Andrew Bines: 1929 – 2009

June 29th, 2010 by JCB
Posted in Obituaries | 1 Comment »

It was with great sadness that the Belfast Pilots learnt of the “passing west” of their retired colleague and friend Andy Brines.

Andy went to sea as an apprentice in 1946 working his way up to master in 1956. He joined Belfast Pilots as tradition would have it and drove the pilot cutter for some years. He first started piloting in 1963 and retired in 1993 with ill health. The 1987 act was probably one of his low points in his life. His removal from self-employment into employment was never smooth and it took its toll on him in many ways. Andy was a fighter and never gave up trying to restore the rightful position for pilots in Belfast. I can remember his joy when he heard that we had gone back into self-employment in December 2006. As well as being a pilot, Andy ran a successful boat yard in Carrickfergus and was an active member of the local sailing club. Unknown to me, I was to work briefly with the man who once worked on my small yachts, and was an elder of my club, when I was a young lad.

The service to celebrate his life was held in St. Nicholas’s church Carrickfergus, on a cold December morning, in front of a congregation who could probably have a place in the Guinness book of records for a record on combined sea service. His passage from the church, passing under the church spire, which has acted as a safe leading mark for Carrickfergus Harbour for hundreds of years, was undertaken by 4 serving pilots of the Belfast Lough Pilotage Services Ltd. each one of us being proud to have known him, and honoured to take him to his final resting place. Andy was always a joker, and he was, even after death, still about to play one last joke on us all. At the grave yard, his coffin took some persuasion to enter the hole in the ground. Was he playing with us, or should we have buried him on Belfast Lough?

It is to his wife Elizabeth, and sons Andrew Jnr & Michael, and the family circle to whom we offer our deepest sympathy.

Brian Wilson

BLPS Ltd.