The collision of the Cosco Busan along a pier of the Bay Bridge, and the subsequent spilling of 58,000 gallons of oil in the Bay, will cause controversy for some time. Among the questions is whether and to what extent the pilot, Captain John Cota, who has 25 years of experience in the Bay, made some error in judgment.
By Scott Alumbaugh
Published: December, 2007
Captain Cota has forgotten more about piloting and navigation than I will ever learn, so the last thing I would do is pass judgment on his actions. But it brings up an interesting point, which is this: People hit a surprising number of things in boats on the Bay.
I don’t know anyone who has hit a Bay Bridge support. Of course, I also don’t know anyone who takes out a 900-foot tanker for a daysail. But I do know two very experienced sailors who have run into the Berkeley Reef. It’s a huge rock that lies mostly under water. It’s marked by a very large pole with a bright green reflective sign, and a flashing light, so it’s hard to know it isn’t there. I would say hard to miss, but all that makes it easy to miss, in theory anyway.
Then there’s Little Alcatraz, a reef that breaks the surface just west of Alcatraz. There is a buoy marking the water between that rock and The Rock. Nevertheless, once a year someone has to come out and tow a boat home because the skipper tried to pass inside Little Alcatraz despite the buoy telling him not to. And there they sit, two or three feet out of the water on a falling tide, waiting to be rescued.
Some hypothesize that there is such a thing as a fiberglass magnet, and that all stationary objects in water have them. Like Sirens, they draw ships to their doom. The real reasons, of course, are a lot more mundane. Usually, the skipper just isn’t paying attention. Or worse, no one on board knows how to read a buoy, or has bothered to look at a chart.
It all comes down to the difference between reality and perception.
On one level, the difference is very concrete. Looking at the water, you see a flat, unbroken surface; the reality is that there is a large rock just under that surface. You’ve sailed out of Berkeley Marina a hundred times, so of course you know about the reef. Recognizing the danger, you dismiss it, but it’s still there. I’ve been on the boat with sailors heading toward the Golden Gate, sails sheeted in tight. The wind is behind them, but that doesn’t matter, because they know the wind always comes through the Gate.
On another level, the disconnect between reality and perception has to do with the fact that boats move differently from cars. Mariners, especially new sailors, can forget that … until it’s too late. And, unlike pavement, water moves. Current pushes a boat, and the interaction between the wind on the sails and current on the hull can have some interesting effects. I’ve been sailing full tilt, heeled over with wind whipping my face on the east side of Angel Island, going absolutely nowhere because I was sailing dead into a spring ebb. Playing a river current correctly, I’ve moved a boat sideways to dock in an otherwise impossible space. I’ve also misread current, and ended up far off course, as has most anyone who’s sailed the Bay one time or another. Unlikely though it may be, it’s just possible that Captain Cota made that same error.
Reconciling your perception to reality: It’s another one of those life lessons you can get from sailing, if you care to.
Scott Alumbaugh
