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PILOT TRAINING COURSES
Nautical Colleges offering Pilotage Training
History
Venn, Alfred William
Alfred William Venn
My father died just six weeks short of his one hundredth birthday. He was the last known survivor of the Bristol Channel Sailing Pilots.
View the original illustrated pdf magazine article (page 8):
www.pilotmag.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/pilotmag-286-final.pdf
At the height of the industrial revolution, the new coal ports of South Wales became boom towns – the Silicon Valleys – of their day. Great wealth was created and commerce from Swansea to Newport, and good Welsh coal was shipped to the four corners of the world to fuel the new era. Even the great port of Bristol, once the second city in England, was overtaken by the convergence of rail, canal and the inevitable melding of coal, steel, iron and the mighty machines it brought forth. Central to the sea-going operation were the one hundred and fifty or so pilots long heralded as master of their calling. The Bristol Channel is one of the most difficult bodies of waters in the world to navigate, with violent seas, the second most powerful tides and attendant currents, and endless changing mud and sandbanks. To qualify for admittance to the ranks of pilotage took half a lifetime, and the boats matched the same degrees of excellence to which the men aspired. Read the rest of this entry »
Nelson Memorial
NELSON FUNERAL RE-ENACTMENT
The Nelson Funeral re-enactment was held on the Thames on 16th September 2005. Several pilots and retired pilots attended this event and shown here are First Sea Lord
Sir Alan West with L-R Nick Cutmore, IMPA Secretary General, Leonard Fenner Retd.
(London TH North Channel & PLA), Peter Widd (TH & PLA), Peter Russell Retd.( London TH Cinque Ports & PLA) and Norman Knowles Retd. (London TH Cinque Ports)
Youde, Ronald Fergus
Ronald Fergus Youde (1910 – 2005)
Article by RF Youde on Piloting WW2 (Page 11)
http://www.pilotmag.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/pilotmag-284-final.pdf
Pilot Ronald Fergus Youde died peacefully on 14th December 2005, aged 95. Read the rest of this entry »
Pilotage Laws 1888
PILOTAGE LAWS 1888
At a time when the UKMPA are working to draw up a new Pilotage Act including provisions to incorporate the relevant sections of the Port Marine Safety Code it is timely to look back at pilotage history. The following are extracts from a paper tabled at the 1888 UKPA Conference by Commander Cawley. It is equally valid today!
I am of opinion that the whole fabric of pilotage law is so rotten and one-sided that, any attempt to renovate or patch it up would be an inconvenient and a dangerous makeshift. This pilotage question, as well as others of a pelagic nature, must be dealt with in detail by seamen, thorough masters of their profession, for in dealing with this matter immense and continuous responsibilities are involved only known to mature nautical experts.
It must be admitted that pilots were originally appointed for no other purpose than that of enhancing the security to life. I am fully convinced that it is absolutely essential to the safety of human life. I say it (and not without serious and deliberate consideration), that pilotage and the ef.ciency of the pilotage service plays no unimportant part in the safety of “all those who go down to the sea in ships.” Where life is at stake, and its security so indissolubly and indisputably connected with this service, I, as a competent British seaman, would ask your honourable Committee to pause and consider the dreadful responsibilities that would arise if any unwise interference with this pilotage service should be contemplated and of all the dangerous and immediate perils encountered by those who travel by sea, those perils the pilots were formed to counteract and combat. It takes time to gain the ear of the thinking people of this country to the grave importance of this subject. It is connected with their safety and directly and indirectly concerns them, but, like all other matters, it requires patience and perseverance to bring it to their knowledge. I wish to preserve the pilotage system in all its present ef.ciency, and, where possible, make it more ef.cient. In doing so I am endeavoring to extend to those seamen who will come after me those great bene.ts of security to life which a wise generation thought .t to establish for the safety of seamen centuries ago and which is as essential now (even more so) than it was then. If it is essential that pilots should be appointed, it is also the duty of the State who appointed them that they should live in safety and in contentment and in peace.
Some may be in doubt of this great service the British pilots render the sea traveling public. I have no such doubt, in fact I am awfully and piously impressed with its stupendous importance. They carry the greyhounds of the sea from Liverpool and from
The indiscriminate granting of pilotage certi.cates to Masters and
mates is a dangerous law, inasmuch as it legalises incompetency, and
instead of ensuring positive safety it not only renders the possessor of
this super.cial knowledge a danger to himself, but also to those in
other vessels who have accepted the services of a real quali.ed pilot
117 years later?? JCB
Pilot Cutters identified
PHOTOS IDENTIFIED
On page 12 of the October 2004 issue of The Pilot there were two photographs for which information was sought. Once again Harwich Haven pilot Andy Adams has provided the following fascinating and detailed information.
The Clyde Launch:
Prior to WW2 the
The London
The London No.1 cutter is Pioneer. The Dungeness cruising cutters were based at
The sailing pilot ketches No.3
Whilst on duty at the Shipwash station the Pioneer was tendered by sailing cutters from Harwich. In 1912 the Shipwash station was closed and a single station in the
The Guide and Pioneer then took turns as the Dungeness tender as well as taking rotational duty for the Sunk and Dungeness stations.
With the introduction of a third new cutter in 1914 Guide was sold to
1924 she was renamed Preceder to make way for a new Pioneer.
1925 Sold to Pilotage du Gironde, renamed Chevalier.
1935. Broken up
No 1: Pioneer
Official Number 98971
Length 114’ 03”
Breadth 21’ 00”
Moulded Depth 11’ 04”
Compound 2 cylinders steam reciprocating machinery by M Paul of Dumbarton 82rhp
Signal Letters MHGF
Gross Tonnage 156
Net Tonnage24
PS There was speculation from another correspondent that the Guide and Pioneer were the same vessel but had removable name boards which were swapped over when the vessel changed operating stations. Further to this Andy revisited his archives and has confirmed that:
The Pioneer and Guide were two different vessels but were built together (456 & 457) as sister ships. The interchangeable name boards were the location boards
No.2 The Guide:
1891 Built for the Dungeness station,
1914 replaced by Patrol and sold to J E Bernier of Levis Lauzon,
1923 Sold to Cie Navigation de la Baie de Bras d’ Or.
1926 Sold to
1926 Sunk in St Lawrence.
AMICALE INTERNATIONAL CAP HORNIERS (AICH)
AMICALE INTERNATIONAL CAP HORNIERS
THE BRITISH SECTION
In May 1937 a group of retired French sailing ship masters held a banquet in St Malo to honour Professor George Delarney, chair of the Department of Navigation. They there and then formed the “Association Amicale des Capitaines au Long Cours Cap Horniers”, AICH. Their aims are the same today, “to promote and strengthen the ties of comradeship which bind together a unique body of men and women who embody the distinction of having sailed round
There were various classes of membership; Albatross, who had commanded a sailing ship round
Germany has always had a large membership as their four-masted barques Padua/ Kruzenshtern, Priwall, Peking, Passat, Magdalene Vinnen/ Kommodore Johnson/ Sedov and L’Avenir /Admiral Karpfanger in the 1920s and 30s carried at least 40 trainees on every ocean-going voyage as well as having apprentices on board the Erikson square-riggers.
In 1957 the British section of AICH was formed by Cdr CLA Woollard, the inaugural AGM was held on the HQS Wellington in
Alan Villiers, the author of many books on sailing ships and our last Albatross, wrote of visiting the
still on their open faces, the snap of command in their speech. The talk was of great ships long gone, the hardness of the life and the astonishing way it worked out. All had been apprentices, most had been second mates in sail, all had their masters certificates before
they went into steam. They’d been senior masters in Royal Mail, Cunard and
peak, had surviving
Cecilie, Pamir,
On
Martin Lee
I have listed those AICH British members who were Pilots, there may be others.
Captain Bruce Bell.
Captain Hector Blemings,
Captain Harry Fountain,
Captain Douglas Galloway,
Captain Victor Harbord.
Captain Andrew Keyworth, Lyttelton. One rounding,
Captain Francis Kirk, Southampton. One rounding, Monkbarns 1921.
Captain M. Lee, Orwell,
Captain William Liley, River
Captain L. Peverley.
Captain John Simpson.
Captain William Sutherland.
MARTIN LEE
Last “Grand Mat’’ of the AICH (
It is with sadness that I have to report the passing away of retired Trinity House (latterly Medway) pilot Martin Lee. Many will remember Martin for his enthusiasm for the “wind ships”, one of the last of which was the Passat where Martin served much of his apprenticeship in the late 1940s. As one of a dwindling number of true “Cape Horners” who had sailed around Cape Horn in a commercial sailing ship not fitted with an engine Martin became the last “Grand Mat” of the UK branch of the L’Amicale Internationale des Capitaines au Long-Cours Cap Horniers (AICH) and had the sad task of formally winding up that Association as a result of the dwindling membership in 2003.
The evocative cartoon in the June 2004 edition of The Pilot concerning a sailing ship running at a fair speed into harbour is reminiscent of some of the manoeuvres which sailing ship masters, pilots and crews had to make in the 1930s and 1940s. Their vessels were all in the region of 3,500 to 5,000 tons deadweight, had no motive
power except their sails, no bow thrusts and two large (up to 3 tons) anchors forward. There were one or two exceptions such as the German four-masted barque Magdalene Vinnen / Kommodore Johnson (now the Russian Sedov) which, in those days had a small auxiliary diesel engine for helping in calm conditions but not much use for manoeuvring in any tide or breeze. Some vessels still had their stern anchor hawse-pipes and gear which had been used in Chilean and Peruvian anchorage ports. Erikson (Gustaf Erikson of Mariehamn in the Finnish Aland Islands) masters were
expected, like most Scandinavian masters, to avoid the use of expensive tugs when-ever possible. Incidentally G Erikson have recently sold their last reefer ship and are no longer ship owners in the accepted sense.
Pilots will readily understand the reference to a kick astern when there is no such thing available. Ports such as Port
These charges were for berthing, shifting to and from the ballast grounds and sailing when loaded. There are no tug charges. These vessels had to have a minimum of 300 tons of solid ballast in port and over 1,300 tons for a deep sea voyage this stuff was manhandled by the crew and required shifting the ship with half the cargo loaded out to the ballast ground and dumping the material over the side before returning for cargo
completion. Berthing one of these ships required the right conditions and a great deal of skill and hard work, it could be lengthy business – it took us most of the day and a great deal of sweat and shouting to get the Passat alongside the long, winding jetty in Bunbury with no assistance. We had arrived on 4 September 1947 in ballast from
the jetty, swung head to wind, the gallant dredger took a line aft and at the first tow pulled her bitts out of the deck. I did not hear any language from amidships but we eventually hove her alongside with hand capstans with no further assistance. We loaded a full cargo (4,700 tons) of jarrah wood railway sleepers for Port Swettenham (now Port Klang) in
harbour tugs. We then proceeded, with sand ballast, to Port Victoria in the Spencer Gulf in
some Erikson masters who had been in the trade for years, detested the place and wrote of the ‘merry-go-round’ of dragging anchors round the bay. We put two anchors down and kept good anchor watches, sometimes a spanker was set and a spring attached to the weather anchor to make a lee for the ketches bringing bagged barley out.
Sailing ships had larger anchors and cables, as required by the classification societies, but, without the benefit of a kick ahead. The shores of
Large square-rigged ships loaded phosphates and guano in remote places such as
As a River Medway (ex-Thames) pilot I sailed the replica Golden Hind from Upnor to Tower Pier in the 1970s. This was (is) a small ship, she had an underpowered engine set on the starboard side. We sailed up the Thames on a rising tide for an ETA at
In 1996 and 1997 after a change of direction from piloting to other matters I spent two hurricane seasons in the
106m x 14.7m. There the similarity ends, they carry up to 174 passengers in five-star luxury, have two swimming pools a main engine and bow thrust and comply with the very strict USCG requirements for cruise ships as well as the myriad of other needs with strange labels. Their square sails on the fore-mast are controlled by a push-button system, eg ‘lower tops’l out and lower tops’l in’. A magic device that would have amazed any watchkeeper on a proper sailing vessel. Their rigging mistakes are the massive main and mizzen fisherman sails set high up. They have to come in quickly in squalls and often jam in their tracks causing heavy heeling and ominous crashes from the galley and bar.
We sailed whenever possible and carried out manoeuvres such as getting under way from an anchorage under sail alone, tacking, wearing, boxing and other crew heavy (assisted by passengers) work. She was not the easiest ship to handle with her windage
aloft and a not too powerful engine. We did manage a Mediterranean moor in St Georges when both berths were occupied, two anchors down and backed up to the space between the two ships putting crossed stern lines ashore. Approaching
Hurricane Iris was avoided by staying alongside in
In this brave new world of endless lists of acronyms and the minutiae of bureaucracy there seems to be little said about the nuts and bolts of shiphandling etc. When the first generation of car carriers made their appearance at Sheerness’s new car terminal they were a conglomerate of cobbled together ex bulk carriers and passenger ships. On one occasion one of these hybrid monsters had been advised to wait for the strong N’ly wind to moderate. Early in the morning I boarded her in the Little Nore area (this was in the days of Trinity House Pilots). She was a huge slab sided thing and we had three tugs standing by, the wind was moderating as we wandered into the harbour, and then shifted to the ENE, which was fine on our port bow for the berth. It was a tight squeeze (this was the original car berth at the end of No. 3 Sheerness), after mooring up the senior tug master called up and said “you sailed that ship alongside”. This was a compliment which I have always been proud of – in fact those vessels have much the same windage as a four-masted barque under full sail and can, in a way, be treated as such. The links between ship handling and seamanship in the 1930s and 1940s in unpowered ships and the 21st century vessel may be tenuous in terms of motive power but pilots will always have to deal competently with situations demanding a skilful response and perhaps the bean counters are not fully aware of this.
Lee, Martin
MARTIN LEE
Last “Grand Mat’’ of the AICH (UK branch)
View the original illustrated pdf article:
http://www.pilotmag.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/pilotmag-281-final.pdf
It is with sadness that I have to report the passing away of retired Trinity House (latterly Medway) pilot Martin Lee. Many will remember Martin for his enthusiasm for the “wind ships”, one of the last of which was the Passat where Martin served much of his apprenticeship in the late 1940s. As one of a dwindling number of true “Cape Horners” who had sailed around Cape Horn in a commercial sailing ship not fitted with an engine Martin became the last “Grand Mat” of the UK branch of the L’Amicale Internationale des Capitaines au Long-Cours Cap Horniers (AICH) and had the sad task of formally winding up that Association as a result of the dwindling membership in 2003.
The evocative cartoon in the June 2004 edition of The Pilot concerning a sailing ship running at a fair speed into harbour is reminiscent of some of the manoeuvres which sailing ship masters, pilots and crews had to make in the 1930s and 1940s. Their vessels were all in the region of 3,500 to 5,000 tons deadweight, had no motive
power except their sails, no bow thrusts and two large (up to 3 tons) anchors forward. There were one or two exceptions such as the German four-masted barque Magdalene Vinnen / Kommodore Johnson (now the Russian Sedov) which, in those days had a small auxiliary diesel engine for helping in calm conditions but not much use for manoeuvring in any tide or breeze. Some vessels still had their stern anchor hawse-pipes and gear which had been used in Chilean and Peruvian anchorage ports. Erikson (Gustaf Erikson of Mariehamn in the Finnish Aland Islands) masters were
expected, like most Scandinavian masters, to avoid the use of expensive tugs when-ever possible. Incidentally G Erikson have recently sold their last reefer ship and are no longer ship owners in the accepted sense.
Pilots will readily understand the reference to a kick astern when there is no such thing available. Ports such as Port Lincoln, Wallaroo and Bunbury in Australia where ships berthed alongside were places where the master was expected to berth and unberth his ship unaided. I have a copy of the port charges for various Erikson vessels at Port Lincoln in the 1930s The four-masted barque Passat in February 1937 incurred a total of £299 13s 6d harbour dues including £63 pilotage, boatmen and mooring £12.
These charges were for berthing, shifting to and from the ballast grounds and sailing when loaded. There are no tug charges. These vessels had to have a minimum of 300 tons of solid ballast in port and over 1,300 tons for a deep sea voyage this stuff was manhandled by the crew and required shifting the ship with half the cargo loaded out to the ballast ground and dumping the material over the side before returning for cargo
completion. Berthing one of these ships required the right conditions and a great deal of skill and hard work, it could be lengthy business – it took us most of the day and a great deal of sweat and shouting to get the Passat alongside the long, winding jetty in Bunbury with no assistance. We had arrived on 4 September 1947 in ballast from East London. In East London we were head out on the south side of the Buffalo River and when the tug and pilot arrived there was an offshore breeze. Captain Hagerstrand was a man of few words, he never spoke to us in English but conversed well in that language with others; he also rarely swore. The date was 14 April 1947, I was standing by the big double wheels ready for action, the master said “we don’t need the tug, we will sail the ship out to sea.” As he spoke there was a rain squall and the wind shifted to a fresh on the berth breeze. The air then became blue with a mixture of Swedish, Finnish and English oaths – we had to take the tug to get us off the berth. The voyage was 4,331 miles in a time of 20 days 17 hours at an average speed of 8.7 knots, this compares favourably with tramp steamers making passages at 7 knots and consuming large amounts of fuel. On arrival off Bunbury the pilot came on board and said that the tug was away in Fremantle but we could use the local dredger to help us alongside. The master weighed it all up, we dropped the starboard anchor off the end of
the jetty, swung head to wind, the gallant dredger took a line aft and at the first tow pulled her bitts out of the deck. I did not hear any language from amidships but we eventually hove her alongside with hand capstans with no further assistance. We loaded a full cargo (4,700 tons) of jarrah wood railway sleepers for Port Swettenham (now Port Klang) in Malaya, the ship was down to her marks and we sailed on 17 October 1947 with a fair wind off the berth. We had mastheaded the upper tops’ls before sailing so a good spread of canvas was immediately available and sailed quietly away with no tug and no fuss. Mooring at a single buoy in Port Swettenham was a different story, we took two
harbour tugs. We then proceeded, with sand ballast, to Port Victoria in the Spencer Gulf in South Australia to load grain in the traditional manner. Arriving there on 2 March 1948 we found the four-masted barques Lawhill and Viking loading in Hardwicke Bay. Port Victoria is an anchorage port with poor holding ground,
some Erikson masters who had been in the trade for years, detested the place and wrote of the ‘merry-go-round’ of dragging anchors round the bay. We put two anchors down and kept good anchor watches, sometimes a spanker was set and a spring attached to the weather anchor to make a lee for the ketches bringing bagged barley out.
Sailing ships had larger anchors and cables, as required by the classification societies, but, without the benefit of a kick ahead. The shores of Wardang Island in Hardwicke Bay have the remnants of several square-riggers which did not survive the ‘merry-go-round’.
Large square-rigged ships loaded phosphates and guano in remote places such as Astove Island, Nosse Be and other delightful places in the 1920s and 1930s. There were no tugs available there and great skill was required to get these ships into position in a restricted area where there was sufficient depth for anchors to hold. The four-masted barque Olivebank was chartered to load guano for Auckland, at Assumption Island, N of Madagascar, in 1928. She shipped 84 men from Mahe to do the loading and anchored in 80 fathoms, a ship’s length off the island. Two days later her anchors slipped off the ledge into precipitous depths and it took her two weeks to get back and anchor in 12 fathoms forward and 84 fathoms aft with the vessel 80 metres off the land. Captain Troberg had had enough of guano sailing after this! When the Pamir was seized in Wellington in 1941 she had just arrived from Assumption. Two pilots had leapt on board as she approached in a southerly gale and sailed her through the narrow harbour entrance off Pencarrow – she stayed under the NZ flag for a further 8 years sailing across the Pacific to NW America and Canada, with one voyage to London in 1948.
As a River Medway (ex-Thames) pilot I sailed the replica Golden Hind from Upnor to Tower Pier in the 1970s. This was (is) a small ship, she had an underpowered engine set on the starboard side. We sailed up the Thames on a rising tide for an ETA at Tower Bridge and arrived on time with cannon blazing and under full sail. I had already explained to Captain Adrian Small (we had been apprentices together on the Passat) that the next bridge does not open. We still had a following wind and flood tide and there was much shouting as we rounded the Belfast with sails flogging and finally made our way to Tower Pier. As her temporary master and pilot we shifted her a few times in the Upper Pool (always in the middle of the night of course), she had been fitted with under water buoyancy bulges which were invisible from the deck. Making the entrance lock at St Catherine’s could be quite interesting; we actually sailed in stern first on one occasion as the wind was so strong from ahead.
In 1996 and 1997 after a change of direction from piloting to other matters I spent two hurricane seasons in the Caribbean as a master on the four-masted barquentine Star Clipper. This vessel and her sister ship Star Flyer were built in Belgium in the early 1990s, their hull size was similar to that of the German ‘P’ ships –
106m x 14.7m. There the similarity ends, they carry up to 174 passengers in five-star luxury, have two swimming pools a main engine and bow thrust and comply with the very strict USCG requirements for cruise ships as well as the myriad of other needs with strange labels. Their square sails on the fore-mast are controlled by a push-button system, eg ‘lower tops’l out and lower tops’l in’. A magic device that would have amazed any watchkeeper on a proper sailing vessel. Their rigging mistakes are the massive main and mizzen fisherman sails set high up. They have to come in quickly in squalls and often jam in their tracks causing heavy heeling and ominous crashes from the galley and bar.
We sailed whenever possible and carried out manoeuvres such as getting under way from an anchorage under sail alone, tacking, wearing, boxing and other crew heavy (assisted by passengers) work. She was not the easiest ship to handle with her windage
aloft and a not too powerful engine. We did manage a Mediterranean moor in St Georges when both berths were occupied, two anchors down and backed up to the space between the two ships putting crossed stern lines ashore. Approaching Castries (St. Lucia), after sending an ETA for the pilot for 0600, there was no sign of the boat so, of course, we berthed the ship head in quite successfully – he came along later to apologise and get his note signed !
Hurricane Iris was avoided by staying alongside in Barbados until the newly joined passengers sent a delegation to say that they had paid for a sailing cruise and demanded to sail. The weather was moderating with fewer large seas over the breakwater, we had the hurricane movement forecast, ordered the tug and sailed round the breakwater into a heavy swell causing much sea-sickness – still they had paid for it. The difficulty then was to find a sheltered anchorage for a visit ashore but every place was occupied by other ships. Soufrierre Bay was tried but we rolled heavily and motored away. This was not exactly sailing ship stuff but was an experience of a different kind.
In this brave new world of endless lists of acronyms and the minutiae of bureaucracy there seems to be little said about the nuts and bolts of shiphandling etc. When the first generation of car carriers made their appearance at Sheerness’s new car terminal they were a conglomerate of cobbled together ex bulk carriers and passenger ships. On one occasion one of these hybrid monsters had been advised to wait for the strong N’ly wind to moderate. Early in the morning I boarded her in the Little Nore area (this was in the days of Trinity House Pilots). She was a huge slab sided thing and we had three tugs standing by, the wind was moderating as we wandered into the harbour, and then shifted to the ENE, which was fine on our port bow for the berth. It was a tight squeeze (this was the original car berth at the end of No. 3 Sheerness), after mooring up the senior tug master called up and said “you sailed that ship alongside”. This was a compliment which I have always been proud of – in fact those vessels have much the same windage as a four-masted barque under full sail and can, in a way, be treated as such. The links between ship handling and seamanship in the 1930s and 1940s in unpowered ships and the 21st century vessel may be tenuous in terms of motive power but pilots will always have to deal competently with situations demanding a skilful response and perhaps the bean counters are not fully aware of this.
AMICALE INTERNATIONAL CAP HORNIERS
THE BRITISH SECTION
In May 1937 a group of retired French sailing ship masters held a banquet in St Malo to honour Professor George Delarney, chair of the Department of Navigation. They there and then formed the “Association Amicale des Capitaines au Long Cours Cap Horniers”, AICH. Their aims are the same today, “to promote and strengthen the ties of comradeship which bind together a unique body of men and women who embody the distinction of having sailed round Cape Horn in a commercial sailing vessel, and to keep alive in various ways memories of the stout ships that regularly sailed on voyages of exceptional difficulty and peril, and of the endurance, courage and skill of the sailors who manned them”.
There were various classes of membership; Albatross, who had commanded a sailing ship round Cape Horn, Mollyhawk, who had served in a sailing ship round Cape Horn and was subsequently a master mariner, Cape Pigeon, who had rounded Cape Horn in a sailing ship but was not directly involved in the handling of the ship. There were also sympathisers (Friends) who had furthered the interests of the Association. The first Congress was held in St Malo in 1938, this was entirely French and, in 1948, a similar congress was held. It was decided then, by the AICH council that membership should be extended to other countries thus establishing it as an international organisation with affiliated national sections. The first to join were the Belgians in 1949, followed by Sweden in 1953 and Germany in 1955.
Germany has always had a large membership as their four-masted barques Padua/ Kruzenshtern, Priwall, Peking, Passat, Magdalene Vinnen/ Kommodore Johnson/ Sedov and L’Avenir /Admiral Karpfanger in the 1920s and 30s carried at least 40 trainees on every ocean-going voyage as well as having apprentices on board the Erikson square-riggers.
In 1957 the British section of AICH was formed by Cdr CLA Woollard, the inaugural AGM was held on the HQS Wellington in London. Captain H Treaby Heale was elected as Chairman and the committee included M Lee. Finland and the Aland Islands formed two separate sections in 1961, they had the greatest number of Albatrosses, thirty in all, their square-riggers were still sailing round Cape Horn in 1949 when the Pamir and Passat made the last commercial unpowered voyages. Other countries such as Holland, America, Australia, New Zealand and Chile also became members.
Alan Villiers, the author of many books on sailing ships and our last Albatross, wrote of visiting the Bournemouth branch of the British section in 1971: “eight wonderful old boys, most of them octogenarians, except one aged 92, all with the stamp of the sea
still on their open faces, the snap of command in their speech. The talk was of great ships long gone, the hardness of the life and the astonishing way it worked out. All had been apprentices, most had been second mates in sail, all had their masters certificates before
they went into steam. They’d been senior masters in Royal Mail, Cunard and Union Castle, Trinity House Pilots, marine superintendents or surveyors, London dock masters, insurance appraisers – the cream of the profession”. The British section, at its
peak, had surviving Cape Horners from the clipper ships Thermopylae, Blackadder and Cymba. Most of them had served their time in the last steel bulk carriers such as the Kilmallie, Port Jackson, William Mitchell, Lawhill, Grace Harwar, Herzogin
Cecilie, Pamir, Parma, Passat, Olivebank etc. We also had, until their own sections were formed, Australians, New Zealanders and Americans in the British section. Irving Johnson, an American, made a film on board the four-masted barque Peking on passage from Hamburg, round Cape Horn to Talcahuano in Chile in 1929/30. This is a classic account of a large square-rigger’ sailing 8,000 tons of ship and cargo “where we want her to go, not necessarily where she wants to go”. The heavy weather photography is the best ever recorded, her decks are full of water, four men at the wheel and 00 canvas storm sails blown out. On arrival in Talcuahano the use of the local tug is turned down and Captain Jiihrs “beat the ship up the harbour like a yacht”. He then carried out a running moor under sail, a manoeuvre which Laiesz masters had carried out on many occasions. I can recall doing a running moor in Gravesend Reach (for an extra charge on the A form of course) with a powered ship – it was not easy to get it right the first time. AICH have held 52 International Congresses in ports as far apart as Sydney and Helsinki, the latter congress was partially held on board the new gas turbine powered Finnjet running between Helsinki and Travemunde. The contrast between travelling in luxury at 32 knots with our apprenticeship days was vivid. Fortunately the managing owner of Finnlines at the time, Heikki Holma, was also President of the Finnish AICH, he had sailed in their small barque Favell in the 1930s. Three international congresses have been held in the UK, at Southampton in 1967, Greenwich in 1978 and Bristol in 1990. These were all well attended and it was a pleasure to see and hear Cape Horners hauling on ropes and singing sea shanties on the Cutty Sark. In 2000 at Mariehamn, home port of the last sailing ship owner, Gustaf Erikson, it was decided at the Federal Council meeting, that as AICH members were ageing and declining in numbers, that the Amicale should be wound up in 2003. The Cutty Sark Tall Ships Race visit to the Aland Islands coincided with this congress and it was a pleasure to see the training ships and their crews mingling with ancient mariners. The perfectly preserved four-masted barque Pommern, (built on the Clyde in 1903 and moored permanently in Mariehamn, unchanged since the day she was put into service), towered over the largest of the training ships – described by one hide-bound German Cape Horner as “motor ships decorated with sails”. Two years were required to satisfy and complete the acres of paper-work required by French bureaucracy to wind up an official organisation such as this and it is with thanks to our International Secretary Captain Roger Ghys (ex-Master of the Belgium sail training ship Mercator), and his band of helpers that all was accomplished in that time.
On May 14 2003 in St Malo where it was born in 1937 AICH was formally wound up with some sadness but in a true spirit of Cape Horn. All our financial assets were used to celebrate this last congress, we went out in a splendid fashion, my wife Kate, our son Matthew and I will remember those days for a long time. Cape Horn is not dead in the UK we had formed International Association of Cape Horners (IACH) some years ago to carry forward that tradition. IACH is made up of those who have sailed round Cape Horn under sail alone, we have very strict rules concerning the manner in which this is done. The fact remains that no one can sail round Cape Horn as those large sailing ships did –everyone has to satisfy some acronymic requirement or other – but the challenge, tradition and rite of passage remain.
Martin Lee
I have listed those AICH British members who were Pilots, there may be others.
Captain Bruce Bell. Southampton. Two roundings in the Mountstewart 1920/22.
Captain Hector Blemings, Gravesend Channel. Three roundings:
Wray Castle 1916/19 and Terpsichore (as second mate) 1919/22.
Captain Harry Fountain, Boston. One rounding, Monkbarns 1921.
Captain Douglas Galloway, Wellington. One rounding, Penang 1938.
Captain Victor Harbord. Humber. Five roundings, Beechbank 1907/11
Captain Andrew Keyworth, Lyttelton. One rounding, Pamir 1947.
Captain Francis Kirk, Southampton. One rounding, Monkbarns 1921.
Captain M. Lee, Orwell,Thames and Medway. One rounding, Passat 1948. President of AICH/IACH since 1982.
Captain William Liley, River Thames. One rounding, Carradale 1913.
Captain L. Peverley. Gravesend Channel. Five roundings: Robert Duncan 1905/10, Bengairn 1910/11, Beechbank 1911/12 (2nd Mate), Kilmallie 1912/13 (Mate).
Captain John Simpson. Forth. Three roundings, Garthsnaid 1919/22.
Captain William Sutherland. Gravesend Channel. One rounding, Archibald Russell 1932. President AICH 1980-1982.
WW2 Torpedoed & Adrift
One of the sadder aspects of being the editor of The Pilot is the regular receipt of obituaries which frequently reveal remarkable careers
undertaken by pilots, especially those who served during the war. Neil MacNeil, whose obituary appears on page 13, was one such pilot who following being torpedoed in the Atlantic survived for 11 days in an open lifeboat prior to reaching the Caribbean
in an open lifeboat. I therefore feel that it is worthy of inclusion unedited. It is somewhat sobering to think that following what must have been two weeks of paradise, the survivors returned to face the rigours of war in the merchant navy for another three years!
“In my school days I often read thrilling adventure stories such as
a somewhat similar ordeal. The morning of the 11th May was uneventful. Our ship plodded her way through the crystal clear tropical waters of the
approximately 2000 yards distant. By now the ship was, well down by the head and sinking fast although apparently not fast enough for the Sub Commander. He manoeuvred into a position abeam and opened fire with his 4.7 inch gun on the
ship’s superstructure until finally the inevitable happened – a tremendous explosion, followed by a huge cloud of thick black smoke – another of Britain’s Merchant Ships sent to the bottom or should I say sent to the skies The sub then steamed slowly towards us with her two machine guns trained on each lifeboat. Everyone thought his fatal hour had come but still no one budged. The bearded, shorts-clad and sun burnt
commander stood inside the conning tower. He was a tall, slender and well-muscled
individual, of unmistakable Italian origin. As he came closer he hailed us in the most
fluent English and asked if there was anyone injured. Fortunately we had no casualties and did not require his services in that respect. He then summoned us alongside and after holding a brief consultation he rather apologetically wished us a safe landfall and then made off at high speed leaving us at the complete mercy of the wind sea and scorching sun in an open boat some 700 miles from land with no navigational instruments whatsoever at our disposal. There were 18 in our boat, including the Captain, and 19 in the other. This was the entire ship’s complement of 37 men.
Before we set sails it was agreed that the boats were to keep within sight of each other as long as possible and so at length we started on our voyage to an unknown destination. The first night passed without incident. The men’s spirits were very high as everyone was certain they had a good chance of being sighted by a plane or rescue ship which may have been dispatched in response to the distress message sent out before the ship was abandoned. We reckoned that we had enough food aboard to last 7 days but fresh water was our greatest problem. Soon, however, we settled down to our daily routine and meals of corned beef, hard biscuits and condensed milk. So far the weather had been very favourable to us. A light NE breeze prevailed throughout the night and the next day, enough to-give the boat ample steerage-way with full sail set. The sky was
of its perennial blue, and the sea was almost flat calm, with a long peaceful swell. About
1030 on the third day Bowyer (our gunner) was sitting up in the bow. Suddenly he said,
“I can see a plane right ahead”. All eyes immediately turned in that direction. Sure enough it was a plane and heading towards us. He circled round us for fully ten minutes as if checking up on our course. He then swooped close to us and dropped two tins containing emergency rations and a very encouraging message in which he assured us that assistance was en route and would arrive that night or the next morning. I regret to have to say that this assistance never turned up. After the plane flew away we all sat down and indulged in what I may describe as the heartiest meal we had had since we left the ship. It consisted of corned beef, biscuits and chocolate dropped by theplane and of course nearly all the fresh water we had on board as we were expecting to be picked up that night or the following morning. That night passed and at the first streak of dawn everybody was awake and active in anxious anticipation of the rescue. Eighteen keen eyes constantly scanned the horizon in the hope of seeing any rescue ship or planes but alas our hopes were doomed to disappointment. When that day passed and night fell my heart sank and a moment of deep black fear entered. I fell into contemplation for a while and thought there is a war on – total war. I knew that the American Navy had more to do and contend with than spend their time searching the ocean for one or even two lifeboats with survivors. For us it was a hard pill to swallow but it was simple military logic. Having contemplated all these gloomy possibilities for a while I soon thrust them aside with determined optimism. The next day predicted a still gloomier outlook. The wind which had so far been in our favour had shifted round and come in from the South West with much greater force. This made it necessary for us to tack in order to make a little headway in the right direction or even hold our own. Dark clouds gathered round us and by noon it was deemed necessary to heave to as it was now blowing a moderate gale. To stop drifting in the wrong direction and keep the boat’s head to the wind a sea anchor was
put over the bow and an oil bag attached to it. This helped to smooth the frothing billows. During the night we lost our rudder, presumably due to the constant pitching and pounding of the boat. With this the situation became more serious. The boat was now unmanoeuvrable under sail except with the assistance of a steering oar on which we could not greatly rely. We were now of course at the complete mercy of the wind. When it blew from an Easterly direction our spirits rose because we knew that it would eventually blow us to safety but when it shifted-round to the South West, as now, we were depressed for then we were heading for disaster and probably death. We were now two days hove to and still there were no signs of any assistance forthcoming. The weather had now moderated slightly so it was decided to set sail once again although the breeze was not
very favourable. In view of the obvious fact that we were growing weaker and weaker
every day we considered it feasible to put four oars out, and cover as much distance
as we could while we were still able to row. It was on this evening that we lost sight of
the other boat. On about the eighth day the lack of water began to bother us seriously.
The wind had been blowing us along at a fast clip in the general direction of Southwest but we had no rain. Our salivary glands dried up and our mouths were parched, making swallowing difficult. All that morning we had watched showers approaching and then fading away. Hour after hour we sat in the broiling sun. We were surrounded by sharks and didn’t dare venture over the side for a swim so instead we kept our clothes soaked with salt water, rewetting them every few minutes to keep our bodies cool. All that morning we sat and waited for rain. We knew that if we did not get any we would not last long and that death by thirst is one of the most terrible forms of torture. Still, most of the men were in fairly high spirits with the exception of one or two who were firmly convinced that we were doomed and that there was no use in trying to put up a struggle. One constantly predicted disaster and neither of them could tell direction from the stars and they would ask every few minutes how she was heading. It was on the morning of the 9th day that someone suggested that we should pray for help. Later that afternoon; the wind shifted abruptly to the North East, a tremendous black cloud appeared overhead and soon, to our great joy and relief, down from the heavens poured the rain. To acquire the full benefit of the deluge we took off all our clothes and sat stark naked. This lasted for about half an hour and we had our first real drink in days. Just before dark that night I heard a scratching noise on the top of the mast. I looked up and saw what then looked to be a huge black bird hovering around the sail and you may imagine with what admiration everybody on board gazed at this wonderful bird that had come to keep us company. Like most seamen I am
inclined to be slightly supersticious. The recent prayer and the resultant rain and favourable wind had made me both more religious and superstitious. My mind
wandered back to my school days and Coleridge’s Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner,
especially the part that goes: At length did cross an albatross Through the fog it came
As if it had been a Christian soul We hailed it in God’s name. And a good south wind struck up The albatross did follow And every day for food or play Came to the mariner’s halloo However, the bird turned out to be of some other species and not an albatross although it followed us faithfully to land. Next day, what I had been fearing all along happened. We ran into a heavy squall which drove us to the South West. The sky
became dark, the rain whistled down around us, the waves roared louder and louder and poured gallons of water into the boat. We thought that this was the end. In our weakness and unhappiness we hardly had strength enough to bale. But somehow,
bale we did. There we were I thought, completely returned to the primitive, stark naked in the howling storm, fighting the unbridled forces of nature with little hope of Victory. After the storm the sun came out fierce and burning and our bodies, unprotected by clothes, burned and peeled and burned again. Mostly we lay back in our cramped and uncomfortable positions, not caring much longer what happened. Deep in our hearts we were all beginning to resign ourselves to our fate. Towards afternoon the sky began to cloud over and a cooler and more refreshing breeze blew from the South East. I knew from dead reckoning that we should not be far from land now unless by a stroke of misfortune we had passed through
land was imminent. Later that forenoon Vincent, an able seaman, who was lying tretched out on the fore thwart said “Second, I think I can see land, I’ve been watching it now for over half an hour”. What I saw then made my heart jump and sing with the greatest joy it has ever known. There lying ahead was a beautiful green island’. “Boys” I exclaimed, “You can thank the Lord. He has delivered you to land, to safety”. The boat suddenly burst into activity the men hardly able to stand or sit still in the prevailing infection of excitement. In place of the gloomy atmosphere which had prevailed during the last eleven days could now be heard all the latest songs from
preserve in spite of such brutal attacks as are directed against us by Hitler’s, Mussolini’s and Hirohito’s representatives. The Sparrow’s crew, treated us right Royally. They presented us with tobacco, cigarettes and water which we sorely needed, later they even went to the trouble of cooking fish for all of us and you can just imagine what that fish tasted like to our ravenous appetites. Never in my life did I know or realise the value of fresh water and never again will I underestimate it. The Sparrow took us in tow and landed us at
NM MacNeil, 2nd Officer, July 1942 ex SS
Details of the Cape Of Good Hope
Shipbuilder:
Built: 1925. Tonnage: 4963 grt. Length: 405 feet.
Owner: Lyle Shipping Company, Glasgow.
Remarks: Early pioneer in ships’ diesel propulsion.
Details of the U-502
After a bit of research I have discovered that the
in May 1941. He undertook four patrols between 31 May ’41 – 5 July ’42 during which time he sank 14 ships and damaged 2, placing him in the top 20 U-boat commanders. On 5 July, whilst returning from the successful patrol in the Caribbean which saw the sinking of the SS Cape of Good Hope, U502 was sunk in the
a
From: http://uboat.
Neil MacNeil
It is with sadness that I report the death of Captain Neil MacNeil of Barra on the 12th
October at his home in
Good Hope he spent twelve days in an open lifeboat following the ship being torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic before reaching landfall at the
suspicion and apprehension! His overtures to a proposal or referendum, delivered in his soft
Donald McLean,
Chairman, Trinity House Channel Pilots’ Society.
Pilotage History Part 2
PILOTAGE HISTORY ~ Part 2
Harry Hignett
View the original pdf illustrated magazine article:
pilotmag.co.uk/userfiles/Pilotmag%20279%20(Oct%2004).pdf
The Francis Henderson, built by Murdock and Murray in 1896, the first steam pilot
vessel for the Liverpool Pilot Service. From an original painting by J Witham.
In part 1 we learned how the situation for pilots over the centuries had resulted in
legislation covering compulsory pilotage being introduced but as a result of poor
drafting much of this legislation was open to abuse and offered poor protection for
pilots. By the end of the 19th Century, pilots were subjected to competition from
exemptions to pilotage being offered to vessels and sadly in some cases from other
pilots! The founding of the UKPA in 1884 had focused unity of purpose and achieved
a significant result by stimulating the 1889 Merchant shipping Act (Pilotage). Whilst
many of the pilots’ requirements had been incorporated into the is Act it was still full
of loopholes and this was compounded by apathy by Trinity House in tackling pilotage
exemption abuses. The 1889 pilotage Act was incorporated into the 1894 Merchant
Shipping Act but having achieved few further gains pilots became despondent.
1901 – 1941
1900 was a time of falling membership and low attendances at conferences. The UKPA membership fell to around 700 in contrast to a decade earlier when the numbers were about 1,200. Although the total number of pilots entered in the annual returns of the BoT was about 2,300, many were part-time pilots at very small ports.
The complaints against “aliens” obtaining pilotage exemption certificates were a very strong card in the hands of the Association. The Foreign Office insisted that there were treaty arrangements between countries that made such arrangements inevitable, however there was a serious flaw in this argument in that foreign masters could pilot their vessels at each end of the voyage but British masters could not. In 1902 B J Foster (Hull) rose at the Plymouth Conference to announce that the holder of a pilotage certificate for the Humber was a commissioned officer in the German Navy and claimed he would get promotion because of that qualification. It was stated that alien pilotage had increased 200% under the 1889 Pilotage Act and that all members of the 1888 Select Committee on Pilotage who had not been against alien pilotage, “were now aware of the damage done and entirely against the principle”.
Legal matters concerning pilots were handled by the Association’s barrister and the cases were becoming ever more complex, as the quirks of legal decisions arose. In 1902 a Clyde pilot had to pay £1,071 damages even though he had not been found in any way negligent or to blame for an accident. The ship-owners had gone bankrupt and the costs had been set against the pilots! For many decades the pilots had assumed that the signing of the bond for £100 gave them protection from liability for damages but it was then found that for an unknown reason, this condition applied only to Trinity House pilots. In 1902 at Barrow, a local official suspended a pilot for a very dubious infringement of the rules. The pilots took the matter to the County Court and proved that the official had no powers to suspend anyone. The official turned to Trinity House Pilotage authority, which, without further inquiry, agreed to suspend the pilot. The case was taken to the High Court and the Trinity House’s action declared illegal. However the pilot was required to pay part of the court costs and his own expenses amounting to some £100.
In 1908 Clyde pilot, J McKinley, was accused of navigating a vessel in a dangerous manner when pilot of ss Maracas inward-bound He met HMS Harrier outward-bound in visibility of about 11/2 miles; there was no collision, but the commander of the naval vessel made a complaint about the navigation of Maracas. The Sheriff, trying the case without assessors, said that it was a very clear case and stated, “I should say that the risk having been placed there by the Maracas, it was only averted by the prompt action of those in charge of the Harrier who succeeded in preventing what might have been a very serious disaster”. He found the case proved and fined McKinley £25 with £10 costs.
The incensed delegates to the 1908 Conference six months later were
unanimous in a demand for an appeal to a higher court at the expense of the Association. The appeal was dismissed, so the Association petitioned the King who passed it to his Scottish Secretary who merely passed it to the same High Court, not surprisingly with the same result. Commander Cawley, at the 1909 Conference said that he would try to appeal to His Majesty in person. However he drew attention to the depletion of the Management Fund in providing legal advice in the many and wide-spread court proceedings against pilots and in obtaining assistance in Parliamentary matters.
Following representations from Commander Cawley, all the members of the 1889 Select Committee agreed to assist the Association and Sir John Puleston arranged for a deputation from the UKPA to meet the president of the Board of Trade (Winston Churchill). Led by Commander Cawley and Michael Joyce MP (Limerick pilot), the Association Officers were introduced to Churchill and members of his staff. Churchill listened carefully to all the arguments placed before him. Given his ideas at the time (he was campaigning for the formation of MI5 to act against enemy agents), alien pilotage was a strong point in the Association’s favour, as was also the court proceedings against McKinley. Churchill promptly signed the order for a Departmental Committee on Pilotage to begin work in 1909.
In 1908, the Counsel to the Association had died, and he was succeeded by a Bristol solicitor, Sandford D Cole. Cole was a very competent person, who became a member of the Departmental Committee. From this Committee arose the Pilotage act 1913, encompassing much of what the pilots required:- freedom from illegal pilotage, a restriction on the issue of pilotage certificates, better rules generally and mandatory representation on pilotage committees.
The Pilotage Act 1913 and After
The implementation of the 1913 Pilotage Act was interrupted in many ports by the outbreak of war and there is no record of the activities of the Association for a couple of years. Many pilots entered the armed forces and several lost their lives on land and sea. Those who remained in the pilotage services braved torpedoes and mines: most received Mercantile Marine and War Medals. Some were decorated for specific acts of bravery.
After the end of the War the Association’s Solicitor, John Inskip, in conjunction with Michael Joyce, suggested that a Committee of Members of Parliament sympathetic to the pilots’ cause should be formed with a view to having assistance whenever legislation or matters affecting pilots was passing through Parliament. Inskip introduced the Officers of the UKPA to his brother, Thomas Inskip, KCMP, who agreed to assist. Thomas Inskip was to become Attorney General in several later governments and eventually a Cabinet Minister. A ten-member Committee was formed to continue discussions but the introduction of new pilotage orders did not go smoothly. Inskip, in one of his reports as Secretary in the early twenties, said he had attended ten inquiries in one year. And in six years there were more than twenty inquiries, not all brought about by the same type of objection. For example, in the Forth, the ship owners objected to the new ‘pooling’ arrangements, claiming that the pilots would become lazy, inefficient and incompetent.
During the War the subscriptions had been raised from 1/- per month to 1/6d and again in 1919 to 2/-. However the cost of correspondence, telephone calls, printing of agendas, minutes and expenses of travel were all putting the finances under pressure. A total of 24/- annually would not cover the amount required for long.
“THE PILOT”, appeared for the first time in 1920 through which membership increased from about 1,000 to almost 1,300 in 1921. The magazine proved to be the most efficient way of increasing the pilots’ awareness of problems, and indicating how difficulties could be avoided or averted by adopting better procedures. In 1923 the MP for Hull, Lt Cmdr Peter Kenworthy (Independent), who had been helpful in supporting the Humber pilots as a member of the House of Commons Pilotage Committee, agreed to become President when Michael Joyce retired but in 1924 he was forced to resign due to illhealth. Like Joyce he had seldom missed an Executive Committee meeting, once slipping away from a crucial debate in the House, to attend a conference. Peter Kenworthy was succeeded by Lord Apsley, MP for Southampton, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minster of Transport and a person known for his sympathies with seafarers in general. Refusing all fees, he was of invaluable assistance in the years to come.
Around this time there was unrest at Bristol, stemming from the introduction of steam pilot cutters which although having been in use at other ports since the turn of the century, were not popular with pilots from Pill. New bye-laws did not meet the pilots’ demands and they objected to the Board of Trade who ordered a local inquiry. The Bristol pilots told the Executive Committee of their intention to join a dockworkers’ union and that they could not remain members of the UKPA on the grounds that the Association represented licensed pilots who were unable to strike.
During the immediate post-war years, many cases of maladministration of pilotage affairs appeared with Dundee the best example. The pilots there were paid a weekly salary of £4 by the Authority, together with such further amounts as the Authority cared to distribute from the surplus earnings after they had met their own requirements. But there was a legal dispute between the Anchor Line and Dundee Harbour Board where the pilotage funds had been used to defray costs that had little or nothing to do with pilotage. In 1925 there were eight inquiries and the local branches were subsidised by £21 for each inquiry. Over a decade the Association’s finances were in a deficit of £212 which was eating into the accumulated funds and the larger ports were subsidising the smaller. At the 1925 Conference, John Inskip impressed upon members that there were always to be two funds established in each district: a Pilot Fund for administration and a Pilot Benefit Fund for disablement and retirement pensions. He took pains to explain and distinguish between the two types of funds that made it imperative and legally necessary to maintain them separate and distinct.
During the late 1920s, the cost of living was falling, the shipowners pressed for reductions in pilots’ earnings and in 1929 attacked the Liverpool pilots directly. Until then the local inquiries had been ‘round the table’ affairs with no formal structure. At Liverpool the authority agreed with the pilots that a reduction of 10% was warranted. The Chamber of Shipping, however, brought in their own counsel who used formal procedures, leaving the UKPA somewhat short in its planning. The pilots lost the case in that the previously agreed reduction was increased to 15%. During the same Inquiry the shipowners managed to include another principle into the reckoning, namely that of having pilots’ earnings set between the pay of the master and mate of the average vessel using the pilot.
There was a deputation to the Board of Trade making a point on the use of formal procedures at inquiries. The pilots, with members of the Parliamentary Committee, made known their strong case of injustice. Whenever there had been an objection to a by-law or dispute between the authorities, pilots or shipowners, the BoT found it easy to institute an inquiry. These were formal affairs and thereby expensive for pilots. Between 1925 and 1930, following the Liverpool example there was a series of applications for reductions in pilotage rates or incomes, mostly demanding cuts of 15-20 per cent but the Association managed to hold most of the cuts to 10%. There were other problems, not least in the matter of membership. Inskip, agreed with the Thames River Pilots’ Association to pay two guineas to one of their members who unsuccessfully took a case to court. He later learned that the man concerned was not a member: In fact only 73 of the 125 pilots of that district were members. There were other membership abuses such as, in a couple of inquiries, the local pilots suddenly had 100% membership several months before the inquiries took place so in 1935 a rule was introduced and passed that before the Association assisted a local branch, there had to be a substantial membership at least three years before any assistance was granted.
In 1935 the shipowners began attacking pilot cutters and methods of boarding to reduce costs. They demanded that the Liverpool pilot station at Point Lynas be closed and the cutter withdrawn. The Inquiry lasted seven days, four in Liverpool and three in London. Six counsel were engaged, of which two were briefed by the Association. There was a principle involved and Sir John thought it worth the fight. The Liverpool pilots won the case. But the expenses paid by the Association were over £1,300; the Liverpool Pilots’ Association returned £100 of this to the UKPA in appreciation of the support.
History does repeat itself especially at Barrow-in-Furness. A pilot there was docking ss Orion in 1935, when, without warning, a dockmaster ordered the headrope to be moved. The vessel sheered away from the lock wall and was damaged, for which the pilot was brought before the local Trinity House Commissioners and suspended. The evidence had been given in his absence and was later read over to him.
When Sir John looked into the matter he found that one of the Trinity House Sub-
Commissioners was a servant of the owners of the vessel. He wrote immediately to
Trinity House, who restored the licence and re-opened the proceedings.
In 1934 the Executive Committee, following consultation with branches, produced a seven-point policy for discussion in the branches related to the financial regulation of the pilot funds and associated costs such as cutters etc.
During the 1938 Conference on the Mersey, Liverpool pilots announced that they had 435 exemption certificates in force in their district, with a high average number of vessels on each certificate. One certificate had 114 vessels entered and although many of the vessels no longer existed over 29 vessels on one certificate was considered ridiculous.
WW2
War was impending and many members of the UKPA were commissioned officers in the Royal Naval Reserve. For the first two years of the War, Inskip carried on almost single-handed and there were no meetings. Many senior members of the districts were called into administrative matters to become involved in the re-organisation of war-time pilot services. The UKPA still continued to function but they had consult by letter or phone. Matters dealt with included the insurance of cutters during hostilities, employment of pilots during lack of shipping, registering apprentices to preclude conscription, the new compulsory pilotage order for war purposes, food rationing, clothing, liability for fire-watch duties or Home Guard stand-by.
Membership in 1938/9 was nearly 1,200 but there was to be a change. In 1942 the Secretary told the Executive Committee that 25 members of the Manchester Pilots’ Association had not renewed their subscriptions and had apparently joined the Transport & General Workers Union due to closer contact between the pilots, tug crews, canal operating staffs and dockworkers. Certainly the latter had received increases of more than 40% and some pilots were now receiving less than a dockworker.
A couple of months later, 112 Liverpool pilots, led by Lewis Jones, a former member of the Executive Committee also resigned Association membership to join the TGWU. The withdrawal of the Liverpool pilots was particularly galling for the Association members, in view of the costly support given in defending the retention of the Point Lynas Pilot Station a few years earlier.
From 1942 the Executive Committee met regularly every quarter, and in making plans for the future, the seven-point programme was resurrected, re-drawn and discussed at an informal conference in the summer of 1944. Shortly after the conference it was learned the Lord Apsley had been killed in action. The post-War political changes led to difficulties in finding a new president or indeed any parliamentary representation.
The General Election of 1945 was called at the same time and the Conservatives were in disarray. The senior Labour Members of Parliament had insufficient time to represent the Association and newer members were unwilling to take up the reins. In the UKPA debates it was found that the subscriptions would have to be increased from £2 16s per annum to £3. In 1949 at Hull the local authority decided to appoint pilots as choice pilots whether or not the particular pilot was willing to take the work. The Association decided to take interest in the choice pilotage situation and circulated 48 of the 60 ports: only 12 replied.
Discussions towards a standard for pilots’ earnings began to bear fruit in the early 1950s. In 1956 there was a Ministry of Transport Inquiry chaired by Sir Robert Letch. The “Letch Report” resulted in a structure for pilots’ earnings which lasted to the end of the century. Although not without criticism, as a basis for discussion, it simplified negotiations for half a century.
Modern Times
From 1960 onwards the UKPA turned its attention to pensions and gathered details of the many and varied schemes around the UKPA ports. Several ports had no official pension scheme: the smaller ports were particularly badly off. Charges were another area of variance and the mid-1960s were a time of impending change with a new method of tonnage measurement affecting pilotage charges. Every vessel had two sets of tonnages and only when a certain “delta” mark on the vessel (similar to the Plimsoll mark) was immersed would the higher tonnage charges apply. Pilots were very concerned over changes that were being used to curb incomes and many felt that it was time for direct action. In 1968 a new General Secretary and Legal Advisor, Edgar Eden, a barrister warned against any precipitate action on the part of the pilots fearing that if they disturbed the balance of the Letch Report, there could be action from the ship owners who would love to overthrow Letch and make pilots salaried employees.
Industrial Action
On 26th January 1971, after due notice being given to all sectors of the shipping industry, more than 1,400 pilots met in Birmingham Town Hall effectively bringing UK’s ports to a standstill for 24 hours. For the next couple of months the pilots’ representatives pursued a target of 20% increase in pilotage incomes and the final result was an increase of 16%.
The Pilots’ National Pension Fund came into being in 1971 and within a decade 99% of pilots were members and contributors. During the 1970s other issues were addressed including London pilots who became concerned about health issues, and in 1978 brought certain facts to the notice of the UKPA. As always finance was an issue and it became increasingly difficult for the UKPA to operate as a stand-alone group and it was therefore decided to seek affiliation with a larger union. In 1979 the UKPA and TGWU began steps to merge. Following the successful merger the membership increased and by the 1984 centenary of the UKPA it exceeded 99% of the total number of pilots in the UK.
1984 – The Present (by JCB)
All good things must come to an end and in 1984, in what represented a U-turn in the Thatcherite policies of encouraging free enterprise the Government decided to revolutionise pilotage and transfer responsibility for pilotage from Trinity House and other local pilotage commissioners to the ports by means of a new Pilotage Act. The UKPA found itself fighting for survival and much time and effort was expended in trying to ensure that the proposed legislation preserved the essential rights for pilots. Unfortunately, once the Bill was in the hands of the politicians, the UKPA lost control of the content and the resulting 1987 Pilotage Act effectively granted ports total power over pilots without any accountability. The Act also resulted in a division of UKPA membership between employed and self employed districts.
Whereas in some instances the pilots
(usually self employed) enjoyed a good
working relationship with their port (now
known as the Competent Harbour
Authority CHA) in many ports the
relationship was poor. In Liverpool the majority of pilots were bitterly opposed to being employees of the port and after much difficult negotiation were able to reverse their employment status to become self employed. The other major conflict was on the Humber where the CHA, Associated British Ports, sought to force employment onto the self employed pilots. That dispute, along with its tragic outcome has been well documented within these pages.
The most dramatic development post 1987 was the Sea Empress disaster which starkly revealed the lack of accountability of a CHA for the powers over pilotage that had been transferred to them. In 1997 the new Labour Government was sufficiently concerned by this lack of accountability to launch an enquiry which in turn led to the Department for Transport drawing up a Port Marine Safety Code. The UKPA were deeply involved in drafting this code and established a good working relationship with the DfT. Once published, pilots were concerned that whilst the PMSC provided a good framework for port safety, without legislation to underpin it, the document lacked teeth. Meetings commenced with the Government with a view to drafting legislation but these came to an abrupt halt as the situation on the Humber deteriorated into a serious dispute. At the same time the British Ports Industries Training (BPIT) forum, which had been working closely with the UKMPA in producing a set of standards and qualification requirements for UK pilots was also disbanded to be replaced by a body operated by the UK ports industry called Port Skills and Safety (PSS). PSS promptly excluded the T&G and hence the UKMPA from representation and subsequently became a dormant organisation. In 2003, the President of the UKMPA Lord Tony Berkeley made approaches to the shipping minister which resulted in meetings being resumed, both sides being fully in agreement that the safety of shipping and the environment is a priority. Regular meetings are now being held and the following report detailing the work of the Chairman and section Committee indicates that constructive progress is once again being made.
Pilotage History Part 1
PILOTAGE HISTORY Harry Hignett
View the original pdf illustrated article from the magazine:
pilotmag.co.uk/userfiles/Pilotmag%20278%20(Jul%2004).pdf
The majority of serving UK pilots have joined the service since the implementation of the 1987 Pilotage Act and many are probably largely unaware of the origins of the UKMPA. June marked the 120th anniversary of the UKMPA (originally the UKPA) and for the 1984 centenary Manchester pilot Harry Hignett (now retired) wrote a book detailing the history of the UKPA. Long since out of print this book is now unknown to the majority of pilots but it contains much interesting research. Harry has recently updated this original work but having failed to .nd a publisher for the book he has permitted me to place it on my website for all to access. As an introduction Harry has kindly agreed to provide an edited version for inclusion in the magazine which I will be running over two issues.
PART 1: ANTIQUITY TO 1900
Although pilotage will have been undertaken since vessels first started trading and
ancient texts such as Homer’s Iliad from the 7th century BC make vague references
to pilots one of the most precise early written descriptions of a pilot’s work was
around 64 AD.
“The passage is difficult because of the shoals at the mouth of the river. Because of
this, the native .shermen in the King’s service go up the coast to Syrastrene (Surat) to meet the ships. And they steer them straight and true from the mouth of the bay between the shoals with their crews and they tow them to fixed stations going up with the flood and lying through the ebb at anchorages and in basins. These
basins are deeper places in the river as far as the port, which lies about 10 stadia up
from the mouth.”
In this extract we can recognise the work of an estuary or river pilot from the earliest times until the steamship arrived onto the maritime scene.
In the UK one of the earliest records is from the 12th Century. Godric was born in Norfolk in 1069 and became a Chapman (travelling salesman carrying his own wares). He turned to carrying them not only using the inland waterways but also on coasting vessels along the coast and across the North Sea to Denmark. He made the trip so often that he eventually became a ship owner at one time owning four ships. A “colourful” character he was actually referred to by some as a pirate before he turned his energies to religious fervour and sub-sequently gave all his considerable wealth to charity! Such was his skill of navigation that he was asked to pilot vessels and he became famous not only for his pilotage skills but also for his ability to forecast the weather. Giving up his pilotage career around 1110 he became a hermit and was later canonised becoming St. Godric of Finchale (near Durham). He died in 1170 at the amazing age of 101, and his hermitage became Finchale Priory where his tomb (despite being pillaged many centuries ago) can still be visited. Later references to pilots are for London and include a 1387 reference to a “Pilot of the Black Deeps” (Thames Estuary). Other London records from a log-book reveal that pilotage charges on the Thames in the 1400’s were as follows:
to the losmanne who sailed me into the Temse . . . 10s 6d
to the man who led the shippe through the bridge . . . . . 8d
to the man who led the shippe into the dock . . . . . . . . . . 6d
The first organisation of UK pilotage was established by Trinity House and in 1457 the Trinity House of Hull was an exclusive maritime organization which in 1512 passed an ordinance restricting pilotage between Hull and the mouth of the Humber to members of Hull Trinity House. The founding of the Corporation of Trinity House on the Thames was in 1514. There were initially, 40 members (mostly pilots), 8 assistants, four wardens and the master. For the first fifty years the Corporation was, to all intents and purposes, exclusively concerned with pilotage, and most of the senior members were important naval officials, shipmasters or both.
The Cinque Ports pilotage was formally inaugurated in 1527 in Dover and before the end of the sixteenth century there was strife between the Dover pilots and their Trinity House counterparts because, when they disembarked off the Cinque Ports, the Corporation pilots attempted to pilot inward bound ships. However, the boating services were provided by relatives and friends of the Dover pilots and they were naturally reluctant to offend the Cinque Ports pilots. The Corporation pilots therefore had to travel home by land, a journey of at least two days via Canterbury to Gravesend and thence by boat to Deptford. Naturally the Cinque Ports pilots found similar difficulty in obtaining vessels to pilot from the Thames outwards. One may criticise one-way pilotage as being wasteful and inefficient, but ships in the days of sail arrived in great numbers according to the winds and travelling in company against pirates and enemy ships. Pilots near a pilot station remained at home on stand-by. So began the Thames pilotage system; Trinity House outwards, Cinque Ports inwards.
The Cinque Ports Pilotage Act of 1717 was the first parliamentary legislation covering pilotage. The Dover pilots now had something that Trinity House had not and the Elder Brethren applied for their own legislation. The next Pilotage Act, passed in 1732, confirmed the provisions of the 1717 Act and, gave exemption to the Trinity Houses of Hull, and Newcastle wherever their respective jurisdictions overlapped.
In the mid 1700’s establishing longitude at sea was difficult and many shipmasters feared to approach the Isles of Scilly, with rocks that made the area a noted graveyard for ships. The fishermen of the Scillies began to take up pilotage, meeting the vessels well out of sight of land and guiding them past the Isles up the channel and by 1800 they conducted ships to all parts of the British Isles and the coasts of France and Belgium. The successful application of parliamentary legislation led to several local Pilotage Acts, including those for Boston, Lincs, in 1774 and Hull in 1800 which were older established ports. In the late 18th century new industrial ports such as Swansea appeared receiving its first pilotage regulations in 1791.
The first comprehensive Pilotage Act was placed on the stature book in 1808, “An
Act for the better regulation of Pilots and of the Pilotage of Ships and vessels
navigating the British seas”. Its most important provisions were the establishment
of compulsory pilotage in all districts where licensed pilots were
available and the authority was given to the Deptford Trinity House to form
pilotage districts where it was deemed necessary to control pilots and regulate
pilotage. Almost immediately 35 Trinity House “outports” appeared around the
coast of Britain. The 1808 Act was replaced in 1812 but re-enacted most of
the provisions of its predecessor and gave the Trinity Houses of Hull and Newcastle
the powers they had exercised previously and also in “any ports or harbours or
places within the limits of their respective jurisdictions”. All licensed pilots were required, in an entirely new section, to execute a bond for their good behaviour in the sum of £100. This requirement has been carried through to the present day with the amount unchanged.
An important section of the Act attempted to define the responsibility and
rights of the ship owner, master, and owner or consignee of the cargo, with regard to
any damage to ship, goods or persons occurring through “neglect, default, incompetency or incapacity of any pilot taken under the provisions of the Act.”
Another Pilotage Act was passed in 1825 and prolonged the existing situation, without easing the litigation then giving the industry extra worries.
In 1835 a Royal Commission was instituted to look into the “existing laws,
regulations, and practises under which pilots are appointed, governed and paid in
the British Channel and the several approaches to the Port of London, and
also in the navigation connected with the other principal ports in the United
Kingdom.” It was the first major inquiry into pilotage and one of the main items in the findings and report of the Commission was the recommendation that there should be a central body to control all pilotage affairs. Alas the ensuing Pilotage Act of 1836 did not include this far-reaching proposal. The Merchant Shipping Act of 1854 included and consolidated most of the existing legislation on pilotage, as did the Merchant Shipping Act of 1894. Further inquiries arose in 1860, 1870 and 1880: that of 1870 being particularly significant being specifically instituted to study compulsory pilotage since it developed into a major study of all aspects of pilotage lasting three months. However, its findings were ignored by Parliament. At the end of the 19th century it was again obvious that the existing legislation was outdated and inadequate and, after a searching inquiry in 1910/11, the Pilotage Act of 1913 came into being.
The Nineteenth Century: The Coming of Steam
The years from 1800 to 1914 were the most difficult any pilots have had to face.
Iron ships and screw propulsion appeared mid-century, improving standards and
speeds but pilots had to handle ships up to eight times larger, with single screw
propulsion. When shipowners realised that ships were no longer dependent on wind
and tides they suggested that pilots were no longer as important and proposed
reductions in pilotage tariffs. The 19th Century opened peacefully but by 1803
Britain and France were once again at war which continued until the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. There followed a period of peace in Britain for nearly the next 100 years but it was anything but peace and contentment for pilots. The Pilotage Act of 1808 promoted a wider regulation of pilotage than previously, but the 1812 Act included an extra paragraph:
“No owner or master of any ship shall be answerable for any loss or damage for, or by reason of, any neglect, default or incompetence of any pilot taken on board of any such ship under or in pursuance of the provisions of this Act.”
A somewhat simple idea, but the interpretation of this clause by the courts brought chaos for shipowners and pilots alike and fortunes for the lawyers in the Admiralty Courts. The clause granted absolute freedom from claims for any damage done to other vessels or property to ships under compulsory pilotage. i.e. if ship ‘A’ under compulsory pilotage collided with ship ‘B’, a barge or any other vessel not subject to compulsory pilotage, ship ‘A’ was free from liability even when, under normal circumstances she would be at fault. Under this clause ship ‘A’ was also free from liability for damages after striking a shore installation. In 1824 another Pilotage Act replaced the 1812 Act, a section of which made it possible for a non-British vessel to enter or leave British ports without pilots.
Modern administration
During the early part of the 19th century British vessel entering and leaving the Tyne enjoyed preferential rates of pilotage. The advantage over foreign vessels was ended by the 1824 Act that gave equal treatment to foreign vessel wherever their governments gave similar treatment to British vessels. To compensate the Tyne pilots for the loss they would have sustained they were to be paid, by the Treasury, “Reciprocity Money”, viz. the difference between the old and the new tariffs for foreign vessels. Newcastle Trinity House claimed the full difference for all vessels entering the Tyne although many never went above the entrance, but the pilots were paid only on the ships they piloted. The unclaimed pilotage was then allocated to the Superannuation Fund, although the pilots disputed the right of Newcastle Trinity House to retain the money and demanded a full distribution of the amounts involved. The Newcastle authority refused and was unwilling or unable to account for the money.
In 1861 the Treasury discontinued Reciprocity Money, but as compensation the pilots were to receive, for a ten-year period, a sum equal to the Reciprocity Money paid in 1861 of which only 50% was handed to the pilots. The pilots commenced legal proceedings against the Elder Brethren who in turn sent for the pilots’ leaders, senior pilots, John Hutchinson and Robert Blair. The two pilots refused to attend and were threatened with dismissal. Newcastle Trinity House then began to examine and license local fishermen. The two pilots then went to London, to the Board of trade and Parliament. In 1863 an order by Parliament forced Trinity House to publish the accounts that showed a balance of more than £20,000 although further unclaimed pilotage of over £3,207 was not shown in the accounts. A long legal battle with Trinity House at Newcastle ensued from which the pilots emerged successful and a new body, the Tyne Pilotage Commissioners, was formed in 1865. It was proved that Trinity House had withheld over £24,000 from the pilots whose average wage at that time was about £180 per annum; the Elder Brethren claimed £3,500 for expenses incurred in opposing the Parliamentary Bills and other legal proceedings. Of the pilots, Hutchinson and Blair, they were to become founder members of the UKPA almost twenty years later.
An inquiry into pilotage in 1835, was the first to open up the subject in depth,
covering all major British ports and found that to make pilotage entirely optional
would “hold out a boon to the foolhardy” recommending that certain exceptions to compulsory pilotage be made for vessel in the short sea trades. The Commissioners suggestion that there was a need for a central body to control local authorities was ignored. About this time the pilots of the east coast ports were badly hit by Parliamentary legislation giving preferential taxes to the Canadian trades. Timber from the Baltic abruptly dropped to a minimum. Pilots of the west coasts such as Liverpool and Bristol found their incomes rising, just another example of the wild swings and variations of incomes due to political decisions.
A further Act in 1840 covered many aspects of pilotage and continued exemptions from compulsory pilotage to non-British vessels flying the flags of countries having so-called reciprocal treaties with Britain. Several decades later the Board of Trade was to use this provision against British pilots even to the extent of allowing complete falsehoods to be used about exemptions for British-flag vessels in continental ports.
In 1853 an Act of Parliament dissolved the Court of Loadmanage of the Cinque Ports and it effectively became a Trinity House Outport. One of the conditions was that the pilots could retain their licenses which were issued for the district from Dungeness to London Bridge and vice-versa. It was this condition that was to prove so disastrous for the Cinque Port pilots some thirty years later.
At the 1888 Inquiry into Pilotage, it was stated that on the Thames there was
bribery and corruption and that a few pilots had obtained more “choice” work
than they could handle and farmed it out making considerable income in additions
to their ordinary fees. Trinity House seemed to meet the situation with complete inaction.
The Parliamentary Select Committee of 1870
The Merchant Shipping Act of 1854 collected all the pilotage laws then in force and re-enacted them into part V. In 1860 ship owners, still affected by the freedom from liability of compulsory piloted vessels, again attacked the principle of compulsory pilotage at the meeting of the Parliamentary Select Committee into Shipping. The Committee recommended its abolition but Parliament took no action. In 1870 the Parliamentary Select Committee again examined pilotage with terms of reference that were much the same as the previous committees. But this was the most comprehensive Inquiry ever with witnesses from all sections of the shipping industry, port authorities and Government Departments. The Deputy Master of Trinity House and the Principal of the Marine Department of the BoT, each spent days explaining the vagaries of the several pilotage systems.
In the decade1871-81 there was great unrest among pilots especially in the Bristol Channel since towards the end of the 1850’s the ports of Cardiff, Newport and Gloucester had begun a campaign to remove the superiority claimed by Bristol Corporation in the matter of pilotage since the 16th century. Their efforts were rewarded in 1861 by the passing of an Act that gave them independence in their own pilotage affairs. This had the effect of disturbing the pilotage income of the Bristol pilots and caused a number of them to move across the Channel to take licenses at Cardiff.
In the last half of the 19th century the UK shipping industry was subject to severe cycles of economic booms and depressions of the British overseas trades. The improvement in steam propulsion bringing larger vessels tended to reduce incomes and bring disorder to working routines and rotas of pilots. But the underlying cause of the pilots’ apprehension was still the clause in the 1812 Pilotage Act relating to the freedom of liability for vessels subject to compulsory pilotage and it was also the cause of about seven major Governmental inquiries into pilotage. This clause can be said to have led indirectly to the formation of the United Kingdom Pilots’ Association.
The Origins of the United
Kingdom Pilots’ Association
It was the situation in the Bristol Channel, particularly at Bristol that brought together all the parties most likely to form a core of a national body since a series of events there as a result of the change in the nature of maritime traffic and trade, in particular a growth of the new South Wales industrial ports. In the 1870’s Samuel Plimsoll, campaigning for increased safety for British ships and seamen, called together a number of interested parties: MPs, shipowners and mariners. Known as the Plimsoll Committee, the secretary was Plimsoll’s brother-in-law Roger Moore, a Bristol toilet-soap manufacturer. One of those consulted by Plimsoll’s Committee was Captain George Cawley, an experienced shipmaster, and part owner of a steamship, who later left the sea to take a post ashore. A few months after being appointed pilot master at Cardiff he had been drawn into a serious dispute between the 84 pilots there and the port management. A channel dredged through notorious banks, the Cefyn-y-wrack shoal, in the approaches to Cardiff docks, silted up. In March 1878 pilot John Howe, refused to take the Royal Minstrel to sea with a draft of 24 ft 8 inches. The dockmaster said that there was 25 ft of water over the shoal at the time. A month later, David Samuel also refused to pilot a ship to sea in similar circumstances. The charterer of both vessels complained that his ships had been neaped and thereby delayed three days. Both pilots were suspended. The Cardiff pilots wanted a strike. But Cawley resigning in disgust, advised the pilots to lobby for support from Plimsoll’s Committee.
Within a month Plimsoll had visited Cardiff, and verified the pilots’ complaints. A few weeks later, he raised the matter in Parliament causing the Board of Trade to ask the Cardiff authorities to explain their actions. There was enough of an outcry for a local inquiry to be set up in 1879 and two seats were subsequently allocated for the pilots on the new Pilotage Board. Across the water the 37 pilots at Bristol were also unhappy about the actions or inactions of their pilotage authority. With 37 apprentices and 74 Westernmen (time-served apprentices), any fall in traffic affected the whole village of Pill – a village of watermen and pilots on the River Avon about a mile from its confluence with the Severn. The traditional working routine could mean a loss of income of disastrous proportions if “choice” (appropriate) pilotage appeared. The pilots did not work a “turn” or “rota” system, but sailed in competition the first pilot to board an incoming vessel normally given the work and he would also claim the outward pilotage. In November 1880, however, a firm of Bristol shipowners, the Great Western Shipping Company, with a very successful line across the North Atlantic, built several larger steam vessels to cope with the trade and resolved to have their own “choice” Bristol pilots. The masters were instructed to take only the pilots displaying the prearranged signal. Three pilots were covertly selected and informed of the date and time of arrival of the ships.
In December the same year one of these “choice” pilots, on the way to sail his cutter from Pill Creek, encountered some 50 women and boys and was tarred and feathered. A week later the Westernmen went on strike – licensed pilots could not. The “choice” pilots tried in vain to get boat- men at Ilfracombe, (some 30 miles down the coast) to take them to a couple of inward-bound ships. Returning to Pill they were blocked from taking their cutter to sea by a chain made fast to a bollard which had been organised by the owner of the local inn, Captain Henry Langdon (then current secretary of the Bristol Pilots’ Association).
At the suggestion of Roger Moore, Tamlin, with Edward Edwards of Cardiff, met representatives of the Bristol Pilots’ Association, Craddy (chairman), Langdon and Joseph Browne at the Waterloo Hotel, Pill. Initially a Bristol Channel Pilots’ Association was envisaged, but those present encompassed pilots from other districts, and they suggested forming a British Association There were favourable responses from all the major pilot districts around the British Coasts. In October 1883 a meeting at Bristol, of representatives from the largest ports decided to form a national body using the services of the Bristol Pilots’ Association. Plimsoll was approached to be chairman, but being heavily involved in Parliament refused and suggested Captain George Cawley.
The Early Years
The Inaugural Conference opened on 11th June 1884 in the Athenæum Hall, Bristol. Supported by a few remarks from Bedford Pim, the 30 delegates from a total of 18 UK ports approved the selection of Captain George Cawley, Lt RNR, as president. Observers from Spain and Denmark also attended. Roger Moore represented the American Pilots’ Association.
Henry Langdon, as Secretary, stated there were 3,168 pilots in the British Isles and in 1883 they piloted 168,418 vessels for an income of £427,532; the association hoped to redress wrongs, repeal bad laws and obtain proper representation.
The subscriptions were agreed at 12 shillings per year. Towards the end of the
Conference, which lasted two days, Cawley reminded the delegates, to be
careful to maintain a watch that no further attack on compulsory pilotage should be made.
The Second Conference was held in London in 1885 with 50 delegates – 20 more than attended the previous year –and representing 28 ports. The Secretary’s report gave the membership as being between 1,200 and 1,300 out of a possible 2,955 licensed pilots many of whom were earning less than £30 per annum.
Liverpool, the venue for the third Conference was in the throes of a severe depression, but its maritime system and connections were unsurpassed in efficiency but not economy. Cawley informed members that just before the Conference, he learned that two Poole pilots had been suspended for six months for attending the previous year’s conference without permission even though their colleagues had carried out the work in their absence. In the following year, 1887, at South Shields the Committee introduced two new officers, JT Board, solicitor and A Northmore Jones, barrister. In future the legal work would be separate from the day-to-day work of the Association. In a debate, Bristol pilots explained that as the average age of their pilots was 54 their pension funds needed supplementing, they were promoting a Parliamentary Bill to amend the local Act. Robert Blair (Tyne) said that the main problem in the Tyne was that 30 of the 161 pilots took two thirds of the gross pilotage income. Again this was due to the effects of “choice” pilotage. At the sixth Conference, in London the members looked back with satisfaction at the development of the UKPA which had been formed to protect the principle of compulsory pilotage, to ensure that pilots had proper representation on pilotage bodies and to maintain a watch on the funds which pilots were expected to contribute to.
The 1889 Pilotage Bill was about to pass through Parliament and each clause was debated with great thoroughness and enthusiasm. Alien pilotage and pilotage exemption certificates were again points of irritation. In another direction many pilots tried to have a clause inserted to make the towage of vessels without pilots illegal. Thus the pattern of the work of the UKPA was set in the first six years. When the Merchant Shipping Act (Pilotage) 1889 came into force the members found that more then half of their wishes had been incorporated in its provisions. The moderate success provided a guide to their future actions. The new Act, however, was not without loopholes.
In the early 1890’s Trinity House came in for strong criticism for its apathy in many respects of pilotage administration.
It was said that their pilots were required to produce certificates from magistrates or
clergymen that they were “well affected to the Sovereign and her Government”, but
a foreign subject could be handed a pilotage certificate at his will.
1895 – 1900
In South Wales, Llanelli pilots were threatened with abolition of compulsory pilotage. Initially they had approached the Association for advice, but an offer of legal aid had not been taken up and, at the Cardiff Conference in 1895, there was a note of discord. Three times the Llanelli representatives were asked in open session to comment. They felt that Mr Northmore Jones could be placed under “social influence” and therefore they felt his services should not be used. Apparently Northmore Jones’ services were taken up a couple of years later, for the Association had fought the challenge to compulsory pilotage at Llanelli and were preparing to ward off yet another attack. In the years immediately before the end of the 19th century incomes were an ever present topic and the Executive Committee were at pains to search every corner to find arguments for the negotiations. In 1898 they suggested that as pilots were also quarantine officers, they should receive an allowance from the State. This idea was to be taken up by their MPs. The passing of the 1894 Merchant Shipping Act, which incorporated the pilotage provisions of the 1889 Act, unfortunately did little for pilots and this was reflected in attendances at conferences which began to decrease even though incomes were declining.
Pilots’ incomes at the turn of the Century pilotage incomes averaged about £300 per annum.
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