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Pilot - Master, Master - Pilot, who's in charge?

59K views 315 replies 80 participants last post by  jmbrent 
#1 ·
As a Pilot for 26 years the relationship between Pilot and Master has always facinated me. When a Pilot is defined as being a person not of the crew who has conduct of a vessel, in a port where Pilotage is compulsory if the Master over rules the Pilot in any way the Pilot ceases to have the conduct of the ship and therefore ceases to be a Pilot as defined. The Master would then be in breach of the Port regulations which say he must have a Pilot onboard. The simple answer is that the Master is always in ultimate charge, but is he? What do members think?
 
#277 ·
#275

As usual, the devil lies in the detail. The only proper explanation could be that the qualification held by the masters of the AHL railway ships was a Pilotage Exemption Certificate and not a pilot's licence. To prolongue the pedantry even further, since 1988 a pilot's licence has been re-named an "authorisation".
 
#283 ·
The following could have been useful as a contribution to this subject: they are judgements by eminent judges in sundry court cases.

Judge Sir J. Hannen said:- "I think that if there was such a state of obscurity owing to fog as would give rise to a plain prospect of danger, the master could not in those cir***stances throw the whole responsibility on the pilot, if he ordered the vessel to get underway......though it might be the duty of the master to make suggestions to the pilot from time to time, it rests with the pilot to form his own opinion as to the value of the suggestions. It is only when the captain actually gives an order contrary to the pilot that he takes responsibility for a manouvre on himself."

(More case histories to follow).
 
#284 ·
And another, this from Judge Lord Kinnear:-

"I think it falls to the pilot and not the master to say when it is prudent to leave the dock and enter the river. I cannot assent to the proposition that it is the master who is responsible for getting the ship under way and that the pilot was responsible for the navigation only after she had begun to move through the water.. There could be no divided authority in a matter so vital to her safety. Where all the cir***stances which make an operation hazardous are purely local conditions, the pilot, is in law, the proper judge, and is, in fact, a far more competent judge than any master could be."
 
#286 ·
And another, each time bearing in mind that every such court ruling may be used to determine the outcome of similar events in future cases.

Judge, Sir J. Nicoll said, "The collision ocurred from the vessel going on in the fog, not from any act of bad steerage, want of knowledge of shoals, of any incapacity as pilot, but from proceeding at all. It seems to be nearly admitted that if the vessel had set off in this fog, blame would have been imputable to the master; if so, was he not blamable in going on in the fog, had he not a right to resume his authority? Did he not owe it to his owners and to other persons whose property might be damaged by a collision, to insist upon bringing the vessel up? In this case, apparently, it was not decided expressly, but it can hardly be doubted that the continuance underway in a fog is within the province of the pilot to determine; probably, however, if the fog was such as that no reasonable man would remain under way, the master of the ship would also be held in fault."
 
#287 ·
This from Judge Lushington:-

"It would be a most dangerous doctrine to hold forth, considering the duties imposed on pilots and the experience and local knowledge they are supposed to possess, if I were to sanction the interference of a master in any way in the performance of those duties which the pilot must be considered peculiarly competent to discharge, and of which the master, in the majority of cases, must be a very inferior judge.........if the pilot was utterly incompetent to the proper discharge of his duties, it would clearly be in***bent upon the master to interfere for the protection of lives and the property on board his vessel. Such however, would be a case of extreme necessity."
 
#288 ·
And this, the final one, from Mr Justice Butt:-

"The pilot is the judge in nearly all matters connected with the navigation of a ship, and unless he misjudges them and acts upon a palpably false and wrong judgement, such as to make it manifest to a reasonable man that it ought not to be allowed, then the captain has no right to interfere with the pilot at all; and as to his interfering with the pilot at the very last moment when two ships are just coming together, it would be a very dangerous thing to do to encourage the notion that at the moment when a collision was almost, if not actually, inevitable, the captain ought to interfere, except by suggestion."
 
#289 ·
Here in Freeport pilotage is compulsory but they take no responsibility for any damages done to vessels or piers or wharfs, they just leave the vessel to sort out the problems. There have been quite a number the LNG carrier Hispania Spirit while berthing at GB shipyard contacted with a dolphin and ripped open a diesel oil storage tank spuing 150 tons into the pristine water of the harbour. A cruise liner the MSC Poesisa grounded on a reef while anchoring off Port Lucaya and was stuck for 10 hours. the most recent was the Grand Legacy a car transporter which contacted the jetty putting a 2 metre gash in the side. The pilots just walked away.
 
#290 ·
I can better that! One of my pilot colleagues whilst taking a ship out of the Granville Dock, Dover, just happened to nudge the Dover Harbour Authority's office building. He was unaware of having made any contact but the building was very rapidly exited by all of the office staff and was soon condemned as unsafe, demolished and rebuilt to the joy of all employed there-in.
But the best job was executed by another of my colleagues when, in taking extreme evasive action to avoid a collision, brought down and set on fire the brand new £10,000,000 Coryton deep water jetty.
Neither pilot was penalised in any way, nor should they have been.
 
#295 ·
He always has the option of over-riding the pilot or, as on only one occasion that I personally recall- whilst sitting on 15,000 tons of petrol in fog- the master said to me he would like to anchor, I immediately complied.
He happened to be a regular into the Thames from Fawley refinery but had never, nor had any of those ESSO tanker masters, taken out a licence.
Grounding was taken seriously and always resulted in a suspension of licence (3 months if I remember correctly) collision with berth or vessel was regarded as par for the course-only to be accepted as a part of the job and therefore, on occasion, inevitable.
Several of the pilots in my branch of the service lost their licences and consequently, their entire income at the stroke of a pen: now, they can even go to gaol, especially if oil pollution is a factor.
What happens to masters I have no idea: if you started worrying about that you would never have gone in for piloting.

I hear this lament so often! How can anyone, know or learn, what happens to a pilot after an accident?
As I've stated before, the master's position is invidious, he's damned if he does and he's damned if he don't.
 
#300 · (Edited)
A shipmaster who is beset with worry is unlikely to make a good pilot.
I was thinking more along the lines of the many hours a Master spends today on clerical duties and other marginally productive tasks. Piloting being an escape from a world of mundane, and in many cases trivia that seems to be the norm in many Companies today. All serving to increase the work load on ships' staff. Berthing a tanker who's the delights of a vetting inspection awaiting him, the stress levels can be very apparent among the bridge team who's major concern may seem to be filling in forms and collecting signatures. Detracting from monitoring the operation in hand in some instances.

Not that Piloting should be exciting but at least the nuts and bolts of the job are the essentials without too many add ons, (yet!) With job satisfaction still achievable and minimum paperwork.
 
#301 · (Edited)
Which is precisely the reason why I've yet to meet a pilot who might have any wish to be a shipmaster! - A most unenviable role.

The deciding factor to me (aged 16) was that I had no wish to embark on a life which (at that time) seemed as though it would require me to be away from hearth and home for nine months of the year until the age of 65. Where I lived, many of our neighbours were shipmasters (or, more accurately, their families were neighbours -Dad was so rarely at home). I wasn't old enough then to know whether or not they were happy. No doubt some were and some were not. But to my childish eye each one seemed, at least in some respects, as a fish out of water, waiting only to go back to sea.

My mother's closest childhood friend was married to a shipmaster. A splendid character. Earned an MBE for ramming a U boat during the War. But never bloody there!
 
#302 ·
Yes, pilot, I do so agree with that; immense job satisfaction. When you leave a ship, maybe after many hours, it is one of those jobs in which you can go home with no 'baggage' provided all has gone well which is usually the case.
No burden of responsibilities such as a doctor or a surgeon may carry home, worrying about whether he has given the right treatment or removed the right leg or kidney, or left something inside the patient when he stitched him up!
Having got a ship to her berth on time and saved the owner thousands of pounds more than the cost of the pilotage is a hugely satisfying feeling-none more so in my opinion.
 
#305 ·
As, of course, was the judgment of any pilot.

In January 1975 it was blowing about force 8-9 from the north west. I was inward bound for Gladstone Dock, on board an Argentinian ship. A general trader, 10,000 tons, in ballast. Spring tides. We were scheduled to dock at 2 hours after high water (just off the top of the tide). Conditions were untenable; and there was no sign of a break in the weather. We anchored in the Mersey.

One possibility, however, would be to try at low water, when the off-shore banks would be dry and there would therefore be no swell. Wind would be the only serious consideration. The Dockmaster agreed to make the lock available on the first of the flood tide. Tugs were re-ordered for that time.

It was still howling. We got underway. On entering the lock, the prom-deck rails were bent, but only a little. We arrived at the berth with no further damage. The agent came on board and said, "Didn't expect to see you here in these conditions." The Master handed me a bottle of Chivas Regal and thanked me most warmly. Magic moment.

The fact that I had a party to go to that evening had nothing at all to do with it!
 
#306 ·
Barrie: Your story of the Argentine ship tickled my memory for the following story. I was a young Red Stack Pilot, and we had a 0500 turn to order for the tug. Our first assignment was docking an Argentine ship at Pier 27 on the San Francisco waterfront. The job was normally done by an independent pilot, Capt. Jack Frost, but he apparently had another job that morning and had given it to Red Stack. Unfortunately, the ship was an hour early, and had been treading water for all that time off the pier awaiting our arrival. I climbed up the ladder and introduced myself as Captain Slough (rhymes with cow). The Argentine Captain immediatley replied in his heavy accent, "Ah, normally we have Captain Fast, but today we have Captain Slow." A comical story from my past!
 
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