Marine Pilots - Alaska Traveler - page 245

To starboard the 710-foot Horizon Lines Kodiak , a container ship bound for Anchorage,
slows down and a second marine pilot boards it by helicopter. Behind it but not yet in
sight, the 610-foot Seabulk Arctic with a third SWAPA pilot on board will be docking at
KPL as soon as the Pacific Polaris undocks, its own SWAPA pilot having boarded at the
pilot station in Kachemak Bay.
The tanker's captain arrives on the bridge, a very young and very deferential South
Korean. The captains confer over the time of departure and discuss the order in which the
sixteen lines holding the ship to the dock will be released, eight lines forward and eight
aft, two per bollard.
Over the past hour the wind has increased to twenty knots but the direction remains
steady at south by east, or almost directly on the bow. The tide is at the flood, at such
force that the speed log shows the ship's speed through the water at two to four knots
while it is still docked.
Taylor stands on the port bridge wing with the Pacific Polaris ' captain, who has donned
a pair of white gloves, a symbol of status on Korean ships. Taylor talks to the dock crew
on a hand-held radio, and to the ship's captain, who relays Taylor's orders to the ship's
deck crew.
There is a metal reinforcement edging the dock immediately below the port bridge wing
that Taylor refers to as “the can opener.” One at a time the lines are loosened and winched
on board, until the only line remaining is the regular breast line aft, about three-quarters of
the way down the length of the hull from the bow, which will act as a pivot point when the
bow moves off the dock and the wind catches the port side of the ship and begins to push.
For many long moments the ship seems to sit, motionless. Then, with excruciating
slowness, the space between the ship and the dock widens, an inch at a time, the bow
swinging ponderously through the wind until the wind is hitting the portside surface of the
hull. Space between ship and dock begins to increase rapidly. The can opener is safely
avoided.
“All right, captain,” Taylor says, “you can haul in the line.”
June 6, Seward