LOST AT SEA
A testament to the selectivity of all these requirements is that there are only about 20 Columbia River Bar pilots. By the time a pilot is fully ready and licensed, the mariners are well past the age of most professional athletes. Yet, they must regularly exhibit strenuous athletic agility just to get to their assignments. One of their riskiest endeavors is getting aboard the ships they must pilot.
Traditionally, pilots have been transported to and from the ships they navigate by
boat. While at first this might not seem overly risky, actually such transport is fraught with danger. It is common for pilots to climb up and down 50 to 80 foot rope ladders while embarking and debarking. A misstep can be unforgiving, as this excerpt from a few years ago solemnly shows:
Capt. Kevin Murray’s colleagues and friends officially said goodbye this last week at a memorial service overlooking the Columbia River. It was a sailor’s send off with flowered wreaths cast upon the water and eight bells rung for the symbolic end of a watch.
Capt. Murray was the Columbia River Bar Pilot who was lost January 9 when he failed to make the transfer from the cargo ship Dry Beam to the pilot boat Chinook at night, in 18 foot seas and 40 knot winds. Murray’s body was found two days later when it washed up on Copalis Beach, north of Gray’s Harbor on the Washington Coast.
(From Graveyard of the Pacific; Gateway to the Northwest by Russel Sadler on
BlueOregon.com)
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