Perils of a Port Pilot
By Jayms Ramirez
I filmed a few segments for my TV show In LA a few days ago about the Port Pilots and their dangerous job bringing in High Sea cargo Vessels into Port. I went out on a few Pilot boats a few miles out to sea to meet up with the large vessels waiting in open ocean. Every ship that comes in is met by a Port Pilot who scales her tall hull and meets the captain in the bridge, to then give commands on bring the ship in safely into port and unload her cargo.
The process is fascinating and dangerous. I felt fortunate to experience this first hand.
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The rudder and propeller from the 1100 foot maersk ship that we boarded and was guided in by the Port Pilot. The guiding in of these ships is agreat feat and to see it first hand was simply amazing.
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A Port Pilot scales the flimsy rope ladder up the side of a cargo vessel the size of a aircraft carrier. This ship is about 5 miles outside the LA harbor and this is how these large ships get into port each and every time. The Port Pilot’s meet the ship at sea, scale the wall and then join the captain on the Bridge to basically take over the ship and guide her in safely.
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Once up the rope ladder, the Port Pilot then transfers to a long aluminum ladder to the top deck. Even on this calm day, the water between the Pilot Boat and the vessel was running like a raging river. Falling in at this point, would surely mean being swept away, possibly right into the propeller. The Port Pilots do this dangerous work every day, storm or calm.
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We basically chase the Vessel in the Pilot Boat until we can ease up as close as possible to get a man onto the rope ladder hanging from the top deck 30-40 ft above water.
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These vessels are like monsters when you are under one on the open sea. The size is unbelievable and the scene looks surreal. About 1000 ft long and over 80,000 tons, these giants travel half a month to get here from Asia.
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Jayms Ramirez is a photographer, TV host, travel guide and sustainability consultant based in San Francisco, CA. His website is http://www.jaymsramirez.com.
Photography appears courtesy and copyright of the author.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 at 2:00 am and is filed under Non-Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
