<p>Bar pilots play crucial role in S.F. Bay
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Buzz up!
By Jeff Mitchell
Special to The Bee
Published: Sunday, Dec. 13, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 3A
Last Modified: Sunday, Dec. 13, 2009 - 9:36 am</p>
<p>SAN FRANCISCO When some people arrive at the office, they fumble for their coffee mugs and trudge to the company break room.</p>
<p>Not Capt. Tom Miller. He grabs a rope ladder and scrambles 20 feet straight up the side of a moving freighter or an oil tanker.</p>
<p>And when his feet hit the vessel's main deck and he heads for the bridge, Miller is bristling with energy.</p>
<p>"Being on the Jacob's ladder, hanging off the side of a moving, 900-foot-long container ship. Well, let's say that it still gets my heart pumping after 23 years," said Miller, a member of the San Francisco Bar Pilots Association.</p>
<p>Piloting a freighter or an oil tanker across San Francisco Bay isn't easy. First, there are the shallow waters, strong currents and shifting shoals. Then there are the underwater wrecks, cables and other obstructions capable of peeling back a ship's hull.</p>
<p>The maritime industry considers the bay one of the most challenging places to work, and piloting there is not for the faint of heart. It takes years of technical training followed by even more years as an apprentice.</p>
<p>"To be a successful pilot, you have to be able to integrate real-time data such as weather, currents and tides with the wisdom of experience," said Miller, 52, of Petaluma. "When you pilot vessels of the size we do, you have to stay way out ahead of the ship's actual position in your head."</p>
<p>Critically important to West Coast shipping, members of the San Francisco Bar Pilots Association are state-licensed mariners whose job it is to guide cargo freighters, container ships and tankers in and out of the bay, within the bay itself and through the Delta to Stockton's and West Sacramento's deep-water ports. Bar pilots have been at their craft for more than 150 years.</p>
<p>"We are responsible for piloting more than 9,000 vessel movements a year on the bay," said Capt. Peter McIsaac, the bar pilots' port agent, or chief administrator. "A vast majority of the time people have no clue of who we are or what role we play in the greater maritime economy that is, until an incident occurs."</p>
<p>One such incident occurred two years ago when the freighter Cosco Busan hit the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in heavy fog, spilling bunker fuel into the bay.</p>
<p>Federal investigators later found that veteran bar pilot John Cota was intoxicated from his use of prescription drugs while piloting the ship. Cota was eventually sentenced to 10 months in federal prison.</p>
<p>But while shipping accidents happen, most movements of the steel behemoths are successful, say maritime officials. At the Port of Oakland, for instance, the bar pilots safely maneuver about 1,900 cargo vessels carrying millions of steel shipping containers to the port each year, according to Ralph Reynoso, the port's wharf master.</p>
<p>"We couldn't do it without them," said Reynoso, an industry veteran.</p>
<p>In most cases, a bar pilot's shift starts aboard a smaller boat kept about 12 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge. There around the clock and in virtually any kind of weather they stay until a cargo ship radios that it is inbound to San Francisco. Once the commercial vessel arrives, the smaller pilot boat will navigate alongside and transfer the pilot onto a rope step ladder known as a Jacob's ladder.</p>
<p>According to McIsaac, the maneuver can be tricky enough in calm seas, but in heavy weather, it takes real ship-handling skills and guts on the part of the pilot.</p>
<p>"Accidents do happen," McIsaac, 53, said. "We've had cases where pilots have fallen and suffered crushed ankles and broken collarbones. We lost one pilot when he suffered a heart attack while climbing the ladder."</p>
<p>But for all the ladder's limitations, the bar pilots have found it to be the safest way to board a moving ship. "There's no doubt that the transfer is the most physically dangerous thing we do," he said.</p>
<p>Once aboard, the bar pilot takes command kind of.</p>
<p>In an act of maritime diplomacy, the bar pilot who is often wearing a suit and tie under his ocean survival gear greets the master of the ship, shakes hands and exchanges business cards. The pilot and the master exchange details about how much of the hull is riding below the water line and what the vessel's cargo and handling characteristics are. Ideally, they agree to "co-command" the vessel, McIsaac said.</p>
<p>"We're there to serve. We navigate the vessel into and out of the bay and up and down the rivers, but the ship's master never loses authority," McIsaac said.</p>
<p>And while a pilot directs a vessel's movements, he or she does not physically manipulate the ship's controls that responsibility is reserved for the ship's bridge crew.</p>
<p>Often the most nerve-wracking moments of a ship's transit into or out of the bay is over a massive sandbar directly west of the Golden Gate Bridge hence the term "bar pilots."</p>
<p>There the ocean is as little as 24 feet deep making it impossible for most modern cargo ships or tankers to operate. The area's wind-whipped waves can make things even worse.</p>
<p>Miller says it's the bar's shallowness and wildness and the ever-present threat of running aground that keep commercial mariners up at night. But thanks to a 2,000-foot-wide, well-marked channel that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers keeps dredged to a depth of 55 feet, most large vessels can get in and out of the bay without fear of getting stuck.</p>
<p>Both Miller and McIsaac say they have had their share of close calls.</p>
<p>One incident occurred in January when bar pilot Dave McCloy was guiding the empty oil tanker Overseas Clelia Mar out of the bay. Not far past the Golden Gate Bridge, McCloy suddenly lost power, electricity and the ability to steer the vessel.</p>
<p>As the currents began to push the stricken ship closer to the rocks of the Marin headlands, McCloy radioed for help while ordering that the ship's heavy main anchors be lowered partially into the water.</p>
<p>McIsaac said McCloy knew through his training that some of the deepest areas of the bay are found adjacent to the bridge, which was why he lowered the anchors only so far. The action slowed the ship's drift and brought it to a full stop when the anchors finally hit bottom.</p>
<p>Authorities later credited McCloy for saving the ship and preventing a fuel oil spill.</p>