Professional Mariner – February 2026

Derecktor delivers next-gen offshore crew boat, challenges one-off economics and regulation

Derecktor Shipyards has delivered DC1, a 40-foot high-performance offshore crew vessel built at the company’s New York yard for CREST, a U.S.-based offshore services company. The vessel was designed by Chartwell Marine and is powered by twin Volvo Penta IPS D6-500 systems. The U.S.-built catamaran is intended as a next-generation platform for offshore energy, research and other commercial missions that…

New West Coast-built pilot boat enters service in Honolulu

The Hawaii Pilots Association (HPA) has added a new pilot boat to its fleet, continuing a decade-long relationship with a Pacific Northwest boatyard. In late 2025, HPA took delivery of Mamala Bay from North River Boats in Oregon. The vessel is named for the busy stretch of water off Honolulu’s south shore where commercial traffic converges and pilots conduct much…

Eastern Shipbuilding showcases multisector momentum with SOV conversion, escort tug launch and ferry newbuild

Eastern Shipbuilding Group is demonstrating the scope of its capabilities with recent milestones spanning offshore wind, escort tug construction and passenger ferry work — a cross-section of projects that highlights the yard’s growing role in serving multiple corners of the U.S. maritime industry. In late December 2025, Eastern announced the re-delivery of HOS Rocinante, a first-of-its-kind U.S.-flagged service operation vessel…

NOAA marks start of construction on second new charting and mapping vessel

Uniformed officers and civilians alike held welding masks to their faces as sparks and smoke flared from a workbench. With an audience at the International WorkBoat Show in New Orleans watching intently in early December 2025, a welder engraved the initials of retired Rear Adm. Evelyn Fields, the sponsor of Navigator, a new charting and mapping ship for the National…

New tractor tug Gerard McAllister enters service in New York

One of the nation’s oldest family-owned tug operators has taken delivery of a new low-emission, high-horsepower ship-assist vessel. McAllister Towing has added the tractor tug Gerard McAllister to its New York fleet — the fifth in a six-vessel series of low-emission escort tugs built by Washburn & Doughty. Designed to handle the largest ships calling on the East Coast, the…

New Polar Code rules take effect as ice conditions grow less predictable

Shorter, less stable navigation windows in polar waters are colliding with a new set of international safety requirements set to take effect in 2026, as sea ice at both ends of the planet remains well below historical averages. Data from recent months show Arctic sea ice forming later, thinner and more unevenly than in previous years, while Antarctic sea ice…

Mare Island Dry Dock closure underscores loss of U.S. repair capacity

In early January, Mare Island Dry Dock (MIDD) informed the city of Vallejo that it had permanently closed, resulting in the loss of more than 80 full-time union and non-union jobs and marking another reduction in U.S. commercial dry-dock capacity, even as lawmakers continue to call for a revival of the nation’s maritime strength. “After 12 incredible years, the difficult…

Despite technical gains, remote pilotage stalls on risk and trust

Despite years of development, some flashy demonstrations of crewless vessels for limited purposes and the growing use of similar technology — such as aerial drones — the remote pilotage of ships remains at the same technological impasse where it has lingered for decades: It is possible, but not quite feasible. This is perhaps the takeaway from the sudden halt of…

AI tool helps ships avoid whale strikes, now leading cause of whale mortality

No mariner wants to collide with a whale, but as vessel traffic increases and global maritime trade is projected to triple by 2050, ship strikes have become a leading cause of whale mortality. The toll of whale strikes is estimated at more than 20,000 each year, according to research conducted by the nonprofit Friend of the Sea — though the…

Great Lakes Pilots – Tackling dramatic waters and winter ice with precision navigation

The ship’s captain was clearly nervous about draft as his vessel approached the Rock Cut, a mile-long channel blasted through bedrock in the St. Marys River, the narrow, international gateway between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. The solid dolomite limestone riverbed is unforgiving if any part of the ship strikes it. The captain stood hunched over the screen in the…