Forth Ports

Forth & Tay Navigation Service (FTNS) is manned 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by appropriately qualified Assistant Harbour Masters who are supported by VTS Operators, themselves qualified to the required MCA V103 standard.

The service they provide includes radar surveillance of the Forth Estuary from the Eastern Port Limit (Tantallon Castle on the south shore to Fife Ness on the north shore), and also of the Tay Estuary from the Abertay Outer Buoy to a line just west of the Tay Rail Bridge.  Their duties also include enforcement of the Forth Byelaws and General Directions for Navigation and the Byelaws for the Port of Dundee.  This ensures a safe and speedy passage of all commercial and naval shipping from sea to port and back to sea again.

Forth Ports has five radars covering the Forth estuary; at Gullane, Leith, Burntisland, Rosyth and Grangemouth, and one radar on the Tay at Buddon Ness.  In addition, FTNS personnel maintain and update a computerised vessel database which records details of all ship voyages in the estuaries.  Both radar picture and vessel database can be viewed and accessed by each Harbour Master in the main ports in the estuary as well as by Forth Pilots, based at Granton.