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PILOT TRAINING COURSES
Nautical Colleges offering Pilotage Training
History
LOSS OF LIVERPOOL PILOT CUTTER CHARLES LIVINGSTONE
Many pilots will be unaware of the greatest tragedy to befall UK pilotage when the Liverpool pilot cutter Charles Livingstone was lost in 1939. Retired Liverpool pilot David Hodgson has sent in the following report to the enquiry submitted by his great uncle, Senior Class 1 pilot, Tom Webster.
In November 1939, No 1. Pilot Boat the SS Charles Livingstone stranded on Ainsdale Beach in a west- north- west gale and twenty three lost their lives, including eight Pilots and eight Apprentices. Six of her personnel who took refuge in the rigging were rescued by the Blackpool Lifeboat and four made it to the beach. The Apprentices who manned the pulling and motor boats all lost their lives. Their valour was recognised by the Trustees of the Carnegie Hero Fund, and certificates were presented to the parents of the four young men. In fact my father used to recount the story that Tom did in fact remember being dragged up the beach by two rescuers, the last words he remembers being “Christ this one’s a big bugger!”.
At 7 p.m. on Saturday, the 27th November, I went on board No 2 Pilot Boat at Princes Stage and proceeded in her to the Bar where I transferred to No 1 Pilot Boat at about 10.30 p.m. to wait to be boarded on an inward bound vessel. I slept until shortly after 3 a.m. and went on deck. The weather then was wind, force 7 with heavy rain squalls. No lights were visible. I spoke to one of the firemen and feeling the engines going astern I noticed that there was sand churned up in the backwash from the propeller. I said to him “We’re either ashore or very near it”, and went below to dress. I then went up on the bridge and asked Captain McLeod where he thought we were and his reply was somewhere on Rhyl Flats. I returned to the lower deck and advised various people to get their life-jackets. By this time the Pilot Boat was bumping, lurching and rolling and continually driving to leeward. The three boats were lowered into the water and brought round the stern on to the lee (starboard) side Several distress signals had been detonated and these were continued at intervals. I assisted in getting lifelines ready and ropes out to the boats so that they would be ready for emergency. There was a quiet acceptance by everyone on board of the situation and help was willingly rendered by everyone. Four apprentices were in the boats but then the Pilot boat slewed round which caused the starboard side to become the weather side, causing the pulling boat to break adrift. One of the motor boats went after her and disappeared in the darkness and after what seemed a longish interval I saw her return to about 50 feet almost ahead with the pulling boat in tow. They stayed in view for a short period and I heard a hail from the motor boat that the engine was conking out. They then disappeared from view in a heavy sea and I did not see them again. Very shortly after, Apprentice Lancaster came on to the fore deck and asked if he should go in the remaining boat to the rescue. I replied that he should not go without permission. He returned to the bridge and I presume received permission because he went over the starboard bow down a life line and cast off. The boat disappeared into the darkness to leeward and after a considerable interval we observed her returning apparently alone. She turned to run before the sea, and in turning disappeared from view. During this time the Pilot Boat was still driving to leeward, bumping over the ground and shipping heavy water over the port side and I returned to the bridge. Everyone was very wet with the rain and spray and the wireless was transmitting and receiving messages. From what I could hear of the Wireless Operator’s voice I gathered one ship was in communication and also that three lifeboats were out looking for the Pilot Boat. I took on the duty of detonating the maroons. At about this time we observed a dark object on the starboard side which was identified as Ainsdale Lido and we knew we were on the Lancashire Coast. Up to this time it had been the general idea on board that we were to the Southward of the Bar Ship We estimated that the Pilot Boat was not less than a quarter of a mile from the shore but discounted the possibility of swimming ashore because of the distance and the heavy breakers. At about this time, the vessel’s drive to leeward had ceased and she was fast aground with a very dangerous list to port; the port side of the boat deck under water with seas breaking over her whole length. Up to this time no one had gone overboard and the two life rafts were lowered. There were a number of pilots, the engineers, firemen and maybe others under the lee of the chartroom and various people on the bridge.. The seas were enormous and lifted us to the underside of the bridge deck and dropped us in the water again. At this time the top structure began to carry away. A sea which seemed larger than the others lifted her bodily driving her to an even keel and apparently into deeper water, so that what before had been the high (starboard) side now became totally submerged. With the rising tide and consequently rising sea l saw the ability of those with me to hold on was getting less and a subsequent sea carried Bibby and Teire overboard. This same wave washed me over the rail to which I hung on outboard and from there I made my way to the forward rigging, into which I climbed below Steward Roberts. Above him were those saved by the Blackpool Lifeboat. I could see the bridge and wheelhouse. There were Mcleod, Trott, J.Currie and Hoppins and maybe Lawler on top of the wheelhouse with Cockram holding on to the starboard bridge stanchions. My colleagues on the lee side of the chartroom had disappeared. During this time I saw Cockram washed over from the bridge and climb back again but later, after a sea had swept over, I did not see him. I entwined by right leg in the ratlines to keep me from being washed away when the lamp standard on the bridge washed across my left hand causing me to lose hold and I fell backwards with my feet still entangled. A subsequent sea tore the ratlines away and when I came to the surface I was about 20 yards from the vessel and realising that I could not get back I turned and swam for the shore. Owing to my injured right leg and the character of the shore I was unable to get up. I don’t know how long I laid there but was eventually picked up in an unconscious condition. I came to in Southport Infirmary.
LETTER
Liverpool pilot cutter Charles Livingston erratum:There are several mistakes in the article “loss of the Liverpool Pilot Cutter Charles Livingstone” (Pilot 277). Firstly the name should be Livingston. Sadly this was not “the greatest tragedy”. In 1917 the previous No.1, the Alfred H Reid was sunk by a mine near the Bar light vessel with a loss of 39 lives. It was the 25th (not 27th) that the No.2 pilot boat the Walter J Chambers took Mr Webster and colleagues out to the Bar where the Charles Livingston was on boarding station and the stranding occurred on Sunday 26th November. (Several pilots who were further down the “boarding list” remained aboard the No.2). Unfortunately the article could give the impression that Captain MacLeod (not McLeod) the “Senior Master” was on the bridge during the stranding and that he might be responsible for the pilot boat’s position. However, nothing could be further from the truth and the “Second Master” subsequently resigned from the service. As reported, the first losses were five apprentices in the boats – one was in the pulling boat when it broke adrift, two manned a motor “boarding punt” and went after the pulling boat when it broke adrift and then two more manned the remaining motor “boarding punt” to go to the aid of their shipmates. (These were my shipmates as well because I had been on No.1 for 20 months and was due to rejoin that very morning after two days leave.) The excellent picture of No.1 accompanying the article shows her as new. She was built in 1921 and was 434 tons, loa 144.9 feet, 27.7 feet beam and 12.7 feet draft. Although battered and sand filled she was salvaged and rebuilt looking quite different. She served then as an examination vessel before returning to service as a Liverpool pilot boat until 1951. I look forward to each edition of The Pilot. Many thanks to yourself and other contributors.
J. Delacour Keir Liverpool pilot (retired)
Thank you, to all the others who wrote in identifying the errors in the article. ed
WW2 Picture Identified
INFORMATION REQUIRED… AND SUPPLIED
In the July issue I ran an article on Pilotage in
… the illustration comes not from the Liverpool District but from
The photograph shows the convoy anchorage inside the boom, which stretched from the Essex to
September 1945.
LIVERPOOL PILOTAGE DURING WW2
A summary by R.F. Youde Licensed Liverpool pilot 1936 -1975
On the outbreak of war it was ordered that all leave for pilots was cancelled and no pilot would be granted leave of absence to join the fighting services. Pilotage in Liverpool was declared a reserved occupation by order of the War Cabinet, however, there was an instance of an apprentice-pilot who joined the Royal Air Force, was commissioned with “wings” and served as an instructor in flight navigation. The Pilot-boat on the Western Station at Point Lynas was ordered to proceed to a position near the North West Light-Float and to keep her station there, about seven miles to the west of the Bar Lightship. In that position she continued to serve ships approaching Liverpool from the south and around the Welsh coast, while the Bar Pilot boat maintained her usual station near to the entrance to Queens Channel, the main channel which leads into the Mersey. Navigation in the Mersey was suspended during the hours of darkness due to the restrictions which were placed on lighting until well after the severe blitz of May 1940. An Examination Service was set-up on the Bar pilot-boat, comprising Royal Naval commissioned ranks, NCOs and other ranks. Accommodation was cramped and there were instances of Royal Naval officers taking exception to being obliged to live and eat with other ranks. After the fall of France, the Royal Navy managed to produce a pilot-boat from Holland for the Examination Service. This made life much easier for the pilots and crew of the Bar pilot-boat. At the outbreak of war there were 145 licensed pilots. This number was considered to be insufficient to meet the unforeseeable problems which were known would lie ahead. Twenty men were recruited from outside the Liverpool Pilot Service. They had either served as pilots in other ports, including London, Southampton, and Preston, or else were Masters or Mates who had held Pilotage Exemption Certificates for the Mersey. The Pilotage Authority also invited Second Class Liverpool Pilots (then limited to 2,000 tons net) to apply to be examined for a 4,000 ton-limit licence, to be held until completion of the normal qualifying period for a First-Class licence, which was then an unrestricted licence. It was ordered by the Marine Surveyor and Water Bailiff for the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board that the Mersey should be partitioned into anchorages which were effectively designated as specific parking lots. Circles were printed in red ink on the chart from the Rock Lighthouse as far south as water would permit any anchorage at low water. Each parking lot was numbered and was useful for tugs and river-launches in ascertaining where particular ships were anchored. A principle difficulty was in the matter of communication. In most circumstances the only possible means was by Morse lamp or by hailing through a megaphone. In many cases, ships were routed to Liverpool for orders but had not been given specific docking instructions. Very often this would lead to a ship missing the tide which she could otherwise have made if only the necessary arrangements had been known and, in consequence, space would be taken up in the anchorages. When a convoy was preparing to sail it was usual for some of the ships to undock and anchor in the river and then wait for the rest of the fleet to join them by undocking on the following tide, as there might well have been too many ships to undock all at once on the same tide. This would add to the congestion in the anchorages and, if a convoy was due in on the next day and perhaps did not catch the tide, there would be further addition to the congestion. When the air-raids became heavier and more frequent after the fall of France, the enemy began to drop magnetic mines which lay on the sea-bed and could not be seen from the surface by ships navigating the river and channels. To combat this, a fleet of HM minesweepers were detailed to be first to sail from the Mersey to sweep the Main Channels and Western Approaches. On one occasion the Pilot-boat was ordered to proceed to sea before the minesweepers, which gave rise to much concern aboard the cutter. The order was questioned and rectified. As far as I can recall, three ships were mined and sunk in the river, with one in the Main Channel and one just outside it. The property on both sides of the river took a very heavy pounding, but the Port itself was never closed due to enemy action. The Princes Landing Stage and the Ferry Stages remained usable. The lock gates and river entrances were never put out of action, with the exception of Hornby-lock, the use of which could be avoided by alternative routes within the dock system. As to the Royal Navy, there was no change in the law which provides that HM ships are exempt from compulsory pilotage; and no change in the custom and practice of the Royal Navy to engage the service of Liverpool pilots in most circumstances. Relations between the Royal Navy and the Pilot Service were conducted properly and professionally by all concerned and it is probably fair to say that mutual respect and regard between the two organisations was probably never higher than at that time. Duty was the watchword: and every man knew that England expected nothing less. R. F. Youde
Ronald Fergus Youde sadly passed away in December 2005. The following obituary was written by his son, ex Liverpool pilot Barrie Youde. JCB
Ronald Fergus Youde (1910 – 2005)
Pilot Ronald Fergus Youde died peacefully on 14th December 2005, aged 95. The son of a leading Chester lawyer, he was born in 1910 and educated at Chester Cathedral Choir School, followed by the King’s School and HMS Conway. In 1927 as a Senior Cadet Captain (HMS Conway) he began what was to prove to be a nineyear apprenticeship in the Liverpool Pilot Service. During 1932-34 he was released to serve as Fourth Officer in the Far-East trade of the Blue Funnel Line. He was Licensed in Liverpool as a Third Class Pilot in 1936. The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 saw him fast-tracked to First Class rank. For his services during the War he was ultimately granted, as were all serving pilots of the time, the honorary Freedom of the City of Liverpool – an honour which he greatly appreciated. In 1945 he was elected to the Liverpool Pilotage Committee and also to the Chair of the Liverpool Pilots’ Association, holding both offices for twenty-five years until relinquishing each one in 1970. In 1948 he was appointed Appropriated Pilot to Anchor Line Ltd. The vessel in the photograph is Anchor Line’s Circassia which had two sister ships, Cilicia and Caledonia, all operating a monthly liner service from Liverpool – with much coastal work to the Clyde and the Bristol Channel when in home waters. Together with Anchor Line’s cargo service to USA, he was kept very busy. RF Youde served Anchor Line from 1948 until the withdrawal of its passenger-service to Bombay in 1964 after which he was appropriated to Shaw Savill & Albion, from which he retired in 1975. Following this he served as a Trustee of the Pilots’ National Pension Fund, eventually relinquishing that post in 1993, aged eighty-three. If the holding of professional office is to be seen as a prize, it may safely be said that RF Youde swept the board of all the prizes available to any pilot of his generation. His leadership was by example and he was a man of few words. It was sometimes said that he could say more with his mouth shut than with his mouth open – and he frequently did so with devastating effect. He could not suffer any fool. He inherited his father’s incisive legal mind and had no difficulty in recognising any aspect of pilotage law. On behalf of pilots in the 1950s he was one of the leading figures in securing the Agreement of Sir Robert Letch (the “Letch Agreement”) in relation to conditions of service. By the authority of the Secretary of State. This Agreement stands to the present day as a precedent benchmark for the benefit of pilots and all others concerned with the organisation of shipping at national level. More locally, as a member of the Liverpool Pilotage Committee, he was the pilot most closely associated with the generally unpopular task of de-commissioning the traditional sea-keeping pilot-cutters, on the grounds of expense, and replacing them with a shorebased launch-service. He never courted popularity in any way and the fact that he achieved any of his aims at all was attributable solely to his unfailing (if sometimes blunt) civility. Beyond his rather lonely professional exterior, family farming connections as a child had instilled in him a love of the countryside and a respect for any good sporting horseman. He had been a keen sporting oarsman when at the King’s School in the early 1920s, in stark contrast of style to the working-boat oarsman which he was soon obliged to become as a pilotage apprentice. Any further interest in sport, however, remained general rather than specific and he was never known to take mere physical exercise of any kind at all. Even golf was anathema to him. All his life, on the other hand, he was an enthusiastic and hard-working gardener, a sharp humorist, a good bridge-player and a ladies’ man. He married Mary Lloyd Evans in 1936 and they became the loving parents of two sons. He was a loving and muchloved husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather. He remained physically active and mentally razor-sharp to the end, having made many friends in later life and earning the accolade “Everybody’s Grandfather” in doing so. After being widowed in 1980 he lived with Connie Miller, sister of Pilot Cyril James Miller, his former “Conway Chum”. His entire life was devoted to pilotage and his family. Pilotage has lost a good friend. The loss to his family is much the greater.
Barrie Youde
Piloting During WW2
Pilotage in
A summary by R.F. Youde Licensed
On the outbreak of war it was ordered that all leave for pilots was cancelled and no pilot would be granted leave of absence to join the fighting services. Pilotage in
An Examination Service was set-up on the Bar pilot-boat, comprising Royal Naval commissioned ranks, NCOs and other ranks. Accommodation was cramped and there were instances of Royal Naval officers taking exception to being obliged to live and eat with other ranks. After the fall of
At the outbreak of war there were 145 licensed pilots. This number was considered to be insufficient to meet the unforeseeable problems which were known would lie ahead. Twenty men were recruited from outside the Liverpool Pilot Service. They had either served as pilots in other ports, including
It was ordered by the Marine Surveyor and Water Bailiff for the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board that the
A principle difficulty was in the matter of communication. In most circumstances the only possible means was by Morse lamp or by hailing through a megaphone. In many cases, ships were routed to
When a convoy was preparing to sail it was usual for some of the ships to undock and anchor in the river and then wait for the rest of the fleet to join them by undocking on the following tide, as there might well have been too many ships to undock all at once on the same tide. This would add to the congestion in the anchorages and, if a convoy was due in on the next day and perhaps did not catch the tide, there would be further addition to the congestion.
When the air-raids became heavier and more frequent after the fall of
As far as I can recall, three ships were mined and sunk in the river, with one in the Main Channel and one just outside it. The property on both sides of the river took a very heavy pounding, but the Port itself was never closed due to enemy action. The Princes Landing Stage and the Ferry Stages remained usable. The lock gates and river entrances were never put out of action, with the exception of Hornby-lock, the use of which could be avoided by alternative routes within the dock system.
As to the Royal Navy, there was no change in the law which provides that HM ships are exempt from compulsory pilotage; and no change in the custom and practice of the Royal Navy to engage the service of
R. F. Youde
Pilot Veterans Honoured
VETERANS HONOURED
At a ceremony hosted by the Lord Mayor of Liverpool in
Many have unsuccessfully tried to ascertain what it actually means to be a Freeman of a City, other than the invitation to the Mayoral Reception and the possibility of a medieval tradition of being able to have the right to drive a flock of sheep down
For myself, as the then Chairman of the serving Liverpool Pilots, it was a privilege to be present as witness to my colleagues well deserved honour
John Curry
HMS Whimbrel
RESEARCH AND
Liverpool’s decision to grant the Freedom of the City to Battle of Atlantic seafarers has been reinforced by a preservation group which is hoping to acquire HMS Whimbrel, one of the last surviving Black Swan class sloops, to be berthed at Liverpool as a memorial of that legendary struggle which kept
Armed with 4in guns and a formidable array of anti-submarine weapons, HMS Whimbrel served with Escort Group 2, the flotilla of the legendary U-boat hunter Captain Johnny Walker and her war-time record makes her an ideal vessel for a memorial. Her service took her from the ice floes of northern
She was also present at the surrender ceremony in
To support the HMS Whimbrel preservation project, contact:
conrad.waters @btopenworld.com
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