Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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Marine Pilots
Sec. 08.62.157. Duties of licensed pilots.
(a) A person licensed under this chapter
has a primary duty to safely navigate vessels under the pilot's direction and control
and to protect life and property and the marine environment while engaged in the
provision of pilot services.
—Alaska Statutes
May 25, Nikiski
THE 590-FOOT TANKER
Pacific Polaris
is discharging the last of a cargo of 330,629 bar-
rels of jet fuel from Ulsan, South Korea. Captain John Taylor, a marine pilot of the Southw-
est Alaska Pilots Association (
SWAPA
), will be undocking the tanker and piloting it to Ka-
chemak Bay, where he will get off and the tanker will depart on the Great Circle Route
across the north Pacific Ocean back to Ulsan.
Upon boarding, Taylor walks the bridge, looking at gauges, LEDs and screens and
checking them against the pilot card, which lists the ship's specifications and a checklist of
equipment. Anchors, yes, port and starboard. Radar, two, yes, although the list says they're
both three centimeters and one is actually ten centimeters. Water speed and ground speed
indicators, yes. Engine telegraphs, rudder and RPM indicators, yes. He snorts at the zero
degrees typed in next to the constant gyro error on the compass system listed the the pilot
card and corrects it to an error of one degree east.
