A pilot boat is a type of boat used to transport maritime pilots between land and the inbound or outbound ships that they are piloting. Pilot boats were once sailing boats that had to be fast because the first pilot to reach the incoming ship got the business. Today, pilot boats are scheduled by telephoning the ship agents/representatives prior to arrival.
Pilots and the work functions of the maritime pilot go back to Ancient Greece and Roman times, when incoming ships' captains employed locally experienced harbour captains, mainly local fishermen, to bring their vessels safely into port. Eventually, in light of the need to regulate the act of pilotage and ensure pilots had adequate insurance, the harbours themselves licensed pilots for each harbour.
Although licensed by the harbour to operate within their jurisdiction, pilots were generally self-employed, meaning that they had to have quick transport to get them from the port to the incoming ships. As pilots were often still dual-employed, they used their own fishing boats to reach the incoming vessels. But fishing boats were heavy working boats, and filled with fishing equipment, and so a new type of boat was required.
Early boats were developed from single masted cutters and twin masted yawls, and latterly into the specialist pilot cutter. These were effectively light-weight and over-powered single-masted boats with large, steeply angled keels, making them deep draft under power and shallow draft in lighter sail.
If legend is to be believed, the first official Bristol Channel pilot was barge master George James Ray, appointed by the Corporation of Bristol in May 1497 to pilot John Cabot's Matthew from Bristol harbour to the open sea beyond the Bristol channel. In 1837 Pilot George Ray guided Brunel's SS Great Western, and in 1844 William Ray piloted the larger SS Great Britain on her maiden voyage. [1]
In 1840, there were only eight New York pilot boats. They were the Phantom, No. 1; Washington, No. 2; New York, No. 3; Jacob Bell, No. 4; Blossom, No. 5; T. H. Smith, No. 6; John E. Davidson, No. 7; and the Virginia, No. 8. [2]
In 1860 there were twenty-one New York pilot boats and four under the New Jersey dispensation. [3]
| Number | Ship Name | Tons | Number | Ship Name | Tons |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. 1 | Moses H. Grinnell | 90 | No. 12 | W. J. Romer | 90 |
| No. 2 | Edmund Blunt | 120 | No. 13 | Mary Ann | 70 |
| No. 3 | Charles H. Marshall | 110 | No. 14 | Edwin Forrest | 100 |
| No. 4 | Washington | 80 | No. 15 | J. D. Jones | 115 |
| No. 5 | David Mitchell | 80 | No. 16 | Christian Bergh | 100 |
| No. 6 | Mary and Catherine | 90 | No. 17 | Fannie | 80 |
| No. 7 | Ellwood Walter | 100 | No. 18 | James Stafford | 70 |
| No. 8 | Isaac Webb | 96 | No. 19 | Mary A. Williams | 90 |
| No. 9 | James Avery | 80 | No. 20 | Nettle | 65 |
| No. 10 | J. M. Waterbury | 80 | No. 21 | W. H. Aspinwall | 90 |
| No. 11 | George W. Blunt | 130 |
In the spring of 1896, the New York and New Jersey pilots discarded pilot-boats and moved them to the Erie Basin in Brooklyn. They were for sale because of the change from wood and sail to steel and steam pilot boats. [4]
In Great Britain, pilot boats were rigged as schooners in Fleetwood, Swansea and Liverpool. In Liverpool, the Pioneer, No. 6 was built in 1852 and was 53-tons. The clipper George Holt, No. 10 was built in 1892. [5]
The Bengal Pilot Service was established by the British East India Company to control piloting. The pilot boats were responsible for guiding East Indiaman, and other vessels, up and down the Hooghly River between Calcutta and the sea. [6] : 11
The Zodiac and Adventuress are both listed with the National Register of Historic Places and are now cruising in Washington state after restorations. [7] [8]
Modern pilot boats can be from 7 metres to over 25 metres (23–82 ft) in length, built to withstand heavy seas and bumping against 100,000 ton tanker and cruise ships. They are high-powered and hence both very quick and durable purpose-built boats. They are normally painted a highly visible colour such as orange, red or yellow.
In terms of design, monohull hullforms are most commonly used, though examples of catamarans, [9] SWATHs [10] and Wave Piercing Hulls [11] also exist. Although some pilot boats are still constructed from steel, the need to travel quickly means lighter weight materials such as aluminium, fibreglass and composites are now commonly used. In some instances, such as the Berkeley Class vessels produced in Australia, a combination of materials is used. [12]
Pilots identified pilot boats with a large number on the mainsail and by flying a large pilot flag, bisected vertically into two colours, usually white and blue, which added to the boat's visibility. In distress, they would fire rockets and blue-lights at night. A brass signal gun was carried to be used when there was fog and sometimes on fair days. [13] [14]
Pilot boats are specially marked to indicate their function. During the day they fly the "H" flag and normally the word PILOT (or PILOTS) is written in clearly visible, large, letters on the sides.
At night they have special navigation lights: in addition to the "normal" navigation lights, [15] a pilot boat has a white round light at top and below that a red round light, while a fishing vessel has the red light at top and the white light below.
To remember this, some people use the mnemonic "white cap, red nose" to reflect the idea that pilots consumed a lot of alcohol while waiting for ships, thus the white captain's cap with a red nose below it.
Pilot boats often also use bright colours, like flashy yellow, to make them clearly visible and distinctive in even the worst conditions. This last mainly applies to the so-called pilot tenders: the vessels that go to the ships to bring the pilot on board of arriving ships or pick them up from departing ships. Depending on the local situation the tenders might be launched directly from a nearby harbour or they are coming from the central (large) pilot station: a pilot boat located at a pre-defined location at sea near a pilotage area. In earlier days nearly all pilots came from a "pilot station" at sea, but with the modern very fast tenders it is often more practical not to have a permanently manned pilot station at sea, but transfer the pilots directly to/from shore.
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schooner also has a square topsail on the foremast, to which may be added a topgallant. Differing definitions leave uncertain whether the addition of a fore course would make such a vessel a brigantine. Many schooners are gaff-rigged, but other examples include Bermuda rig and the staysail schooner.
A cutter is a name for various types of watercraft. It can apply to the rig of a sailing vessel, to a governmental enforcement agency vessel, to a type of ship's boat which can be used under sail or oars, or, historically, to a type of fast-sailing vessel introduced in the 18th century, some of which were used as small warships.
This glossary of nautical terms is an alphabetical listing of terms and expressions connected with ships, shipping, seamanship and navigation on water. Some remain current, while many date from the 17th to 19th centuries. The word nautical derives from the Latin nauticus, from Greek nautikos, from nautēs: "sailor", from naus: "ship".
A maritime pilot, marine pilot, harbor pilot, port pilot, ship pilot, or simply pilot, is a mariner who has specific knowledge of an often dangerous or congested waterway, such as harbors or river mouths. Maritime pilots know local details such as depth, currents, and hazards. They board and temporarily join the crew to safely guide the ship's passage, so they must also have expertise in handling ships of all types and sizes. Obtaining the title "maritime pilot" requires being licensed or authorised by a recognised pilotage authority.
Zodiac is a two-masted schooner designed by William H. Hand, Jr. for Robert Wood Johnson and J. Seward Johnson, heirs to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceuticals fortune. Hand intended to epitomize the best features of the American fishing schooner. The 160-foot-long (49 m), 145-ton vessel competed in transatlantic races. In 1931 the vessel was purchased by the San Francisco Bar Pilots Association, brought from the Atlantic, modified and placed in service as the pilot vessel California serving as such until retired in 1972.
USS Hope was a 19th-century wooden yacht schooner, designed and built in 1861 by Henry Steers for Captain Thomas B. Ives of Providence, Rhode Island. She was acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was placed into service as a gunboat assigned to support the fleet blockading the ports of the Confederate States of America. However, at times, Hope was assigned extra tasks, such as that of a dispatch boat, supply runner and salvage ship. She was a pilot boat from 1866 to 1891 and in 1891 she was replaced by the Herman Oelrichs, when the Hope was wrecked ashore the Sandy Hook Point.
Roseway is a wooden gaff-rigged schooner launched on 24 November 1925 in Essex, Massachusetts. She is currently operated by World Ocean School, a non-profit educational organization based in Boston, Massachusetts, and is normally operated out of Boston, Massachusetts and Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. She was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997 as the only known surviving example of a fishing schooner built specifically with racing competition as an objective. In 1941, Roseway was purchased by the Boston Pilot's Association to serve as a pilot boat for Boston Harbor, as a replacement for the pilot-boat Northern Light, which was sold to the United States Army for war service.
George Steers was a designer of yachts best known for the famous racing yacht America. He founded a shipyard with his brother, George Steers and Co, and died in an accident just as he was landing a major contract to build boats for the Russian Czar.
Board of Pilot Commissioners for the Bays of San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun is the California state agency responsible for licensing and regulating pilots within one of the largest harbors in the world and the tributary Sacramento River delta. It licenses and regulates up to 60 pilots of the San Francisco Bar Pilots Association. They are called "bar pilots" because they maneuver ships across a large and dangerous sand bar just outside the Golden Gate at the mouth of San Francisco Bay.
A pilot station is an onshore headquarters for maritime pilots, or a place where pilots can be hired from. To get from a pilot station to an approaching ship, pilots need to use fast vessels to arrive in time, i.e. a pilot boat.
Sandy Hook Pilots are licensed maritime pilots that are members of the Sandy Hook Pilots Association for the Port of New York and New Jersey, the Hudson River, and Long Island Sound. Sandy Hook pilots guide oceangoing vessels, passenger liners, freighters, and tankers in and out of the harbor. The peninsulas of Sandy Hook, and Rockaway in Lower New York Bay define the southern entrance to the port at the Atlantic Ocean.
A Bristol Channel pilot cutter is a type of sailing boat used until the early part of the 20th century to deliver and collect pilots to and from merchant vessels using ports in the Bristol Channel. Each pilot worked individually, in competition with other pilots. Especially after 1861, the level of competition required larger and faster cutters, as pilots went "seeking" at much greater distances. The resulting boats were known for their ability to sail in the most extreme weather, for speed and sea-kindliness. They were designed for short handed sailing, often manned only by a man and an apprentice, with one or sometimes two pilots on board.
The Columbia was a 19th-century pilot boat built C. & R. Poillon shipyard in 1879 for Sandy Hook and New York pilots that owned the Isaac Webb, which was lost off Quonochontaug Beach, Long Island in July 1879. She was run down by the Guion Line steamer SS Alaska in 1883. A second pilot-boat, also named Columbia, was built by Ambrose A. Martin at East Boston in 1894 that had a unique spoon bow and was extremely fast. She was thrown ashore in the great Portland Gale, and remained on the Sand Hills beach in Scituate, Massachusetts for over thirty years as a marine curiosity. The Louise No. 2 replaced the ill-fated Columbia.
The Moses H. Grinnell was a 19th-century pilot boat built in 1850 for the New York maritime pilots. She was designed by the yacht designer George Steers. The Grinnell was the first pilot boat to feature a fully developed concave clipper-bow, which was to become the New York schooner-rigged pilot boat's trade mark. This new design was the basis for the celebrated yacht America.
The Varuna was a 19th-century Boston pilot boat, built by Montgomery & Howard at Chelsea, Massachusetts in 1890, for a group of Boston pilots. She was designed by yacht designer Edward Burgess, known for his America's Cup defenders. She was the first centerboard pilot-boat in operation in the Massachusetts Bay. The Varuna went out of service in 1912 because of the introduction of steam power into pilot-boats. She was later sold to Stephen Simmons to be used as a trading vessel between ports in the Spanish Main in 1913.
The Friend was a 19th-century pilot boat built by Daniel D. Kelley & Holmes East Boston shipyard in 1848 for Boston pilots. She helped transport Boston maritime pilots between inbound or outbound ships coming into the Boston Harbor. The Friend was one of the last of the low sided, straight sheared schooners built in the 1840s for Boston pilots. The second Boston pilot boat Friend was built in 1887. Her name came from the older Friend that was in the service in the late 1840s. Captain Thomas Cooper sold the Friend to New York pilots in 1893. Cooper replaced the Friend with the pilot-boat Columbia in 1894.
The Coquette was a 19th-century yacht and pilot boat, built in 1845 by Louis Winde, at the Winde & Clinkard shipyard in Chelsea, Massachusetts for yachtsmen James A. Perkins. Her design was based on a model by shipbuilder Dennison J. Lawlor. The Coquette was a good example of an early American yacht with a clipper bow. As a yacht, she won the attention for outsailing the larger New York yacht Maria at the second New York Yacht Club regatta in 1846. Perkins sold the Coquette to the Boston Pilots' Association for pilot service in 1848. She continued as a pilot boat until 1867 when she was sold as a Blackbirder to be used on the African coast.
Thomas D. Harrison was a 19th-century New York pilot boat built for New Jersey pilots. She was launched from the Jacob S. Ellis & Son shipyard, at Tottenville, Staten Island in 1875. The Harrison went ashore in the Great Blizzard of 1888 with no lives lost. She continued as a pilot boat with Pilot Stephen Cooper in command. She was purchased in 1897 by Allerton D. Hitch and used for coastal trade in the Cape Verde islands off the west African coast.
Favorite or Favorita, was a 19th-century New York Sandy Hook pilot boat built in the early 1820s. She helped transport New York City maritime pilots between inbound or outbound ships coming into the New York Harbor. Favorite collided with a United States steamer and sank in 1865 near Barnegat Lighthouse.
The William W. Ker was a 19th-century Pennsylvania pilot schooner built in 1889 in Wilmington, Delaware. She was designed by Edward Burgess for the Pennsylvania pilots and was built for speed. She was a favorite with the pilots and was considered the fastest pilot boat on the coast. The Ker was hit and sank by a steamer off the Five Fathom Bank in 1900.
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