A pilot guides a ship through a safe waterway based on extensive experience and knowledge of the region for piloting so that the ship can berth quickly and safely. There are insufficient studies on pilots who play crucial roles in pilotage, and most of the available studies have focused on psychological stress or tension. In this study, we group pilots through quantitative analysis of data to help in the safety management of pilots. In particular, berthing velocity and berthing energy were employed as basic data, and the mean and standard deviation values for each pilot after preprocessing were used for analysis. As a result of using the agglomerative clustering algorithm, we could group pilots into three types: cautious, efficient, and hazardous. Further, analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that there was a significant difference between the cautious and hazardous types.

The berthing velocity is the factor that has the greatest influence on the berthing energy. For the vessel to berth safely, it should not exceed the appropriate berthing velocity. In addition, when the vessel is berthing, it should be berthed with berthing energy smaller than the energy absorption of the fender. This study intends to derive the allowable berthing velocity by ship size considering the berthing capacity. When a small vessel berth, the allowable berthing velocity is greater than when a relatively large vessel berths. In this study, the extrapolated velocity is defined as the relative value of the ship’s berthing velocity when considering the ship's size and the berthing capacity. A regression equation for the allowable berthing velocity by ship size was derived by calculating the designed berthing energy for each fender performance. It was also verified whether any ships were exceeding the allowable berthing velocity by comparing it with the measured data for each jetty. In addition, the extrapolated velocity was proposed using the regression equation, and as a result of applying the measured data, 11 ships exceeded the designed velocity in jetty 1, but it was confirmed that all ships were safely berthed in jetty 2,3. Therefore, the target pier of this study was evaluated as a pier where ships can be berthed safely. A safer berthing velocity operation guideline can be suggested if the allowable berthing velocity by ship size is analyzed and utilized at various piers. Extrapolated velocity can also be used for risk analysis of berthing.