Port of Silloth
Pilotage: Silloth
Pilotage is provided at the Port of Silloth. Ask your agent to contact the port at least 12 hours before you reach the pilot station.
Booking a pilot
Send your ETA at the Workington Pilot Station to the harbour master at Silloth, directly or through your agent, at least 12 hours before arrival. Send your ETD at least 1 hour before sailing. Silloth is a tidal port, and Channel 12 is manned only through each tidal period, from 2.5 hours before high water. Plan your request around that. See the contact page.
Pilot booking telephone and email. This is being confirmed and will be published here.
Pilot boarding station
For the time being, Silloth pilots are boarded and landed at the Workington Pilot Station, position 54° 39.30' N, 003° 36.10' W. The pilot boat works VHF Channel 14.
The pilot boat is provided by the Port of Workington, a separate authority. Its normal hours are 2.5 hours before high water to 2 hours after high water. An alternative pilot launch from Whitehaven or Barrow may be used when the Workington boat is not available.
Conditions when pilot boarding is suspended. This is being confirmed and will be published here.
Pilotage directions
The pilotage directions applying at Silloth were made by Associated British Ports as the competent harbour authority, to apply on and after 01/10/1988. They are published inside the port's schedule of charges document, together with the regulations and conditions. From 18/09/2026 the competent harbour authority for the Port of Silloth is FJ Ports (Silloth) Ltd. The pilotage limits transfer unchanged.
The 1988 directions define the pilotage limits as the area of the Solway Firth bounded by a line from Grune Point to Southerness Point, south to latitude 54° 43.65' N, then east to the coast north-east of Maryport, as set by the Silloth (Pilotage) Harbour Revision Order 1988. The position of the 1988 directions after the transfer is being confirmed. Ask the harbour master before you rely on anything about compulsory pilotage at Silloth.
Whether the 1988 pilotage directions continue. This is being confirmed and will be published here.
Compulsory pilotage, ships and exemptions. This is being confirmed and will be published here.
Pilotage exemption certificates
Masters who trade regularly into Silloth may be granted a pilotage exemption certificate. Under the 2026 charges, examination for a certificate costs £349.53, and a vessel navigating under a certificate holder is charged half the pilotage charge.
Pilotage exemption certificates in issue. This is being confirmed and will be published here.
Pilotage charges
Pilotage charges are published inside the port's combined charges document. See the schedule of charges. The Port of Workington charges £487.00 for each act of boarding or landing a pilot in normal hours, half that if the boat is ordered but not used, with overtime and late order charges on top.
Pilotage charges from 18/09/2026. This is being confirmed and will be published here.
The duty that sits behind it
A competent harbour authority has a continuing duty under section 2 of the Pilotage Act 1987 to keep under consideration whether pilotage services need to be provided in its area, whether pilotage should be compulsory and for which ships, having particular regard to ships carrying dangerous or harmful cargoes, and to provide the pilotage services it considers are needed.
Where a pilotage direction is given, section 7 requires consultation with ship owners and harbour operators or their representative bodies first, and publication in such a way as to bring the direction to the notice of those likely to be interested.
Nothing on this page is a pilotage direction.