Bar pilot

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Signal flag H(hotel) - Pilot on Board

A bar pilot is a mariner who guides ships over dangerous sandbars at the mouth of rivers and bays.

A highly coveted and potentially dangerous position, a pilot is a master mariner with many years of experience in his or her licensed operating area.

Most crossings require vessels of a certain size to take on a pilot. A pilot is legally only an adviser to the master.

Columbia River Bar Pilot Boat Chinook

Columbia River Bar Pilots helicopter

Normally the pilot joins an incoming ship at sea via helicopter or pilot boat and climbs a swaying rope ladder sometimes up 40 feet to the deck of the largest container and tanker ships. With outgoing vessels, a pilot boat returns the pilot to land after the ship has successfully negotiated coastal waters.

Pilots specifically use the pilotage techniques relying on nearby visual reference points and local knowledge of tides, swells, currents, depths and shoals that might not be readily identifiable on the nautical charts without first hand experience in the harbor in question.

Due to their size and mass, most large ships are very difficult to maneuver; the stopping distance of a supertanker is typically measured in miles and even a slight error in judgment can cause millions of dollars in damage.