Hunt and Hunt

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Photo by: John Bildahl

Capt. Bob Mitchell slowed our pilot boat to match the speed of the freighter, the topsides of which rose above our port bow like a nightmare. She rode high in the water, the Plimsoll line that marks her maximum payload well above the surface. As we closed the distance between us, she revealed the spots of rust, scrapes and dents that she had earned in a hard life at sea and in port.

Mitchell, one of the drivers for the Association of Maryland Pilots, drew us closer and closer to the ship. His experience told him that she was traveling at 10 to 12 knots, and he adjusted our speed to match. When he was satisfied with our pace, I glanced at the GPS — 12 knots it was. Now we were in the ship’s wave-making pattern, and our 53-foot pilot boat closed and retreated, closed and retreated, as Mitchell worked the port bow into the side of the ship. A massive rubber rail at the sheer line protects the pilot boat’s aluminum structure and cushions the inevitable impact when the hulls meet. I reached for a handhold, but when the hulls touched, the bump reminded me of an aircraft’s touchdown, distinct but not especially harsh. Mitchell’s skillful control of the throttles and wheel kept the pilot boat in touch with the ship at an angle of about 30 degrees.

We were only observers in this operation. The Potomac, another of the Maryland pilot boats, followed us in and would receive the departing pilot. The pilot run between Norfolk, Virginia, and Baltimore, Maryland, is the longest in U.S. waters, and ours had been aboard since the ship left Baltimore, roughly eight hours earlier. Our sister pilot boat maneuvered through the turbulence near the ship’s waterline and snuggled up against her hull. A short while later, the pilot appeared on the deck of the ship, near the rope ladder he’d descend, and sent his kit on a line to the deckhand aboard the pilot boat. After the deckhand stabilized the ladder, the pilot descended.

See the complete photo gallery here.


The team couldn’t have asked for more benign weather — hazy, hot, humid, flat seas and less than 5 knots of wind. I tried to imagine our exercise in the dead of winter, wind howling out of the northeast, stacking up vicious seas as it drives the water onto the shoaling bottom, but I failed. Those conditions regularly test the design and construction of the pilot boats, year after year, and so far, the current fleet of deep-V’s from C. Raymond Hunt Associates has passed with top grades.