The twelve members visiting the PLA had travelled to the Gravesend headquarters, some by train but at least three by the pedestrian water ferry from Tilbury. They were greeted by Deputy Harbourmaster David Alsopp, who informed us of some of the conditions under which the PLA was able to assist and exercise some control over river users.

The Port has no shareholders and any surplus is reinvested in services. As a result, there is no Government funding required. 

To conduct any activity on the river, a license from the PLA is mandatory. This includes obtaining consent for building or installing equipment on or over the tideway, even if it's just replacing handrails on piers, jetties, and riverside walks. The river traffic around the site of these works is also controlled. Even occasional events such as the New Year fireworks, the Boat Race, and the Great River Race require consent, as well as anything that requires sections of the river to be closed. It is surprising to note that there is no charge for assessing events and granting consent.

As part of their responsibilities, VTS Officers are tasked with conducting risk assessments and ensuring safety on the river. They achieve this by providing guidance to vessels that are entering or moving within the port. While the River Police are not as visible due to their lower numbers, they are available whenever there is suspicion of intoxication. They have access to breathalyzers on their boats and other equipment on shore to assist them when needed.

At this stage, David Alsopp had to leave us with members of his staff to attend another meeting.

PLA Hydrographic Services has a legal obligation to ensure navigation safety through their surveys and chart production. They also have a conservancy function, performing data analysis and mapping, and can undertake commercial survey work. The Services operate three vessels - Maplin, Thame, and Galloper - each equipped with survey equipment, along with remote and autonomous platforms, including three drones. The latter are operated by highly qualified pilots who must adhere to flight rules over London. Following our questions, we learned that remotely operated vessels are more likely to be used initially instead of autonomous ones. Remote surveys are a useful tool, but they are not yet utilized for main surveys. Instead, they eliminate the need to send large survey vessels into shallow waters and prevent people from being sent into dangerous areas. The survey data is transmitted in real-time using Starlink, which is capable of transmitting large files to the website. S-102 bathymetric charting enables the storage of high-resolution survey data, which is used to create paper charts available as .pdf files on the PLA website, and also as ENCs for the pilots working on the river. This results in a more efficient port operation.

To determine how often an area is surveyed, the Port of London Authority compares historic and current survey records, which reveal the regular movement of sandbanks within the estuary. The PLA has a Memorandum of Understanding with the UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) and shares all survey data with them. The PLA also provides survey data to companies producing leisure charts. The carriage of paper charts is currently a requirement for vessels within the harbour, but the Hydrographic Department will phase them out following the UKHO.

Harbourmaster (SMS & VTS) Simon Phillips took over with many details of the port and its operation. All the berths for ships are privately owned, rather like the M25 with its service areas. VTS – Vessel Traffic Services – main concern is safety of life. The PLA’s VTS covers the largest area of any UK port being 600 square miles and 60 miles long, covering three sectors from two management centres. The lower part of the river and estuary is managed from Gravesend, where we were, and the upper part from a control room at the Thames Barrier at Margaretness. Both these control rooms are designed to be inter-operational, either being able to take over from the other in case of a serious failure such as a fire or terrorist attack.

VTS aims to provide essential and timely traffic information to shipping to assist in making on-board decisions. The traffic is organized to prevent the development of dangerous situations, with large ships becoming too close to one another. Navigation assistance is also given to aid on-board decisions. The VTS Supervisors are actually pilots who take turns in the control room and are informed of the location of vessels in the river and estuary by 17 radar scanners, 6 AIS base stations, 9 CCTV cameras, and 16 VHF radio stations. As I was once told, if the radar, the AIS, and a video camera all put a ship in the same location, they can be sure that is where it is! I had a question about the location of three of the radar scanners, which are out in the estuary and turn out to be sited on windfarms.

Afterward, we briefly visited the VTS control room where two VTS officers were on duty. Unfortunately, due to the current suspicious climate, we were restricted to the rear section and couldn't observe their work. While we were questioning Simon Philips, Ivana Carrioni-Burnett, chair of RIN's Marine Navigation Group and a Thames pilot stationed at Gravesend, joined us.

We were told that Thames pilots are evaluated based on their ability to bring in vessels of four different sizes. Regardless of their previous qualifications from other ports, all pilots begin with the smallest ships. As pilots gain more experience, they undergo assessments that determine whether they can move up to larger vessels. Furthermore, the largest ships that enter the port must have two pilots on board.

One of the most demanding jobs, it seems, run from a desk at the rear of the control room, is the logistics of arranging for pilots to meet up with the ship they are to bring into the port. This will frequently necessitate booking a taxi to get the pilot from Gravesend to where the pilot cutter will pick them up, usually Ramsgate, to ensure there is a cutter available and that they get to the ship in time. All this needs to take into account road traffic conditions and the state of the weather and tidal conditions.

The Small Craft Group thanks the PLA and staff for facilitating the visit. Half of the group then had lunch at a nearby pub.

John Hasselgren

18/10/2023