VESSEL REVIEW | Llanion – All-weather pilot boat for UK's Port of Milford Haven

The Port of Milford Haven in the UK has taken delivery of a new pilot boat built by Netherlands-based Next Generation Shipyards.

The Camarc-designed, 22-metre (72-foot) long Llanion boasts an aluminium hull design developed with the aim of improving safety, operational efficiency, and seakeeping. The all-weather-capable vessel was designed to be self-righting and incorporates a number of what the Port of Milford Haven said are industry leading safety standards, ensuring safe transfers of pilots to vessels arriving at and departing from the oil and gas terminals near the port.

“This is the first waterjet-equipped pilot vessel to be owned and operated by the Port of Milford Haven,” Mike Ryan, Harbourmaster at the Port of Milford Haven, told Baird Maritime. “We believe this will provide us with improvements in performance and support our operational capability long into the future.”

Ergonomic layout coupled with IMO Tier III-compliant propulsion

Ryan said that due to the Port of Milford Haven’s proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, the design brief for this vessel took a performance capability-based approach. In partnership with BMT, the port developed the performance criteria the vessel needed to achieve in order to support operational and wider requirements.

“Ideally, the vessel would be under 24 metres LOA, with a draught of less than 1.8 metres (5.9 feet). Operational requirements included the ability to operate pilotage safely in a minimum of six-metre significant wave height seas in conditions up to 7.5-metre (25-foot) swells.

“We also wanted to incorporate ergonomic design considerations, technical advances and up-to-date safety and environmental features, such as IMO Tier III SCR systems, Hefring and Marad monitoring systems, a Coppins sea anchor, Sperry VDR, self-righting capability, and an anchor deployable from inside the vessel.”

The boat is crewed by three people and has additional seating for up to six pilots. For the safety of crews and pilots, the design required redundancy capabilities to be built into all critical systems.

“The vessel will build on the port’s service resilience through expansion of the existing fleet,” Ryan told Baird Maritime. “The boat was designed for our operational environment and requirements to achieve the level of service provision we require. The other option was to purchase an off-the-shelf design, which would not have met our needs.”

Full electronics suite and MOB recovery kit

Power for Llanion is provided by two MAN D2862 LE489 engines that each produce 1,066 kW (1,430 hp) at 2,100 rpm. The engines are fed by fire-protected fuel tanks and drive two Hamilton HTX52 waterjets via ZF 3050 gearboxes to deliver speeds in excess of 25 knots at 100 per cent MCR and an operational range of 280 nautical miles at 20 knots.

Humphree active interceptors and fixed roll fins help keep the boat’s attitude as level as possible. Wing ballast tanks and a custom fender from Fender Innovations are also fitted.

The electronics suite meanwhile includes an AIS and DGNSS from Saab, Sailor DSC and non-DSC VHF radios, an Ultrasonic anemometer, a Phonetech PA system, and a Sperry Visionmaster X-band radar. CCTV cameras provide coverage of the exterior deck areas while a thermal imaging camera with personal locator beacon tracking ability is mounted above the wheelhouse.

A Zelim twin conveyor recovery system will be fitted aft to enable the pilot boat to be used for MOB rescues.

“The boat’s anchor is permanently rigged and stowed in a pocket on the starboard bow to prevent hook-up or contact with serviced vessels,” Ryan explained. “Interior release and recovery mechanisms allow for single-crew operation and reduce the need for crews to connect up cumbersome equipment in difficult sea conditions and manually deploy anchors from the foredeck, as is common on many dedicated pilot launches.”

For Ryan, integrating elements of the new MCA Workboat Code edition III requirements into the design, such as in the anchoring arrangements and fire protection for the fuel tanks, were challenges that were overcome during the vessel’s design phase, along with achieving the levels of redundancy and performance in a relatively small vessel.

The project also provided a critical learning point.

“Identifying the key capability requirements was a sizable task when considering operational, people, and legislative requirements,” Ryan told Baird Maritime. “However, taking the time to map this out ultimately resulted in a robust, highly effective and well-considered overall design.”