Senior pilot Viktor Khmarin and 1st category pilot Andrei Dyundyuk of the pilot service of the FSUE "Rosmorport" Vanino Branch successfully provided a difficult piloting of the transport floating dock "Zeya" from buoy No. 1 of the Southern fairway of the Amur estuary to the pilot station of the seaport of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur.

2 sea tugboats, including one shallow-draft tugboat and one shallow-draft pusher tugboat, were involved in the pilot operation.

The transport floating dock "Zeya" is 169.5 meters length, 23.5 meters width, 15.2 meters hull height, and 3.5 meters in draft. The total length of the tug train was more than 400 meters.

Towing such objects in space-limited environment with limited visibility is a pilot operation of the highest difficulty, requiring professionalism, special knowledge and experience that the pilots of the Vanino Branch have.

Before carrying out this pilot operation, the pilot service of the Vanino Branch worked out all the details of the piloting of the tug train, taking into account the features of the Southern Fairway of the Amur estuary, the hydrometeorological situation at the crossing, possible emergency situations, and also worked out the arrangement of the towing equipment used.

The piloting of the towed object was carried out along a fairway of 110 nautical miles length in difficult hydrometeorological navigation conditions. In some extended areas, the tug train moved in shallow waters in especially space-limited environment with a fairway width of less than 1 cable with a flow draft of 4.4 meters in high waters.

According to the results of the operation, which took almost 42 hours, the transport floating dock "Zeya" was successfully delivered to the raid of the seaport of Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, which once again confirms the high professionalism of the pilot service of the FSUE "Rosmorport" Vanino Branch.