![]() Coast Guard 13th District Pacific Northwest. Coming down for me is more difficult because you’ve got to kind of look over your shoulder and judge the height of the ship or the pilot boat.A large containershipat anchor in Bellingham Bay from Zuanich Point Park on July 20 in Bellingham.Ī glut of container ships continues to linger throughout Puget Sound, garnering complaints about excessive noise and lights, according to a news release from the U.S. Of course you want to get off at the peak of the wave there so that you don’t get slammed. “You can kind of judge when the boat’s going up and down and make your way. “Going up is easier because you’re just going up, and you can just see it,” Captain Von Brandenfels said. It’s tricky because the ship is underway, the pilot boat is moving alongside, and then the waves and swells are making everything move up and down. Speaking of adrenaline, the part of the job that seems the trickiest is getting on and off of the ships on that ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ that Captain Von Brandenfels mentioned. “The goal of us is to have no trace left behind that we’ve ever been there, except for that there’s a big ship sitting there the next day.” “It’s high adrenaline, managing some of the biggest man-made objects in the world and getting them in and alongside a dock without anything happening,” Captain Von Brandenfels said. It easy to see how all of this could be a stressful job, but that might also be part of the appeal. Captain Von Brandenfels says the state and federal government has impressed upon the pilots that they are key to keeping the supply chain moving. Puget Sound Pilots is also taking precautions at the pilot station on the pier in Port Angeles with additional cleaning and disinfecting. “We sent out some expectations early on about what we’d like to see them do, and that’s minimize the people on the bridge of the ship wipe down with the chlorine bleach solution the vessel - the interior of the wheelhouse, anyway and make sure they don’t have anybody on board that’s exhibiting symptoms.” Puget Sound Pilots has also been in regular communication with shipping companies about what the pilots expect from each vessel they assist. “If the crew isn’t comfortable with us not having a mask, we usually wear a mask,” Captain Von Brandenfels said. ![]() The pilots are also sensitive to the feelings of the captain and crew of the vessels they board, especially since the Puget Sound area was first in the United States to report a case of coronavirus in January. “We bring 1,100-foot ships that are 168 feet wide drawing 45 feet down that channel, where we have to maintain the azimuth of the channel, and there’s a crosswind component that makes that really challenging.” “I think some of our more challenging jobs are down in Tacoma in the Blair Waterway, which was built and dredged out for ships that were about half the size that we are bringing down there now,” Captain Von Brandenfels said. ![]() And there are parts of the job that are just tricky regardless of any traffic. He says that Puget Sound is challenging because of the volume of marine traffic – it’s a busy place for commercial and recreational vessels. There are similar pilot organizations operating at the mouth of the Columbia River, at Grays Harbor, and for Vancouver, BC.Ĭaptain Bradenfels has been a Puget Sound Pilot since 1994. Piloting like this is also done around the region, too. “Our profession is the last leg of the voyage,” Captain Von Brandenfels said, describing his job as being like an airplane pilot who only does takeoffs and landings. ![]()
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