THE OCEAN PILOT
The ocean pilots and deep sea divers of New York have one thing in
common; both object to taking apprentices, and in the case of the
former, at least, there is good reason for this, since they have been,
for generations, the aristocrats of their calling. The pilots who sail
out of Sandy Hook are no hardier than their rugged and fearless fellows
of the North Sea, but they subject themselves to greater dangers by
their long cruises, and rough, indeed, must be the weather that can keep
them in port. They cruise night and day, in search of incoming craft;
their torches' flare lights up the snow and sleet of winter storms and
contends with the darkness of summer fogs; and they speak and board in
all sorts of weather and at all seasons the fleet liners that cross the
western ocean in less than a week. And these pilots of the New York and
New Jersey shores are a revelation to the tourist, who, having never
heard of them, sees them for the first time. The latter, in most cases,
expects to watch a rough-and-ready sort of fellow in homespun, with a
swaggering air and a boisterous manner, climb from the pilot's yawl up
the black hull's towering side. Instead, he sees a man of modest and
pleasing address, about whom there is little to indicate his calling,
and much that bespeaks the merchant or clerk one meets of a morning on
lower Broadway. There was a time when our pilots indulged in the luxury
of a high silk hat when boarding vessels in sunny weather, but they are
not so fastidious nowadays, and use derbies instead.
Prosperous as a class, the pilots of New York pay dearly for their
prosperity by the most arduous sea labor. Since 1853 more than
thirty-five boats have been sunk and wrecked in various ways, and twice
that number of pilots have lost their lives. There are at the present
time upward of 160 pilots cruising from the port of New York. They are
subject to the supervision of a pilots' commission of five members,
named by the Governor of New York, and each pilot is appointed after a
long and severe apprenticeship. He must first serve, boy and man, before
the mast until he masters every problem in the management of every form
of rig. Then he must contrive to obtain the position of boat-keeper or
pilot's mate. In that capacity he must serve three full years before he
can be admitted for his examination for a license. After this he must
pass a most rigid examination on all points of seamanship and navigation
before the Board of Pilot Commissioners, and show complete and exact
knowledge of the tides, rips and sands and all other phenomena for many
miles out from the piers of the East and North Rivers.
But even after the candidate has received his license, he is sometimes
forced to wait years, until some pilot happens to die and leave a
vacancy for him. The first year of pilotage he is granted a license to
pilot vessels drawing less than sixteen feet. If he gives satisfaction,
the following year he is permitted to take charge of vessels drawing
eighteen feet. If he passes a satisfactory examination the third year,
he then receives a full license, entitling him to pilot vessels of any
draught, and is then first called a branch or full pilot. On receiving
his license, the pilot must give bonds for the proper discharge of his
duty, and he is liable to heavy fines if he declines to fill a vacancy
or board a vessel making signals for a pilot. Pilots are paid for their
work by the foot, the charges varying according to the draught. For a
ship drawing from twenty-one to twenty-eight feet they receive $4.88 a
foot, and for one drawing six to thirteen and one-half feet $2.78 a
foot, these rates being slightly increased in winter.
A cruise on a New York pilot-boat, however brief, is an experience sure
to be remembered. When a pilot-boat starts out on a hunt for ships, it
is decided in what order its half-dozen pilots shall take the prizes,
and the man who is to board the first one is placed in command. The
other pilots, meanwhile, take their ease as best suits their taste, the
seaman's work being done by a crew of sailors hired for the purpose. One
pilot, however, is always on the lookout for sails, and a landsman is
compelled to marvel at the certainty with which these ocean scouts
discharge the task of sighting vessels, for often they are able to tell
the name of a steamship before unaccustomed eyes can discern aught but a
waste of waters and a wide expanse of sky. Still, a part of this skill
may be due to the fact that pilots are always posted before going out as
to what vessels are expected, and from what direction they are coming,
the watch being made all the keener by the fact that the bigger the ship
the bigger is the pilot's pay. A ship, moreover, must take a pilot going
out from the same boat that furnishes the pilot going into port, while
if a captain refuses a pilot he must pay full pilotage, and thus
contribute his tithe to the support of the system. This latter rule
seems, at first glance, a curious provision, but it is defended on the
ground that without it the business would not be remunerative enough for
really competent men to engage in it, and that with unskilled pilots the
annual losses would be greatly in excess of what they are at present.
When a ship is sighted by daylight, a long blue burgee is hoisted to the
peak of the pilot-boat, which means, "Do you want a pilot?" If there is
no responsive signal, it is taken for granted that the answer is "Yes,"
but if a jack is hoisted the watchers know that the vessel has already
been boarded by a pilot from some boat that has sailed farther away from
port in the hunt for a ship. When a ship is sighted at night she is
signalled by means of a torch charged with benzine and giving forth an
intense light. Seen from the other vessel the effect is startling, the
white light illuminating every sail and spar of the pilot-boat, so that
it stands out, its number clearly visible upon the mainsail, a gray
specter against the night's background.
Should the answering signal be favorable, there follows a scene of great
excitement on the deck of the pilot-boat. At first sight of the ship,
the pilot due to take the prize dives down to the cabin, sheds his
working clothes and dons a suit of sober black, and by the time it is
known he is wanted, he is ready to be transferred to his charge. Taking
on a pilot is not without its perils. The yawl nearly always pitches and
tumbles in most uncomfortable fashion, while the ship is rarely if ever
brought to a full stop, and the pilot, watching his chance, must grasp
the rope ladder let down its side, and scramble aboard as best he can.
Sometimes he gets a ducking, and if the weather is tempestuous he is
pretty certain to be drenched, but for that he cares not a jot, and he
is sure to show a smiling face to captain and passengers when finally he
sets foot on deck. Dropping a pilot from an outgoing vessel is often
more hazardous, especially in stormy weather, than his transfer the
other way. Then he must descend the rope ladder and jump for the boat in
the nick of time, for to miscalculate in the least the position of the
little shell means a ducking almost certainly, and possibly a watery
grave.
[Illustration: PILOT SIGNALING A VESSEL]
A peril, however, more feared by pilots than the one I have been
describing, is the dreaded lee shore; and with reason, as a story told
by a veteran ocean pathfinder will show. On a still afternoon in
midsummer the crew of a pilot-boat sighted a ship off Fire Island, some
five miles away. In the dead calm prevailing the only way to board her
was to row over the distance. There would be little danger in doing this
if the wind did not spring up and the ship sail away, so the yawl was
lowered and headed for the distant merchantman. But as night was closing
in, and ere the yawl had come within hailing distance of the ship, of a
sudden the breeze sprang up, and the vessel making sail, glided slowly
over the horizon line. The breeze grew into a gale, and in the gathering
storm and gloom the men could no longer discern the whereabouts of the
pilot-boat. Nor, there being no compass on board the yawl, could they
determine the direction in which they were being blown. The nearest land
was miles away and the only thing that could be done was to keep the
boat's head to the wind and wait. Thus the minutes lengthened into
hours. Toward dawn, when the night was darkest, they heard the thunder
of surf on the reefs, and a little later felt the yawl lifted up on the
crest of a mighty breaker rushing swiftly toward the land. There was a
deafening roar, a crash, a whirl, and a torrent of foam. In a twinkling
the boat was capsized and the poor fellows were struggling in the surf.
One struck a rock and was killed. The others, freed from the receding
wave, ran up the beach, and by digging their hands into the sand to
escape the deadly undertow, finally got ashore, drenched and exhausted.
In the main, however, the system I have been describing has now become a
thing of the past. Potent causes have contributed to this result.
Formerly pilot-boats had no particular stations assigned to them, and
boats have been known to cruise as far north as Sable Island, a distance
of six hundred miles, in order to get steamers taking the northern
courses. In the same way pilot-boats cruised long distances to the
southward and straight out to sea to meet the incoming steamers and
sailing vessels. Thus, unrestrained in its movements and left to seek
out its own salvation, each boat sought to outdo the other in securing
work, and all sorts of strategic devices were brought into play in order
to first gain the side of an incoming vessel. Pilots took advantage of
fog and night in order to slip by a rival, while jockeying for winds and
position was indulged in to an extent that would be counted
extraordinary in a yacht race.
Competition, however, cut down earnings to such an extent that there
came a time when many of the boats were no longer able to pay expenses.
Then it was that some of the long-headed among the pilots, casting about
for a remedy for this evil, came to the conclusion that one steam
pilot-boat would be able to do the work of three or four sailboats. It
was accordingly decided some years ago that steamboats should gradually
replace the existing fleet of sail. With this innovation came
restrictions regulating the cruising grounds of the boats. Instead of
cruising about indiscriminately as formerly, each boat is now assigned a
certain beat. An imaginary arc has been described extending from
Barnegat to Fire Island, a distance of seventy-five miles, and all pilot
boats are expected to confine themselves within this line. Four
pilot-boats patrol this line, each covering a beat of about nineteen
miles. Inside of the circle are stationed two more pilot-boats, while
still further in is a boat known as the inner pilot-boat. Just off the
bar another boat is stationed to receive the pilots dropped by
outward-bound vessels. When a boat in the outer circle becomes unmanned
or disabled, a boat from the inner circle takes its place, while a
reserve boat occupies the beat left vacant on the inner circle. In this
way all the beats are constantly patrolled in an efficient and
economical way. Each pilot takes his turn at the service, and is on
board a boat cruising on the stations three days in seven, a moving
contrast to the offshore service of other years, when a boat and crew
were frequently compelled to remain at sea for weeks at a time.
Indeed, under the new system of pilotage, battles with cross-seas and
gales and exposures to snow, cold and sleet, while cruising for vessels
hundreds of miles off coast, are fast becoming things of the past, and
for stories of collisions, wrecks, narrow escapes and strange mishaps,
one must now hark back to the records of former days. Here, however, he
is sure to encounter many a tale that quickens the pulse and stirs the
blood. Take the case of the Columbia, run down by the steamship Alaska,
off Fire Island. When the Alaska was sighted, the pilot-boat was
head-reaching to the north on the port tack. The wind was blowing a gale
from the northwest, and an ugly sea was running, with the weather
clear, but cold. She plunged deeply into the heavy sea, and heeled to
the force of the wind until her lee rail was awash. The wind whipped off
the top of the waves and filled the air with spray. When the steamship
sighted the boat off Fire Island, her course was changed to make a lee
for the boat's yawl. She seemed to stop when the yawl was launched and
two men and a pilot went over the side of the boat and dropped into her,
but ere the yawl had fairly started on her way the liner, of a sudden,
and without warning, forged ahead. The surge from the port bow of the
Alaska, as she pitched into a big wave, capsized the boat, and threw the
men into the water. Before anything could be done to save them the bows
of the steamship rose and fell again, and, hitting the pilot-boat, cut
it in two and crushed the decks and beams to bits, the broken timbers
being swept under the bows and along the sides as the steamship again
forged ahead and passed over the spot. Not a man on the Columbia was
saved.
The Sandy Hook pilot, however, never quails in the face of danger or
even death, as was proved at the stranding of the packet boat, John
Minturn, almost within a stone's throw of the New Jersey beach during a
frightful hurricane in February, 1846. There were fifty-one souls on
board the Minturn, and of that number only thirteen escaped to tell the
story of that fearful night. Its hero, according to the evidences of
all, was Pilot Thomas Freeborn, who to the very last struggled manfully
to succor the hapless women and children who clung to the deck around
him. It was bitter cold, and every wave that washed over the stranded
ship left its coating of ice on deck, rigging, passengers and crew.
Freeborn and brave Captain Stark, who was forced to see his wife and
children freeze to death without being able to render them assistance,
gave up their own clothing in a vain attempt to protect the weaker
sufferers, and when days afterward the pilot's body was found washed up
on the beach it was almost naked, while that of a woman, which lay
near-by, was carefully wrapped in his pea-jacket.
It has been three-score years since the wreck of the Minturn, but in
every year since then there has been numbered among the members of the
Sandy Hook Pilot's Association scores of hardy men, who, should need
come to them, stood ready to risk their lives and die as bravely as did
Thomas Freeborn. Pilot Henry Devere proved that he had the same heroic
fiber in his makeup when he sailed in the James Funck, before the Civil
War. A brig under shortened sails was sighted one day, and when the yawl
of the pilot-boat drew alongside, Devere hailed a boy at the wheel. The
boy seemed to be stupefied, and the pilot was obliged to hail him
several times before he started up, leaned forward into the
companionway, and called feebly to somebody below. Then a gaunt man came
on deck and said that the crew had been stricken by fever. Most people
in the face of a menace of this sort would have turned back, but Devere
was not that kind of man. Instead, he went on board, and, with the help
of the mate, headed the vessel toward Sandy Hook. The captain was ill in
his stateroom. The body of a dead sailor found on deck was tied in
mosquito netting and dropped overboard. The boy died in the lower bay,
and the captain off the Battery, leaving the mate as the sole survivor
of the crew. The pilot helped to furl the sails and make the lines fast,
and only left the stricken vessel when she had reached her moorings.
The stranding of the Jesse Carll in 1889, illustrates another of the
dangers with which pilots sometimes have to contend. The boat, having
discharged one of her five pilots, was standing off shore near Fire
Island, when she began to feel the force of an advancing southern
cyclone, and early in the evening was in what sailors call "nasty
weather." At midnight a violent thunder-storm burst overhead, and the
increasing wind raised a furious sea, but Pilot Gideon Mapes, in charge
of the vessel, had her under double-reefed sails, and standing up
against the wind and waves in fine shape. Then came a deluge of rain,
and the wind increased to hurricane force. Soon a thick mist covered the
water and shut out everything in sight. The boat reached off and on,
expecting to keep out of shoal water, but all efforts failed. Her
signals of distress were seen by the life-saving crew on the beach, and
before daylight the ten men on board were taken ashore in boats. When
morning came an effort was made to pull the boat off, but as she shifted
into deeper water she filled, a hole having been made in her bottom.
Then the pilots abandoned her, but she was raised and repaired a few
weeks later.
Stories like these are what the pilots tell in their idle hours.
Searching for them at such a time, one is most likely to find them at
the Pilots' Club, a flourishing social organization, which has roomy
quarters just under the roof of a big office building within hailing
distance of the Battery. Here at all hours of the day a score or more of
pilots are sure to be sitting about spinning yarns, playing cards and
checkers and reading the newspapers and magazines. Their well-furnished
clubrooms contain a great number of precious curios--relics from all
quarters of the globe. There are firearms of curious antique pattern;
autograph letters by such famous sea-dogs as Macdonough and Porter; a
tiny chest of drawers carved from one of the timbers of John Paul Jones'
ship, the Bon Homme Richard; a portrait of Washington by Stuart,
surrounded by two large American flags, and a model of the pilot-boat
Stingaree, which was built in 1810, and was one of the most famous
crafts of her day.
This model shows that the years have wrought great changes in the
building and rigging of pilot-boats. In old times the boats simply
carried mainsail, foresail, and forestaysail and jib. They had no
foretopmast, and on their maintopmast carried a flying gaff-topsail,
which was hoisted from the deck. Now the boats have both fore and
maintopmasts, and each carries a mainsail, foresail, forestaysail, jib,
jib-topsail, maintopsail and staysail and fore and main standing-gaff
topsails, which give them an immense spread of sail, compared with that
used by the boats of earlier times. A schooner-rigged pilot-boat costs
from $15,000 to $16,000. That was about the cost of the Caldwell H.
Colt, a good example of the typical pilot-boat. She is eighty-five feet
long with twenty-one feet beam, 61.43 tons, custom-house register, and a
rig as trim and jaunty as that of an ordinary yacht. The pride, however,
at present writing, of the New York Sandy Hook fleet is the New York,
built of steel, propelled by steam, and able to stand as much buffeting
in cyclonic seas as the stanchest of the liners. She was built on the
Delaware from designs by A. Cary Smith, is 155 feet long, 28 feet beam,
19 feet 7 inches deep, and is driven by a compound surface-condensing
engine of 100 horse-power. Her pole masts are of steel, and she spreads
on them enough canvas to steady her. The New York has accommodations for
twenty-four pilots, who fare more luxuriously than they ever did on any
of the old sailing craft. They have a smoking-room in a separate steel
deckhouse, aft of the engine-room, fitted up like a similar room on an
ocean steamship, while the lifeboats in which they leave the New York to
board incoming vessels are hoisted and lowered by a steam derrick in
less than a minute. It is intended that in a few years the entire fleet
shall be made up of vessels equal if not superior to the New York.