Maritime pilot

“ One of the most beautiful sights that meets the eye of a seaplane pilot is when he comes on the scouting parties of British warships. They are never at a standstill, and to keep moving and in the same place they all make a wonderful circle at full speed, with one vessel in the centre. That ship is to receive the message or whatever is brought by the seaplane, which in the event of calm weather lands on the water and sometimes sends off one of her officers to talk to those aboard the vessel protected by the ring of speeding grey warcraft. ”

“ Should the answering signal be favorable, there follows a scene of great excitement on the deck of the pilot-boat. At first sight of the ship, the pilot due to take the prize dives down to the cabin, sheds his working clothes and dons a suit of sober black, and by the time it is known he is wanted, he is ready to be transferred to his charge. Taking on a pilot is not without its perils. ”

“ He loosened the pilot’s jacket; slapped frantically at his wrists in the effort to bring him to consciousness. Then he was at the controls of the vessel, tugging on first one, then the other. The aero circled and spun, executing the most dangerous of sideslips and dives. A little voice was speaking to him—the voice of the radio—instructing him. In a daze he followed instructions as best he could. The whirlings of the earth stabilized after a time and he found he was flying the vessel; climbing rapidly. ”

“ Indeed, in no just sense can the services of these libellants be deemed to fall within the scope of the duties of pilots. Lord Tenterden, in his excellent Treatise on Shipping (part 2, ch. 5, s. 1, p. 148,) has defined a pilot to be 'a person, taken on board at a particular place, for the purpose of conducting a ship through a river, road, or channel, or from or into a port.' His duty, therefore, is properly the duty to navigate the ship over and through his pilotage limits, or, as it is commonly called, his pilotage ground. ”

“ The propellors were swung vigorously once or twice, then, one after another, the engines broke into their mighty song, and the machines taxied off into the darkness across the aerodrome, and as the joy-stick was pulled over each 'plane sprang into the air, and began its long voyage.
"Good-bye, and good luck!" shouted the C.O. as each man taxied off, and as a parting salute, each pilot raised his gloved hand from the controls for an instant. ”

“ For more than sixteen years I have sailed these coasts continuously."
"Would you make a good pilot?"
"May I lose all the limbs which the Chief of the Hundred Valleys has left me, if there is a bay, a cape, an islet, a rock, a sand-bank, or a breaker, which I do not know from the Gulf of Aquitaine to Dunkirk."
"You are vaunting your skill as a pilot. How can you prove it?"
"We are near the shore. For him who is not a good and fearless sailor, nothing is more dangerous than the navigation of the mouth of the Loire, going up towards the north."
"That is true," answered the interpreter. ”

“ A pilot sees better than a stranger, because his local knowledge, like a sharper vision, completes the shapes of things hurriedly glimpsed; penetrates the veils of mist spread over the land by the storms of the sea; defines with certitude the outlines of a coast lying under the pall of fog, the forms of landmarks half buried in a starless night as in a shallow grave. ”

“ Below, brawny, silent men stand at the levers, ready at an instant to stop and back, or go ahead, just as the emergency may direct. Outside the pilot-house the quarter-master strains his ears and peers nervously into the gloom, yet alert to pass any command given to the junior officer and to his messmate at the wheel. Signals from fog-whistles drift into them from other groping ships, and, at times, spectral hulls and ghostly sails loom close aboard, creeping out of the curtained night or slipping landward or seaward in search of hidden port or roadway. ”

“ It is the pilot which, after the vessel is started by the mighty force within, puts it on its right course and keeps it true to that course, the pilot under whose control the rudder is which brings the great ocean liner, even through storms and gales, to an exact spot in the Liverpool port within a few minutes of its scheduled time, and at times even upon the very minute. Will is the sun-glass which so concentrates and so focuses the sun's rays that they quickly burn a hole through the paper that is held before it. ”

“ Pilots should be a happy as well as a useful class of men. When a ship arrives at the entrance of a harbor, after a long passage, the sight of a pilot carries joy to every heart. He appears truly in the guise of "a guide, philosopher, and friend," is warmly welcomed, and treated with kindness and hospitality. ”

“ As for the letters, they can be sent ashore by the pilot, as letters are always sent.”
“But, aunty, there is no pilot in the Swash—for Capt. Spike refused to take one on board.”
“Rose!—you don’t understand what you are talking about! No vessel ever yet sailed without a pilot, if indeed any can. It’s opposed to the law, not to have a pilot; and now I remember to have heard your dear uncle say it wasn’t a voyage if a vessel didn’t take away a pilot.” ”

“ I tell you that the position of a pilot is only given to trustworthy men; they cannot leave their posts except to pilot ships that wish to enter the harbour. Remember that the mysterious pirate had already been anchored for more than a month off Porquerolles before my lord's yacht got to the island of Hyères. Remember that—but," said Williams, interrupting himself, and leaving me, "there is the moon rising, and the clouds are clearing away; the moonlight will help us to get to the anchorage. ”

“ The instant the pilot puts his feet on the ladder he must run up it for dear life if he would escape a ducking, and lucky he is if the upward roll does not hurl him against the side of the ship with force enough to break his hold and drop him overboard. Sometimes in the dead of winter the ship is iced from the water-line to the rail, and the task of Page 368boarding is about equivalent to climbing a rolling iceberg. But whatever the difficulty, the pilot meets and conquers it—or else dies trying. It is all in the day's work for them. ”

“ The pilot-boat is the first concrete symbol of those native and normal relations with one’s fellow-men, which one has so long observed in infinitely varied manifestation abroad, but always as a spectator and a stranger, and which one is now on the eve of sharing himself. ”

“ I will be your pilot to take you out of this harbour, and to enable you to gain a place of safety, on one condition, that you disperse at the time I point out to you. I make this agreement for your own advantage. If you keep together, you are certain before long to get into trouble. Will you trust me?”
“We agree! we agree!” was replied on all sides. “We trust you, sir, for we know you mean us well.”
“Then heave up the anchor, sheet home the headsails, up with the helm, and let her cast to starboard,” cried the captain, almost in the same breath. ”

“ They have the entire charge and responsibility of navigation. The Captain indicates the points at which he wishes to land, and gives the signal for departure, but seldom interferes further with the course of the boat. The pilots are paid 200 or 300 dollars a month and found. Imagine yourself so favoured as to be invited by the pilot to take a seat in his glazed turret, forty feet above the water, and commanding a full panorama of the river valley through which you are gliding. Villages, farms, and forests seem to sweep past you. ”

“ The boy was unusually well-informed about aeronautical matters, but he had never made a flight. His request to go up was acceded to, but the captain did not want to take him, so he asked one of his officers, the best pilot in the escadrille, to take him as a passenger. I suppose that the lieutenant was on his mettle, for before his machine was three hundred feet from the ground he began to do stunts. He was a past master in his art, but a bit too bold. Suddenly his machine slipped off on the wing, and crashed to the ground. Even the best pilot was not immune against fate. ”

“ I know not whether there is still any nation where they leave the art of piloting, that essential part of navigation, to those subaltern people. In our ships, the business of the pilot is to take care that the helmsman exactly follows the course, for which the captain alone gives the orders, to mark down all the alterations of the course that happen, either in consequence of the changes of winds, or of the orders of the commander, and likewise to observe the signals ”

“ British war-ships in British waters are not compelled to employ apilot, the navigating officer becoming the pilot under the direction of the captain. If a pilot be employed, the captain and navigating officer are not relieved from responsibility. They supervise the pilot, and should, if necessary, remove him from the ship. In the majority of foreign ports British war-ships are exempted from employing pilots, but the Suez Canal and the ports of France are exceptions. ”

“ Now the pilot is master—stands ahead of the captain even—and his orders are absolute law. He inspects the vessel to form his opinion of how she will behave, and then goes to the wheel or stands where best he can give his orders to the steersman and to the men in the fore-chains heaving the sounding lead. He must never abandon his post, he must never lose his control of the ship, or make a mistake as to its position in respect to the lee-shore, or fail to be equal to every emergency. If it is too dark and foggy and stormy to see, he must feel ”

“ We don’t have any pilots come aboard to take us into harbour, as the salt-water boats do. Every captain and first mate must qualify as a pilot as well as a navigating officer before he can obtain his ‘papers’ as they call the license issued by the United States Government to sail a ship. ”

“ The waves, it is true, are not so long and high; but they are very awkward to deal with, from their abruptness, and the rapidity with which they get up when a breeze sets in.
On those parts of the coast of the United States where the seasons are alternately very fine and very rough, our ingenious friends, the Americans, have contrived a set of pilot-boats, which are the delight of every sailor. This description of vessel, as the name implies, must always be at sea, as it is impossible to tell when her services may be required by ships steering in for the harbour's mouth. ”

“ SAFE over the Bar!" remarked the pilot of the Columbia, as the good vessel rounded Lighthouse Point and headed for Astoria, one fine morning late in the fifties. The tone implied much more than the words to the half-dozen passengers that heard it, for it was midwinter and a "rough bar."
The pilot of the ship is to most people a very attractive person; the position he holds while on duty makes him the superior of the captain, who has heretofore held all the honors, and been a little king. ”

“ The arrangements for pilotage have been much improved of late years, and those employed are better qualified.
I had remained at Deal about three weeks when an outward-bound Indiaman anchored in the Downs: her pilot came on shore, and she made the signal for another. It was Bramble’s turn, a galley was launched, and we went on board.
The ship was bound to Plymouth, from whence she was to sail with convoy to a certain latitude. The weather was now fine and frosty, and we made sail when the tide served. ”

“ Just as the navigator must know the sea, so the aviator must have a knowledge of the heavens and the basic principles of aerodynamics in order to become a successful pilot. Although the air is volatile like the water, the aviator flies through it as a fish moves through water. Therefore the aerial navigator must know enough about the medium through which he travels to know what to do in an emergency. ”

“ He would then have to back out and run back for miles in order to try the other side of the island. Many times each day we heard the pilot's single toll of the bell on the forward deck. This was the signal to take soundings on the starboard side, and was usually followed by his ring to the engine room to slacken speed. A man would commence to "heave-the-lead" attached to a line, that had marks in various colors at intervals, to indicate the depth of water. ”

“ The men who do this are called pilots. The pilots of each port form a company, and have established rules and regulations for governing all their proceedings. They go out to the mouth of the harbor in small vessels called pilot boats, where they wait, both in sunshine and storm, for ships to come in. When a ship approaches the coast and sees one of these pilot boats, it makes a signal for a pilot to come on board. The pilot boat then sails toward the ship, and when they get near enough they let down a small boat, and row one of the pilots on board the vessel, and he guides the ship in. ”

“ In the fine weather, smooth water, and light winds of summer, these pilot-boats skim over the surface with the ease and swiftness of a swallow, apparently just touching the water with their prettily formed hulls, which seem too small to bear the immense load of snow-white canvas swelling above them, and shooting them along as if by magic, when every other vessel is lost in the calm, and when even taunt-masted ships can barely catch a breath of air to fill their sky-sails and royal studding-sails. They are truly "water-witches;" ”