Being a hippie with a haircut, the first thing that came to my mind when I heard there were bar pilots on San Francisco Bay wasn’t so wholesome.
Published: October, 2000
What’s a Bar Pilot
Being a hippie with a haircut, the first thing that came to my mind when I heard there were bar pilots on San Francisco Bay wasn’t so wholesome.
Bar pilots are, of course, VERY wholesome and entirely important. Drawing on decades of hard-earned knowledge of San Francisco Bay, they guide ships of all kinds and stripes through the Golden Gate and safely to dock. Bar pilots like to think of themselves as the ultimate Bay environmentalists. They know every nookk and cranny of the Bay – they’re intimate with its personality – as a basic professional requirement. They also are more responsible than anyone for protecting the Bay. If an oil spill happens on San Francisco Bay, more than likely it’s on their heads.
Bay Crossings wanted to learn more about the San Francisco Bar Pilots so we paid them a visit. Their headquarters are a very stylish affair, winner of many architectural awards. I’m sure the breathtaking views helped.
We sat down with Kenny Levin, Business Director, Stephen MacLachlan, the Operations Pilot and Captain Russell Nyborg, President and asked a few questions. We started with Mr. Levin.
What is the San Francisco Bar Pilots? And what does a bar pilot do?
San Francisco Bar Pilots is an association of pilots, the people who are responsible for guiding vessels into the San Francisco Bay all the way up to Stockton and Sacramento. Pilots also handle inter-bay moves. So, if you’re going to move something big in the bay, you pretty well have to have a pilot aboard.
So, every ship coming through the Golden Gate is required to have a Bar Pilot on board?
Certain ships are exempt — Navy ships, government ships for example.
How many San Francisco Bar Pilots are there?
There are sixty-two pilots that are members of this association.
What’s it take to become a bar pilot?
A lot of work. A bar pilots has to be a master mariner, which means that person has gone all the way through the ranks of licenses up to the license of a master mariner. And then that person has to go through pilot training, which is about a three-year endeavor, basically an apprenticeship, where you’re working under the guidance of a master pilot. Then they go through examination boards, evaluations, and finally you’re given a state license and a federal
You know, a pilot has got to know not just about every little piece of this bay all the way up to Sacramento and Stockton. He or she has to know what the water’s going to do, what the winds are going to do. And has to understand the vessel. For example, what kind of car do you drive?
Uh, a 1987 Astro mini-van.
What’s it way, two tons maybe?
I’ve never put it on scale.
Well, I reckon you have about a hundred horse power per ton to drive your car. You also have four brakes. You’ve got a steering wheel that when you turn it, that car instantaneously turns. One of these big ships out here may have a third of a horse power to control a ton. A third of a horse power motor is a little tiny thing like you might find in your washing machine. So you see the ships we handle are tremendously underpowered. And these ships are the size of a shopping center, the size of the Ferry Building. We’re talking things a thousand feet long, a couple hundred feet wide.
Why don’t they have bigger motors?
Well, you could. You know, a Navy vessel would have much bigger motors, but even that we’re probably talking maybe two horsepower per ton. But commercial ships in normal operations don’t need it We’re not looking for instantaneous acceleration, like a rocket. But, when you try to control the vessel in a tight space, like the bay, you have to think way, way ahead of yourself because you have such limited power. Because that comparatively little engine, although it might be 80,000 horsepower, that little engine is your brakes. Also, when you turn the steering on your car you get immediate results. When you turn the wheel on a ship it might take, five, ten minutes for you to complete your turn. So when you’re coming up to a corner when driving a ship, you’ve got to be thinking way, way ahead of yourself. And you know how it is when you’re driving your car across the bridge with the wind blowing. You’re always crabbing into that wind. Well, with a ship you don’t have nice rubber tires to hold you on the ground. You don’t have the friction of that, or the weight of your vessel. You’re in a fairly squishy medium, the bay. So you have forces acting sideways on you. You’ve got the wind pushing you one way. You’ve got the current going the other way. You might have the bow of the vessel suddenly become sheltered as you get behind the shadow of a building. And with the rear end of the vessel the stern still being subjected to the winds and currents, maybe in opposite directions. How you handle all that is only through sheer experience, and lots of it. You can’t pick up a book and read about. I mean there are books about it. You can read all you want, but you really have got to go do it. You really have to be experienced in it. It’s hard, it’s hard to be a pilot.
And these guys and women when they get out there, they’re working hard. I mean when they get done, they’re exhausted.
It’s a stressful job?
You bet it’s stressful. You cannot blink. Even though things are moving three knots as opposed to sixty-five miles an hour on the road, things happen awfully quickly.
How likely is a accident on the Bay, like an oil spill?
We have a very good safety record. The pilots are not solely responsible but we’re certainly a part of it. The U.S. Coast Guard is very active in the bay and they do a marvelous job. They’re watching over everybody. The Office of Oil Spill Prevention and Response, which was established in Sacramento after the Exxon Valdez, is vigilant about keeping oil out of the Bay and protecting the environment.
Shipping companies are themselves probably the best insurer of safety. Believe me, they don’t want an accident to happen. I don’t know of anybody in the marine industry that would take a risk where safety is concerned. And by safety, I mean safety in environment as well as the safety of people and everything else.
We’re all nervous in this business. Complacency is not a problem. We’re all just doing our jobs very nervously saying let’s get through it, let’s get this done and get it done right.
How many boats do the Bar Pilots have?
We have five boats, one river station boat, two station boats which would be outside the Golden Gate delivering pilots to and from the vessels out there.
What’s a river station boat?
That’s the boat that we keep up by Pittsburgh. Let’s say a pilot picks up a boat at anchorage in Oakland and takes it up the river. It’s a long trip. He can’t do that with one pilot so he’ll get off and another pilot will get on in Pittsburgh.
You have an impressive facility. Could you describe it?
We have the very tail end of Pier 9, with places for us to park our boats on the south side, the east seaside and the north side. We have office spaces and we have places for the pilots to bunk out, to sleep in between runs. We have a maintenance facility for the boats, not an overhaul facility, not a dry dock or anything. But we can do some repairs on the boats, fenders, whatever we need to do. We have a dispatcher. And lots of charts.
We next called on Stephen MacLachlan, theOperations Pilot.
Thanks for speaking with us, Mr. MacLachlan. By all means don’t let us distract you. What do you do?
I’m the on-duty operations pilot for this duty week. I’m normally a regular pilot. All operations pilots are. We do this duty in the office for three months. You do a week in the office. Then your next duty week, you actually go out and pilot ships and your next duty week, you come back in the office for a week. While I’m the operations pilot, I’m on call twenty-four hours a day to deal with any emergencies that come up with ship movements or problems with tugs or whatever.
How long did it take you to become a pilot?
I decided I wanted to become a pilot when I got out of school. I went to Cal Maritime Academy right out of high school in 1970. I graduated in ’73 and at that time I wanted to become a pilot and I started working toward it from that point on. I became a pilot in 1987.
So, ’73, ’83; it took you fourteen years.
I imagine you could do it faster. I basically waited until the organization here started a training program. There were guys before that that basically just started piloting. Once you got your licenses, you just went out and started on, you know, whatever anybody gives you to do a shift. And basically work your way up from there. But, let’s see, in ’85, they amalgamated the bar pilots and the inland-bay pilots to one organization.
And the inland-bay pilots would be the pilots that just dealt with moving ships in the delta?
No, they dealt with ships inside the Bay. Basically, the bar pilots would bring them across the outside bar inside the Golden Gate Bridge and then would give them to an inner-pilot who would take them to their dock, wherever their dock might be, from Redwood City, to Stockton or Sacramento, anywhere in between. The bar pilots in earlier days only brought ships across the bar (the sand bar just outside the Golden gate). Our normal bordering area, eleven and a half miles outside the Golden Gate Bridge, is the sea buoy. That’s half way to the Farrallon Islands. That’s where we board ships and bring them inside the bay.
That’s where you climb the Jacob’s Ladder. Is that a biblical reference?
I’m not sure how they came up with that name. It could be traced back to biblical references or whatever. But it’s basically a wood ladder that hangs down the side of the ship and you climb up it out there at sea. It can be dangerous.
You ever go in the drink?
No, I’ve never been in. I try not to swim.
Do you ever get seasick?
I haven’t been seasick in years. But you can get queasy. Everybody gets queasy. You know, if it gets rough enough, you get queasy.
Is language a problem?
Sometimes, but not too often. English is the international language of the sea. Everybody pretty much speaks English. Some of them speak it better than others. But for the most part, you do pretty good.
We saved the best for last. Captain Russell Nyborg looks and sounds just like you’d want a Captain to look. He’s President of the Bar Pilots.
Captain Nyborg, thank you for seeing us. How long have you been president?
November 1996.
What does being the president of the San Francisco Bar Pilots involve?
I administer the affairs of the pilots, assigning pilots to ships our oversee our fleet of boats.
Are you able to still be a pilot while you’re doing it?
No, I’m not.
So, will you go back to being a pilot when finished with your term?
That’s correct.
Sounds like you can’t wait.
That’s correct.
Do you miss it?
Yes, I do.
Why don’t you just go hop on a ship once in a while? Who’s going to tell you that you can’t?
Well, I’ve done that. I can’t say I haven’t been completely away from it. I’ve done some of that.
How long have you been a pilot?
Thirty years.
Is it different being a pilot now than it was when you started?
Yes, it sure is, certainly is. Larger ships, more education … pilots are smarter. I can’t say enough about the education that the pilots receive. It’s good and it’s certainly shown in their safety record here in the bay. I’m very proud of the pilots.
Are you moving the same number of ships, fewer, more?
Our high year was about 10,000 back maybe in ’91 and ’92 and our low was probably around 7,500 three years ago. And now we’re back on the upswing and we’re doing about 9,000.
Thank you very much, Captain.
You’re welcome.
