by Benjamin Harris Shaw
NARRATION (SOUND OF DISPATCH UP UNDER NARRATION)
Three motor launches and the Pilot Boat New Jersey are tied to a dock on the East side of Staten Island. Three huge tankers lay anchored just offshore, waiting to unload their cargo of oil at a New Jersey refinery.
TAPE
AMBIENT OF DISPATCH OFFICE UP - PHONES & VHF
NARRATION
The dispatch center for the Sandy hook pilots is a brick building. It sits at the head of the dock. Inside, on the second floor the dispatch room buzzes with activity. From this room dispatchers coordinate the movement of pilots on and off ships.
TAPE
AMBIENT SOUND OUT
NARRATION
Out large windows, the open ocean is visible just beyond the Varazzano Narrows bridge. A 900-foot container ship slips into view, glides under the bridge and out to sea.
Before it reaches the relative safety of the open ocean, the vessel must navigate past other traffic in the busy harbor. And it must clear Rockaway Point and Sandy Hook, spits of land that have grounded many a ship. In order to safely navigate the harbor the captain hands control of his ships to a pilot.
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SHERWOOD: You've got to actually move this huge man made beast around other objects in port.
NARRATION
Captain Sherwood is currently the president of the Sandy Hook Pilots association.
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Sherwood: There are some places in the port which are quite thrilling…. Bergen Point, Tremly Point, Sandy Hook Point are all round turns around points of land. And you've got to make them in short order and you don't have a lot of sea room as you would if the vessel was out in open ocean. It's truly acrobatics, and it's acrobatics with an 1000-foot-long ship weighing probably several 100,000 tons.
NARRATION
Between Staten Island and New Jersey the channel is so narrow two ships hardly have room to pass each other. Often ships are so loaded with cargo that there is only two feet between the hull and the bottom of the harbor floor.
NARRATION
Ships come from all around the world to unload goods from Port Elizabeth and Port Newark, NJ… Bayonne or locations further up the Hudson. Once inside the harbor the ships often sail right by Manhattan. Since 9-11 harbor security has become a major concern. The Coast Guard requires pilots to occasionally anchor outside the Varazanno Narrows Bridge so they can inspect the ships. And Because pilots are familiar with most of the ships entering and leaving the harbor, they have been enlisted to report any unusual activity.
TAPE??? 1-21-3
This morning, Captain Robert Blake got a 5:30 am call to pilot a ship from a NJ terminal out to sea. Having finished his run he sits on the arm of a leather couch in a lounge that adjoins the dispatch room.
TAPE
BLAKE: So I showed up to the ship this morning, it was the MOL Enterprise, got on board set up my computer met the docking pilot, we backed the ship out from Helen Hook, turned it around at Bergen Point. And I brought the ship out past St. George going down through The Narrows and out Ambrose Channel out to the pilot station.
NARRATION
It took Blake about three hours to sail from the dock, south past Staten Island and down the channel and out to Ambrose Light. There he transfers to the Pilot Boat New York.
The 182-foot New York spends the majority of its time drifting at sea, 17 miles offshore. The ship is a home away from home, a way station where pilots wait for the next incoming ship.
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POST SOUND OF RADIO EXCHANGE AT DISPATCH
NARRATION
In the dispatch room, the phones ring and the radio crackles. The two dispatchers on duty run between their computers and a large board checkered with nameplates and grease pencil markings.
TAPE
POST RADIO SOUND
NARRATION
Model ships and paintings of sailboats decorate the room. A plaque on the wall quotes a resolution from 1694… when the colony of NY passed an act providing for the appointment of the first pilots "to be on duty near Sandy Hook to give aid and assistance to all vessels bound for the port, which they are obliged to pilot up as far as the narrows."
For over 300 years the Sandy Hook Pilots have been fulfilling this mandate.
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RADIO ON BRIDGE:
Ambrose pasco 08
Yes sir go ahead this is the pilot boat…
(FADE UNDER THE NARRATION)
NARRATION
Michael Vanek stands watch on the bridge of the pilot boat New York. He adjusts the rudder and engine (POST SOUND OF PNUMATIC STEERING) to keep the boat in the vicinity of the Ambrose lighthouse
From behind the wheel Vanek can see nearly 360 degrees. The sky is dark, but the horizon twinkles with the lights of ships, bouys and shore. He has the help of two large radar screens and multiple VHF radios.
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VANEK: We're like the brains of the operation here at Ambrose.
NARRATION
Vanek's main job is to keep tabs on all the marine traffic.
NARRATION
We coordinate with the inbound ships what time their ETA is, once I get the ETA, whatever pilot is on turn for that ship I'll make sure he's up and ready and knows what time the ship is coming. (FADE THIS UNDER NARRATION)
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SOUD OF TV LOUGE
NARRATION
At any time up to 20 pilots are waiting on the New York to pilot inbound ships. Below decks they watch TV in the lounge, eat in the mess or sleep in one of the many bunks.
Vanek also sends the motorboat out to collect pilots off the outgoing ships.
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AMBIENT SOUND: MOTORBOAT ROARING OFF (GIVE TIME BEFORE NARRATION BEGINS)
NARRATION
The motorboat accelerates into the darkness, cuts sharply and heads off toward an enormous vessel only a quarter-mile away. Raymond, the driver, approaches the tanker… It's hull becomes wall of steel jutting out of the black water.
TAPE
RAYMOND: OK, so I'm coming around. He's making a lee, and um I'm going to make an approach to the ship up there and run parallel with it for a couple seconds, make sure I don't have any swell or anything coming down the side…
NARRATION
The massive ships blocks the wind and waves. Raymond holds the boat steady as he runs parallel to the tanker, the bow of the boat just below. The boats look stationary... But the water between them bubbles past at 12 knots. A spotlight shines down from the deck of the ship, 30 feet above.
The Pilot climbs down the wood and rope ladder that dangles over the side of the tanker. And with the assistance of a deckhand, drops onto the deck of the motorboat.
They enter the cabin. (POST DOOR CLOSING)
TAPE
RAYMOND: Ok they're in… Good evening. (FADE UNDER)
NARRATION
On the motorboat Elizabeth Miller hangs up her foul weather gear and relaxes into a chair. She wears a blue blazer and kaki slacks. A small grease mark on her pant leg is the only evidence that she has just scaled down the side of a moving tanker. She navigated the tanker Oleander out of the harbor after it delivered a load of molasses. The Ukranian crew turned control of the ship over to Miller while she was onboard
TAPE
MILLER: I'm basically giving commands to the helmsman and to the mate. And so I'm giving indication as to what I want him to do with the rudder, port 5 degrees starboard 10 degrees. I'm also talking a lot on the radio in terms of making passing arraignments and meeting arraignments with other ships.
NARRATION
Miller says she meeting interesting people from around the world is an enjoyable part of the job.
MILLER
Well today actually that cap had me out on the bridge wing taking pictures, he was like "Can I take my picture with you?" as we went by the Battery, taking pictures on the bridge wing. They were going nuts when I came kind of close to the Statue of liberty.
NARRATION
Miller is one of the few women doing this work. She began working on the Fire Island ferries when in high school. She liked the experience and decided to go to Maritime College in the Bronx. After college she worked as a deck hand on tug boats and tankers in the Caribbean and Persian Gulf. She applied to be a pilot and started her apprenticeship in 1998. Two months ago she received her pilots license and became the first woman pilot in New York Harbor.
TAPE
MILLER: It was a 5-year apprenticeship, but my apprenticeship was a few months longer because I took time off to have a baby during it. So I took a couple months off.
NARRATION
Traditionally pilots have been men. The job was passed from father to son. Blake says, there's been little opposition to women joining the Sandy Hook Pilots.
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BLAKE: That whole issue was disarmed by it being liz because she's very professional, she's very nice, she is tremendous pilot. She's very very good at what she does. I'm sure it was a tough thing to do. Stepping into a culture like this…one that's steeped in heritage. Strickly a male heritage and she's done a fantastic job.
NARRATION
Miller brushes aside the compliments… She would rather stay out of the spotlight.
TAPE
MILLER: I'm just a person who goes to work and does my job and I try to do it the best I can, and I go home and I'm done. I don't want to be famous for anything cause if you are in this industry it's not a good thing, you know?
Captain Sherwood stands at the rear of the dispatch room watching the commotion. A Pilot has one objective and one responsibility he says… That is getting ships from point A to point B as safely as possible.
It is a dangerous work but he and the other Sandy Hook pilots can't imagine doing anything else.
TAPE
SHERWOOD: You get to handle the largest moveable man made objects on earth… that's impressive. It's a thrill. It truly is.
NARRATION
24-hours-a-day, 365-days-a-year Sandy Hook pilots are out on the water doing their job… guiding ships into and out of the harbor. The majority of the city is oblivious to their presence, and most of the pilots are happy to keep it that way.
But the Sandy Hook Pilots will be climbing aboard and sailing through the harbor as long as ships keep arriving.
For Columbia Radio New, I'm Benjamin Shaw.