the ships pilot transfer arrangement and any associated equipment. As part of this audit we are often astounded to see exactly what ladders the ship has been ordering. The common issue is ordering ladders that are much too long. Those pointless extra steps and spreaders add not only to the cost of producing the ladder but also the weight when calculating the shipping. These extra costs often far outweigh any 'savings' the diligent ship manager has saved by  buying a lower quality ladder. 

In our pilot ladder audit of their 16 vessels we manged to create annual savings of $9000 on ladder purchasing as well as providing them with premium quality PTR Holland pilot ladders to replace the cheap pilot ladders they were previously using. This was a win-win for both safety and the fleet budget. Additionaly the training we provided to their crews and the 24 hour helpline we offer prevented 2 ships from being refused boarding by their pilots avoiding potential delay costs in excess of $100,000.

This demonstrates the effectiveness of what we can do for maritime fleets. A virtuous circle that improves safety, reduces costs and prevents delays.