The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 69

BROOKLYN EAGLE MAGAZINE, 6 arbor Pilots Cheat Death-Dealing eefs There Are Only 111 Men Qualified, to Bring the Big Ships Up to New York's Docks the State, appointed by the Chamber of Commerce, the State of New York and the Board of Underwriters. Complaints and mishaps are reported to a board of commissioners for adjustment. But the old sea dogs many of the pilots were once deep-water sailors still fume at the coming of steam and the word "Progress." One of their own number has been appointed to the presidency of their organization. Harrie Arnold, born within the smell of the Staten Island waterfront, is a lean young man. with seaworthy, a good ninety feet overall and of 75 tons.

The majority of them were built right here in Brooklyn at the old Poillon Shipyards that had its ship ways on the banks of the Gowanus Canal at the foot of Court Street Men still talk of the sweet lines of those old pilot boats. It was a race for the rich prizes, every boat for itself and let the fog take the hindmost. The old pilots thought nothing of sailing 700 miles to the eastward to be the first to board the incoming steamers. Thirty boats, He lives on the pilot boats while he learns and thus receives board and lodging free. Just what a full-fledged harbor pilot makes" Is one of the secrets of the guild.

They don't like to have their earnings public knowledge any more than the butcher, the baker or the candlestick maker. But the wage is a reasonable one. The U. N. Y.

S. H. P. B. A.

is run on a co-operative basis. The pilots charge the ships so much per foot, according to the draft of the vessel, for bringing the steamers safely to their docks. The gross earnings are pooled, expenses like the upkeep of the boats, office overhead, pension fund and sick benefits" deducted and the net profit divided monthly among the 80 active pilots. Every pilot must quit the bridge at 70 and retire. He may do so at 65 if he likes.

Yet despite its 10 years of preparation it isn't a short life. A man receive his pilot's license around 30 years of ace. The only things that can shorten his service are death and the closing of the Port of New York. If suddenly no more giant leviathans and rusty tramps came steaming past the Statue of Liberty in her tarnished bronze robes the harbor pilot's means of livelihood would be gone. Theirs is the one profession that can't pick up its practitioners and drop them down in another sea port to get a fresh start.

All they know is the waters of New York, what happens to the tides racing through the Narrows, how close they should steer to Governors Island. They couldn't take the harbor with them. The work is steady and not as exciting as you might think. The U. N.

Y. S. H. P. B.

A. are affiliated with the Taiw Jersey branch of the same organization. In all there are 117 pilots meeting steamers at Sandy Hook, guiding them out to the open sea All foreign vessels and all American vessels under American register are boarded by the pilots. It's optional with private yachts, coastwise steamers and government ships if they want a pilot. Despite the long and wretchedly paid training period the U.

N. Y. S. H. P.

B. A. has a long waiting list The roster isn't limited to 117, but so far 117 have been sufficient to do the work. The young would-be pilot must be an American citizen or he need not apply. It's pure heartache to ask the old fellows to retire.

Old age clings to the shreds of past glories. A harbor pilot isn't the picturesgue figure he was of yore. He waits in a warm and comfortable wheelheuse now in safe waters for the funnels to appear, the burning of the blue light and the flying of the jack. All that's left to him of a fascinating and once hazardous calling, yet he hates to part with it Soon the last of the old pilots wfll be gone to a place where they will have to show him the way, following his old schooner into the mists of the Sunset of Romance. Men in oilskins great towering ships Clipper needed skilled pilots By Harold C.

Burr HIGH up in the Staten Island ferry house they sit around in the big lounging room, their duffle bags conveniently at hand. The occupants of the chairs read newspapers, shoot pool in the adjoining room or study the notices that clerks in green eyeshades tack up on the bulletin board. None of them glances out of the windows, where is spread the wide and smoky blue panorama of New York Harbor. They don't even bother to turn their chairs around for the view. It's the oldest of sights to the eighty members of the United New York Sandy Hook Pilots Benevolent Association.

They know every riffle that puts a little white niching on the waves. They are waiting for the ships that want a pilot. Ordinarily a Sandy Hook pilot has fifteen ships a month. He's expected to keep In touch with the Battery Park office even in these slack times of depression, when the rim of the world is almost clean of craft, world trading being at such a low ebb. "The Albatross picked up her pilot at Sandy Hook." The phrase brings back to memory an exciting seafaring picture of childhood.

Hull down, with Just her stacks showing above the crests of the seas, until she resembles a sinking ship, a great ocean liner is wal-Wing in the background. Nearer, in foaming green valley, is the pilot ship, men in oilskins clinging to the shrouds, every sail recklessly set, decks awash and members of the crew sloshing round, knee deep in the old Atlantic Ocean. The big No. 15 on her mam-ail gives the added dramatic touch. It's true picture, too of 30 years ago.

The old Ambrose Snow, the Washington, the David T. Leahy, the Herman Oelrtchs those are the pilot boats of legend, the boats that every waterman from the Battery to the Highlands remembers and reveres. And the hardy men who sailed them out to meet the great towering ships from foreign porta, rich in cargo of spices and silks, teak and tea, all the exotic exports of China, India and the naked brown Isles of the warm seas to the south Bill Grant, Gust Peterson, and score more of wild spirits of the spindrift and the spume. Their names live. too.

That was the life, cry Captains Grant and Peterson, still keeping to the channel through transition from sail to team. The old pilot schooners were fast and an all-seeing brown eye and prematurely gray hair. He rolls a cigar around In his mouth, like one of the nuge disappearing guns on the sand spit at Sandy Hook, while attending to all the multifarious detail of the United New York Sandy Hook Pilots Benevolent Association. But what Arnold still likes best is to climb the bridge and listen to the chimes of the little bells deep down in the engine room, feel the jerk of the wheel spokes in his iron fingers. That's his vacation to sneak down the bay and bring a great ship into port The qualifications of a pilot are that he know the harbor of New York, but it's a knowledge that comes slowly with the years.

To become a harbor pilot a young fellow must serve a long apprenticeship. It runs to a full 10 years. He must learn to be sailor, mate and captain of a pilot boat He must learn how to row a small boat in heavy seas, study the charts and be expert at tooling the clumsiest of steamers through the congestion of waterway traffic. And while he spends perhaps the brightest and best decade of his life at his novitiate he receives the ridiculously small wage of from $30 to $45 per month. Yet that isn't quite the starvation remuneration that it sounds.

smothered in dirty clouds of sail, with every cloud numbered, went tearing and heeling out to the rocking horizon. Gloucester fishermen knew the same kind of racing, bringing their catch of codfish and halibut ta market. And like the Gloucester fishermen again the toll of life was great. Every year a boat failed to return. The pilot and all hands had crossed Tennyson's Bar.

But the ancient thrill that came from being a Sandy Hook pilot is gone. In" place of the thirty schooners there are three steam craft that content themselves with bobbing up and down close to the Ambrose Lightship, waiting at night for the blue light to flash from the craft harbor that she wants a pilot A jack at the foremast is the same signal by day. The loss of life has become negligible. In the past 30 years there have been but three lives tost once when a pilot boat was rammed off Scotland Light again when a pilot fell off the Jacob's Ladder into the trough, and the last casualty when a rowboat capsized. It's been 15 years since the New York, the Sandy Hook or the Trenton the present pilot fleet have had to lower their ensign.

It's all become as safe as a trade on land, with its bylaws and regulations and supervision. Pilot are licensed by i.