Small band of pilots guiding ships in Puget Sound is dwindling

TACOMA, Wash. — From the bridge of a container ship, pilot Eric Lichty can see a city block's worth of containers stretched in front of him and another half-block of metal boxes behind. From his perch 10 stories above the Pierce County Terminal, he looks down on the busy Port of Tacoma, the cranes, and the buses shuttling people to the docks for work.

The only thing Lichty can't see as he prepares to guide the 1,000-foot-long Hatsu Excel into Commencement Bay: the edges of the narrow Blair Waterway on each side of the ship. That is, unless he hangs his head out the bridge's side window.

So that's what he does.

A former captain on tankers and supply boats, Lichty is one of a dwindling number of pilots.

By law, the pilots use their local knowledge to guide ships into the Sound from Port Angeles and back out from Washington ports. But in the past several months a combination of retirements, injuries and an increasing number of ships calling on Washington ports has led to a shortage of these skilled guides.

The shortage has delayed ships as they wait for pilots to arrive, and required pilots to regularly work during their scheduled time off.

Piloting the Evergreen Shipping Line's Hatsu Excel was Lichty's second job on this early fall morning 10 days into his scheduled time off after 15 days of work. Capt. Bill Bundren, also a pilot, joined him. Bundren was scheduled to take the ship the rest of the way to Port Angeles after Lichty maneuvered it out of the Blair and into the bay.

"When you have a ship this big in this tight of quarters, and (considering) there could be the slightest bit of wind or bad conditions, you just need another pilot," Bundren explained.

In the intricate routine of moving massive ships, pilots are the choreographers. For the time they are on board, they direct everyone involved from the longshore workers on the ship's lines to the ship's crew. They are experienced mariners, many with past lives as captains of tugs, ferry boats or other ships.

Lichty, 55, went to maritime school at 19. He's been at sea ever since.

As the ship's top officers shuffle onto the bridge, he is already contacting a barge that blocks the mouth of the waterway. With the radio attached to his khaki vest, Lichty alternates talking to the barge captain and greeting two tugboats that have arrived to pull the ship into the waterway and fine-tune its direction.

There's no wind, rain or other ships berthed today in the narrow Blair, all factors that can turn a seemingly benign job into an hours-long challenge.

The tugs hook to the ship with synthetic black lines, one "fore" or pulling at the front, the other "aft," pulling at the back.

"Chief, is the Guide clear?" Lichty asks one of the tugs.

"Guide, stop and straighten out," he radios the other.

The container ship moves away from the dock. The shrinking cranes out the ship's window are the only hint the ship is moving.

The Puget Sound Pilots is one of two pilotage groups in Washington and the only group serving the Sound.

In August the state pilotage board, which includes representatives from the shipping industry, the public and the pilots group, declared an emergency shortage of pilots after finding its waiting list depleted and its roster of 51 pilots working frantically to keep up.

The emergency allowed the board to schedule an exam — its first in nine years — to test for new pilots without providing four months of notice.

For several years, the state pilotage board held off scheduling a pilots exam that would provide candidates to replenish the roster. Its members were waiting for the state Legislature to approve a new series of testing and training regulations, which it did this session.

In the midst of all this, the number of ships coming into the Puget Sound has increased, as Seattle's cruise industry grows and more shippers divert cargo to Puget Sound from Southern California ports.

The pilots guided 750 ships through the Sound in September, a 20 percent increase from the month's average of the three previous years. Richard McCurdy, president of the Puget Sound Pilots Association and a pilot himself, said the pilots have seen similar increases each month since April.

The emergency is an issue of rest and safety, McCurdy said. The pilots work 24 hours a day for 15 days, with a mandated six hours of rest between each job. They then have 13 days off before starting work again.

"Safety is supposedly our middle name. That's the whole reason our job exists, to have an independent safety person on board," McCurdy said. "But because of the shortage, we are having to call so many people (during their time off), the quality of the recovery becomes compromised."

In Port Angeles, the pilots take a boat out to the ships, climbing a rope ladder to the ship's bridge.

The ships pay a tariff every time they move a vessel in the pilotage district, and that fee goes toward the pilot's salary. The state has set it at $213,000 per year. They don't make overtime pay, but instead pool their earnings from each job and divvy up the pot at the end of each month meaning in busy months they can earn more or in slower months less.

It's high-stress living, and the pilots are their own brand of adrenaline junkies. The Puget Sound is a complex waterway, often plagued with wind and rain that reduce visibility. Tides create currents. And pilots must be familiar with a complicated catalog of ports, from the open-water docks near Cherry Point north of Bellingham to the narrow channels of the Blair and Hylebos waterways at the Tacoma Tideflats.

"There are some jobs where you are backing a ship up the Duwamish River in the middle of the night, the current runs like hell, there's driving rain, and you think to yourself, 'What am I doing?' McCurdy said. "You're alone, but you have to deliver the goods.

"Then there's some jobs in the middle of a beautiful day where you just as soon do it for free."

The board and the pilots association are hoping to glean an additional four or five pilots from the upcoming exam, which is scheduled for November. More than 20 people already have applied to take the exam, which tests applicants on ship handling, rules, bridge team management and navigation skills for all parts of the Puget Sound.

It includes one day of a written exam and a simulated ship-handling test that mimics potential scenarios pilots might encounter, from moving through traffic to handling treacherous weather conditions.

In a little less than two hours, the Hatsu Excel completes the 2.6-mile journey down the Blair and out into Commencement Bay, heading to the tip of the Olympic Peninsula, then on to Taiwan. He takes the ship's elevator down a few floors, climbs down a steep, steel staircase and follows a crew member out a door that seems to go to nowhere.

The crew member throws a rope ladder over the side of the ship. Lichty scrambles to a waiting tugboat more than 30 feet below.

Moments later he is heading to shore, while the Hatsu Excel chugs north behind him.