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TAKING OVER THE BIG CLIMB MEETING THE SHIP DOCKING THE BOAT

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 17, 2009

Updated: 01/17/2009 01:11 am

The 23 harbor pilots who serve the Port of Tampa were responsible for terminals that handled 43 million tons of cargo and 767,000-plus cruise passengers in fiscal year 2008.

Essentially, harbor pilots are the local experts on bringing ships from the open Gulf waters through a narrow and lengthy channel. Harbor pilots meet incoming ships at all hours on pilot boats at Egmont Key, the beginning of the channel. The next step is a big one - literally. The pilot boat snugs up to the immense incoming vessel, and then the pilot must jump from his or her boat to a rope ladder dangling from the vessel they board, making a climb of sometimes 30 feet or more. From there, the harbor pilot takes control of the ship from the captain, telling the crew what to do to make it safely through the 42-mile channel, the state's longest.

Their job has many hazards, from weather to recreational boaters to the winding channel itself, which is about 200 yards wide with an average depth of about 40 feet, Coast Guard officials have said. The average depth outside the channel is 10 feet. As they bring a ship in or guide it out to sea, pilots have many things to consider: wind, weather, traffic, tides, the port layout, sandbars and reefs, and homeland security issues.

If for some reason the weather makes the trip too hazardous and a pilot cannot make the trip, the port shuts down. If the weather turns after the pilot maneuvers the vessel out to sea, he's in for a long haul; he must stay aboard the boat until it reaches its destination and then fly back home.

It takes years of education and training to become a harbor pilot - they must attend a four-year maritime college or the equivalent from military or maritime service, spend six years working up to a specific officer rating, make a high score on the Florida pilots exam and numerous other requirements before taking over a ship.

What happens if something goes wrong? There are few incidents, considering the thousands of vessels that come and go through Tampa Bay each year. In recent area history, the most destructive and deadly accident was in May 1980, when a 609-foot ship struck the Sunshine Skyway during a blinding storm, killing 35 people. In August 1993, a 400-foot phosphate freighter hit two barges, one carrying jet fuel and the other carrying heavy oil. More than 300,000 gallons of oil spilled into the bay and washed onto area beaches. Even a grounding can create havoc. In October 2002, a grounding clogged traffic through the channel for a day. A freighter carrying limestone was bumped by another vessel into the shallows, where it ran aground about 200 yards west of the Sunshine Skyway. It was the third time in six years in which vessels ran aground in Tampa Bay or near the approaching channel, including an incident in February 1996, when the cruise ship Tropicale ran aground after a harbor pilot with a long record of accidents turned the vessel too sharply and it slid out of a shipping channel.

A dangerous job with such immense responsibility commands a healthy salary. The projected average net income of each of Tampa's certified harbor pilots for 2008 was $262,392, which is $100,000 less than 2006 because of lighter harbor traffic amid the slumping economy. Harbor pilots are paid by the ship at rates that depend on the size of the boat and the tonnage of its cargo. In November, an intense eight-hour debate took place in which the Tampa Bay Pilots Association asked for successive 9 percent, 8 percent and 8 percent rate increases over the next three years. If harbor traffic remained steady, that would increase pay for the top pilots from $262,392 in 2008 to $332,422 in 2011. Instead, a compromise of 3 percent in 2009, taking effect Jan. 1, and 3 percent in 2010 was hammered out.

Katrina Ferreira

Sources: Tribune files, Florida Shipper, www.iseek.org, www.tampaport.com

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