Great Escapes
Most pilots don’t like discussing their errors or miraculous recoveries, but I will because if something can go wrong in piloting, it probably will. This isn’t always caused by pilot error; rather, there are so many things entirely out of the pilot’s control, such as equipment failure; misinterpretation of a pilot’s orders; putting the rudder the wrong way; weather incidents such as unexpected wind shear, heavy rain, or fog; published data being wrong; events happening out of the pilot’s sight, e.g., the crew letting the anchors go at the wrong time, not at all, or putting out the wrong amount; or actions of other pilots, as when saying they will remain at the dock, then running you out of the channel. I had my fair share of close calls, and thank goodness I got out of almost all of them.
Yes, I did have a few incidents such as going aground three times and twice touching docks hard enough to do some damage. This makes my accident rate about .0006 percent based on how many ships I moved, so in general I had a normal career. However, when you move massive ships, sometimes things get broken. I liked when other pilots discussed jams they got themselves out of.
Boarding a ship in calm seas is dangerous enough; in rough seas one misstep could be a deadly mistake.
As the legendary Captain Don Hughes often opined, “She’s in the hands of God now,” and he was so right.
I knew I could always learn something from their experiences, and if nothing else, they made good sea stories. When someone goofed up and went before the Commission, you read about it in their monthly minutes; otherwise, the pilot might never mention the incident.
This section is about incidents that happened to me that didn’t involve the UP Bridge, where I had three near-misses. After reading this, you might think I had a lot of interesting experiences, and I did, but I’m not so sure I was the exception. Either I had crazier things happen to me, or I was very good at extricating myself out of trouble, which Al Clarke counseled me to do when I was only 26.
In front of Antioch’s Riverview Lodge, between Kimball Island and Antioch Point, is the only place wide enough to turn around a ship after passing New York Point three miles downstream. From here the San Joaquin River turns east toward Stockton another thirty miles upriver. Riverview is also a good place to dine unless you’re eating when a ship crashes into the restaurant, which happened once. Too much speed will do that every time.
One of my more bizarre “near misses” happened on my way up to Domtar on Goldbond Trailblazer loaded with Gypsum rock. These particular ships had cargo doors on the port side near the stern, so they had to be docked port side-to. We had to turn them around at Riverview, then backed them up more than a mile to the pier.
That day, it was clear with flood current. I wasn’t concerned about the job because daylight always made jobs easier, especially upriver ones, and flood was ideal to go backwards because the ship would be facing into it. I actually liked backing
