Pilotage advice from Tom Cunliffe
Author: Tom Cunliffe
For more in depth advice on marine pilotage, read Inshore Navigation by Tom Cunliffe. In the meantime, here are a few practical hints for safe pilotage:
This article on pilotage hints covers:
The difference between pilotage and navigation
Sailing in straight lines
Informing your boat crew
Tips on spotting the mark when piloting your boat in inshore waters
Keeping track of your progress when navigating your boat in a long channel
When to helm your boat and when to command your crew
The difference between marine navigation and pilotage
While boat navigation might be described as the art of moving effectively from one location to the next and knowing where you are on the way, pilotage is about safely negotiating the narrow waters at either end of the passage, or at any stage en route when there is neither the time nor the room to indulge in the borader techniques of open water navigation.
Straight lines best
It’s a lot easier to define a straight line with bearings and transits than it is to follow an ill-defined curve. Try to keep your plan working around a series of direct legs if you can.
The more the merrier
Keep your crew informed about what you are looking for when piloting. Often, you’ll find yourself struggling to spot something. Someone else might easily see it first, so long as they know what they’re after.
Spotting the mark
As you alter course from one mark to the next you may find the new one difficult to identify if it is some distance away. The best technique here is for the pilotage plan to tell you how it should bear, and to place the boat straight away on the ‘correct’ heading.
All hands then look for the mark dead ahead. As soon as it has been spotted, line it up against its background then keep it on the transit you’ve created as you proceed towards it. So long as you have picked up the mark in reasonable time, this will ensure that you stay on the direct, safe track and are not set sideways. If in doubt, take a back bearing on the mark you have just left. So long as all is well, it’ll be on the reciprocal of the safe track to the next mark.
When all else fails
Should all else fail and you feel yourself getting lost, don’t be afraid to stop. It doesn’t cost anything to anchor or simply slow right down while you sort out your bearings. Either course of action is far better than plunging on, hoping for the best, but about to receive the benefit of the worst.
Keep up to date
In a long channel with buoys or beacons that are not numbered, it pays to tick them off on the chart as you pass them, otherwise it is all too easy to end up with one too many or one too few. Sailors in the Baltic use a sticky red arrow they can move along the chart. Smart idea!
Take command, not the helm
While all this is going on, the person in charge (you) is usually busy taking bearings, spotting marks, lining up transits and the rest, so it doesn’t make much sense to be steering as well. Have someone else at the helm and free yourself up to concentrate on where you are. If you are properly prepared, you’ll be surprised at how smoothly it all goes.
Article from Inshore Navigation by Tom Cunliffe
Copyright John Wiley and Sons 2008
