These local specialists should not be undervalued
By Michael Grey
Why do you employ a pilot to get you safely in and out of port? You might think this was self-evident, although there are people on the shore-side of shipping who sometimes resent paying for them, when there are supposedly qualified alternatives in the crew. But they are there for the local knowledge they bring, their expertise at handling ships in tight places and, let’s face it, extra pairs of hands and eyes in a lean-crewed era. The pilot is a most welcome addition, whether the pilotage is mandatory or not.
Most deck officers will at one time have contemplated becoming a pilot, thinking of an alternative to a long time away from home, perhaps studying the pilot’s work with more than usual attention. What special skills would one need to take up such a role? Apart from the need to know everything about the port’s waters, the pilot, especially in a port where there is a mixed trade, will need an unusual degree of adaptability. In such places, they will find themselves, sometimes within a few hours, handling some of the world’s largest moving objects, then smoothly moving to relative minnows. This will require an unusual degree of spatial awareness, to mentally change from the handling of a ship 400m in length to one a tenth of the size. The pilot today may also be faced with a bridge just about anywhere on the ship’s entire length.
Pilots have sophisticated training simulators and even use manned models to hone their ship-handling skills, but it really must need a lot of flexibility of thought as they begin their shifts. The pilot will hope, as the ladder or gangway is ascended, that the bridge when it is reached will reveal a scene of professionalism and efficiency.
Bridge realities
But it is a sad fact that such a sentiment will sometimes be thwarted and what is termed the ‘bridge team’ will be composed of one exhausted master, who is currently trying to handle the ship and catch up on the arrival or departure paperwork.
It might also be discovered that the tired master speaks no known language although is able to convey the fact that the engine is having ‘fuel problems’, there is no available helmsman, and the windlass is broken. Worse still is the pilot having to establish these problems through self-discovery. A pilot, it might be suggested, must be ‘calm under fire’ in a such a workplace of infinite variety.
A pilot these days has a lot of wonderful aids to assist in the task of ship handling that would not have been available to past generations: for example, powerful tugs (although they all need to do what they are told and push or pull exactly when required); portable pilot units that ensure positional accuracy and relative movement as the ship swings; and bow or stern thrusters, flap rudders and other clever aids which may be available to help. Close circuit cameras might make the judgement of distances rather less problematical. But, pilots will tell you, while all this equipment is useful, when ships are packed with sophisticated equipment there are many more things to go wrong. Which is where the pilot’s calm exterior might mask hidden concerns.
There is also no getting away from the fact that margins are getting tighter and with times on passage getting longer, there is sometimes pressure on the pilot to get ships in and out of port faster. Safety envelopes are shrinking as ship designers stretch dimensions to the very limit, so the pilot will find swinging basins little more than the ship’s length and vessels running up and down a channel with centimetres under the keel. It is invariably far easier and quicker to build a big ship than it is to deepen the access channel or berths, so it is up to the unusual and special skills of the pilot to make the necessary adjustments.
