vessel more than 60 tons to utilize a state- 

 licensed pilot — incoming and outgoing — in 

 the waters of the Morehead City harbor and 

 Beaufort Bar, says Walter Clark. North Carolina 

 Sea Grant coastal communities and policy 

 specialist. "Any master of a vessel violating 

 this law is guilty of a Class I misdemeanor," he 

 adds. 



Harbor pilots also help protect the 

 environment from cargo spillage and property 

 damage. 



"The pilot is the advisor, but the captain is 

 ultimately in charge," says Baily. 



Because of the strong presence of Navy 

 ships at the Morehead City port, tugboats also 

 are used to bring ships into berth. 



For Navy ships that are 1 ,000 or more feet 

 long, three tugboats are used to turn the ship 

 around so it can head straight into the port berth. 



To avoid damaging the ships, the tugboats 

 are equipped with fenders that have rubber tires. 



RIVER PILOTS 



In the Port of Wilmington 90 miles south 

 of Morehead City, eight river pilots guide ships 

 from a sea buoy in the Atlantic Ocean, past 

 Bald Head and Jaybird shoals, and up the Cape 

 Fear River. 



"You have to navigate all the turns and 

 bends in the river," says Wes Kirby, president of 

 the Wilmington/Cape Fear Pilots Association. 

 "Every bend has localized shoaling." 



At times, particularly with a wind speed of 

 more than 30 knots, Kirby says the jumps from 

 the boat onto a ship can be quite challenging. 



"We have boarded vessels in winds up to 

 about 60 knots," he says. "However, one pilot 

 was caught in a sudden gale and boarded a ship 

 in 60 knots of wind and brought the ship across 

 the bar in 110 knots of wind. I doubt he would 

 volunteer to ever do that again." 



"The pilot boat was jumping up and down 

 like it was a canoe," Kirby adds. "Luckily, we 

 have never lost a pilot here, but we have had 

 several injuries." 



As river pilots bring the ships close to 

 their berth in the Wilmington port, the docking 

 pilots take over and use tugboats to push the 

 vessel alongside its berth. Docking pilots 

 also use tugs to undock vessels and turn them 

 around so they can head down the river and out 

 to sea. 



Other ports across the United States 

 also require state-licensed pilots to bring in 

 boats. In 2004, there were 1,170 state-licensed 

 maritime pilots in the United States, according 

 to the American Pilots' Association (APA), the 

 national trade association. 



"We are generally seeing more traffic in 

 U.S. ports," says Scott Rainey, APA deputy 

 director. "The ships are getting larger. We 

 expect water commerce will increase over the 

 next 20 years." 



In the Wilmington port — which handles 

 commodities such as lumber and grain, as well 

 as container business — the amount of vessel 

 traffic has remained about the same for the last 

 several years. 



"We brought in 700 ships in 2004," says 

 Kirby. "Our business went down in 1998 when 

 we lost a main container line to Charleston. 

 Before that, we used to bring in 800 to 900 

 ships a year." 



At Morehead City, ship traffic dropped 

 after Sept. 1 1, 2001, when phosphate exports to 

 China were halted temporarily, leaving military, 

 food and metal products as the primary exports 

 and rubber as the primary import. 



In 2001 , the harbor pilots brought in 179 

 ships, compared to 170 in 2003. 



Because of the drop in business, Baily's 



8 EARLY SUMMER 2005 



