Leading Lights on the Horizon

A Weekend with the Pilots of the Delaware Bay and River

At lunchtime on Friday, my phone rings. Captain Jim Roche has a ship for me. And we have to get on it…well, right now.

Roche is a First Class Pilot in the 67-member Pilots’ Association for the Bay and River Delaware, and former president of the organization. Pilot organizations exist because no foreign ships are allowed on U.S. water without a licensed pilot on board to safely navigate them through the narrow channels. Their local knowledge—combined with specialized technical training and nerves of steel—is invaluable.

“Imagine a skyscraper,” Los Angeles’ Chief Port Pilot Michael Rubino tells Gloria Hillard in the March 21, 2012 edition of NPR’s All Things Considered. “Now imagine turning that skyscraper on its side and floating it, and that’s what it would be like moving one of these ships through the harbor. The waterways are narrow and the ship’s rudder gets less and less effective as the ship slows down.” When a pilot “takes over the conn” (a nautical term for controlling the vessel’s movements), it becomes his or her responsibility to guide the ship, avoiding bridges, underwater obstacles, sensitive areas, and other ships.

Members of the Association are licensed through the states of Pennsylvania or Delaware and the United States Coast Guard. Pilots in training spend three or four years in an apprenticeship program, and must complete more than 500 trips before achieving a sixth class license, after which they work for a year at this lower class of license on smaller vessels. They then continue to move up in class each year until six years have passed, ultimately earning the unrestricted first class license.

I’d expected to have a few more hours before embarking on a weekend seafaring odyssey with Captain Roche and two other members of the Pilots’ Association for the Bay and River Delaware, but as I would quickly learn about pilot life, a catchphrase uttered by every pilot I interviewed: “Things can change.”

Friday, 4pm, Packer Avenue Marine Terminal, Philadelphia

After an elaborate two-hour commute that included a shuttle ride from a municipal parking lot in Marcus Hook, Roche and I arrive here at the gate of the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal, where a guard scans our Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) cards, security credentials without which I would not be writing this story.

We’re boarding the MSC Shreya B, a brand new ULCV (Ultra Large Container Vessel) fresh from the port of Cristobal, Panama and on her way to Rotterdam. She is massive, the length of three football fields, with a hull that extends down 40 feet  into the water, and capable of carrying up to 11,000 of the containers commonly seen towed by tractor trailers or perched atop railroad cars. She smells of fresh paint, and the spotless aluminum handrails of her gangway sparkle in the late-afternoon sun. “One hand for you, and one hand for the ship,” Roche cautions as we ascend several stories up to the deck.

Despite the astonishing scale of these vessels, many don’t notice them. They chug up and down the Delaware River while we pass overhead on the bridges on our way to and from the shore points. They anchor on the horizon in the Delaware Bay, visible from North Cape May beaches, and perhaps we see them as part of the romantic backdrop of a walk along the water or cruise on the ferry. But what we probably don’t realize is that their crew members spend months at a time traveling around the world, collecting and depositing mass quantities of the goods and oil products that make every aspect of our lives possible. Our passage on the Shreya B this evening is but one instance of the nearly 7,000 trips to ports along the Delaware River in a single year alone.

From high up here on the bridge of the Shreya B, one has the sense of looking the entire city of Philadelphia right in the eye. Far below, three tiny but powerful tugboats tow the Shreya B away from the dock and out into the deep part of the channel, and we are underway. For the next eight hours, we’ll navigate the undulating 84 nautical miles to the entrance (called the “breakwater”) of the Delaware Bay, relying on the steadfast experience of Roche. Due to the size of the vessel—over 1,100 feet long—second First Class Pilot, Captain Brad Schell, has been assigned to assist in the navigation. Additionally, First Class Pilot Captain Jack Hanley is on board to become more familiar with this larger class of vessel.

Friday, 9:22pm, Delaware Bay

The wheelhouse is dark save for the glow of the instruments and screens, and a single light at the bow of the ship. In the distance, buoys blink green and red. Farther out, the slow blink of a white light signals the Elbow of Cross Ledge lighthouse, and just to its left, a steady red light marks the sector of the Miah Maull Shoal lighthouse. Thirty minutes later, we’ve traveled far enough east that the red light of Miah Maull blinks pink for a moment, and then white, signaling we’ve crossed over past a shoal and it is now safe to make our turn onto the next course line. “Ships have navigated the Delaware Bay for over 100 years using the lighthouses,” says Roche. “Even with today’s high technology navigational devices, it is nice to have these lights to fall back on.”

Our ship approaches a dredging vessel named Paula Lee working near Ship John Shoal lighthouse. It is blocking a large part of the channel, so a temporary buoy with a dim light—important for avoiding the dredge area but impossible to see from a giant craft like ours—is easily obscured by the mountain of containers on the front of the ship. Roche ducks outside to the edge of our ship to manually keep an eye on the buoy while Hanley remains inside “conning” the vessel.  

The big ongoing project here is the deepening of the channel in the Delaware River from 40 to 45 feet, so it can handle ships of this size more frequently. Our journey is dotted with dredges that operate around the clock, removing material from the bottom of the riverbed, loading it onto barges, and depositing it onto sites on shore where it drains before being used for many things, including brick making, soil enrichment for agriculture, and fill material.

“We are really stewards of the estuary,” says Schell, “And we protect it by balancing the needs of the shippers and nature. Every pilot who lives in Cape May or Sussex County is an outdoorsman. We protect where we live.”

Roche agrees. “It’s such a sensitive area. From the migratory birds to the fish in the river, and especially when you’re moving oil or fuel, all it takes is one slip-up or one accident to create a disaster. We take the responsibility very seriously.”

“Some shipping companies don’t appreciate the independent decision making that state pilots possess,” he continues. “Our mission is the safest possible transit for vessels in our area. And as such, we sometimes decide not to move a ship given certain circumstances, such as poor visibility.”

Captain Jonathan Kemmerley, First Class Pilot and current president of the association, adds, “We’re part of a much larger transportation system that has been going on since the country was founded. It goes on 24/7. It’s invisible because there aren’t a lot of problems, and that is because of the pilots, and the Harbor Safety Committee. It’s a success story that doesn’t get told.”

Saturday, 12:10am, The Breakwater in the Delaware Bay

The three pilots have all schooled me for this moment when the Shreya B lowers her gangway and rope ladder down to the small launch boat that will take us to shore. Roche gave me a practical step-by-step tutorial of how to safely navigate the ladder system, while Schell and Hanley both chose—mischievously, perhaps—to regale me with the harrowing tale of a fellow pilot who lost a leg in a mishap on one of these ladders.

Being a pilot has its risks. Schell shares one of his scarier moments. “It was wintertime, and the launch boats did not have heated decks, so they would get a layer of ice on deck. There was a thick layer of ice, heavy winds, and the boat was rocking. I lost my footing and went sliding across the deck, thinking ‘Well, this is it.’ As I was sliding by, wondering if I was going to live or die, I hooked a stanchion with my elbow.” It was a lucky save.

“We rarely go off station, no matter the weather,” says Roche. “So occasionally, you’ll be out there in 15-20 foot waves in a 75-foot pilot launch, and the possibility of flipping is always there.” He shows me a video where he is seated behind the captain in one of the launch boats, bouncing and slamming against 10-foot waves as it approaches a hulking tanker.

Imminent danger is one downside to the pilot lifestyle, but there are others. “The night hours,” Hanley declares. “Most jobs are overnights, so that the ship is at the dock right before breakfast. They employ longshoremen to load and unload during the day, and then sail at night, which means that 80 percent of pilot jobs are night jobs.”

Schell chimes in. “Ships and shipping companies do not care at all about holidays. The standby and uncertainty of when you’re going to work can wreak havoc on relationships.”

The Shreya B’s captain turns the ship to offer us momentary shelter from the wind and the heaving waves, and in the inky blackness of midnight, we descend the rope ladder to the comparatively miniscule launch boat far below. That spirited 20-minute ride to the shore leaves me the second sickest I have been in my entire life.

Saturday, 12:30am, Pilots’ House, Cape Henlopen, Delaware

It’s after midnight when we arrive at the pilot house at Cape Henlopen. Ships reach the breakwater at any time of the night and early morning hours, and pilots usually pass the time here until their follow-up trip to complete a shift, which generally occurs the afternoon following arrival. For a pilot, a typical work week might consist of being on board four ships, but “typical” is atypical, and schedules change constantly to accommodate the needs of arriving and departing vessels. The wintertime is busier, when demand for fruit and other seasonally dependent perishables is high.

Hanley lives close by, so goes home, while Roche, Schell, and I settle into rooms. I’ve generously been given the coveted “Room 14,” which includes an attached private bathroom.

Operated solely for the purpose of providing pilots with a place to eat, sleep, bathe, and relax in between trips, the building has the comfortable vibe of a self-serve, nautical-themed bed and breakfast. The kitchen has two refrigerators and freezers stocked with all manner of food, fresh and frozen, and counters filled with jars of snacks to rival a small supermarket. Four full-time housekeepers take shifts attending to the duties of the pilot house, including keeping the kitchen flush with offerings, changing linens, and cleaning.

Saturday, 9am, Pilots’ House

When I emerge from the nearly soundless cocoon of Room 14 in the morning, Captain Rob Cook is just arriving from his overnight trip. A First Class Pilot with the Association since 1989, Cook is active in maritime recruitment and mentoring. In 1994, he and five fellow SUNY Maritime College graduates established the Organization of Black Maritime Graduates, a foundation that awards scholarships to African American and minority students at SUNY Maritime. “African Americans have a rich history in maritime,” Cook tells me. “I encourage kids to see that there’s a legacy here, and that they do belong here.”

He is also working on a screenplay about Robert Smalls, a former slave who in 1862 commandeered the USS Planter from the Charleston Harbor and delivered it to the Union blockade, securing his freedom from slavery. “He ended up in the House of Representatives,” Cook says. “We love our heroes.  It’s a great American story.” Smalls has a Cape May connection as well: He was the great uncle of Dolly Nash. The Cape Winds Motel on Lafayette Street was originally owned by Dolly and her husband, John, and named The Planter. [Editor’s note: see our June issue for more on African American hotels in Cape May’s history.]

Even after almost three decades as a pilot, being on the ship is still Cook’s favorite part of the job. “You’re on the largest piece of moving equipment on the face of the earth. Not knowing what’s going to happen each time—you might get a piece of junk that’s underpowered, and you have to deal with that.”

Schell concurs. “Stepping on the first one by yourself is the coolest thing. We boarded at midnight in thick fog, and we were bringing bananas from Cape Henlopen to Penn Terminal in Chester, Pennsylvania. I was scared to death, in the thick fog, without anybody to turn to. It was a great sense
of accomplishment.”

“You hop on this ship, and it’s yours,” Kemmerley adds, “the good and the bad, and also the satisfaction of doing the job right.”

Roche also finds the scale of the work fascinating. “These vessels arrive from the other side of the world with millions of dollars’ worth of cargo, and you have to get it up the river safely, and interact with other vessels doing the same thing,” he says. “We’re here in the interest of the entire system.” The Delaware River serves ports in New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, and everyone’s interests have to be served. “We are facilitating commerce, which is the backbone of the United States economy. And we are very proud of the role that we play in this regard. Small or large, light ship or deep ship, job satisfaction is getting called to work, doing a difficult job, and delivering it.”

Roche recalls one of his more difficult jobs, last winter’s delivery of two gigantic construction cranes from China to the Packer Avenue terminal in Philadelphia on a ship he piloted along with fellow First Class Pilot Captain Dan MacElrevey. The cranes sat so tall on the deck that they would barely clear the bridges, requiring the ship to take in ballast water to lower it far enough in the river so they would fit.  The pilots knew that the height of the Delaware Memorial Bridge theoretically fluctuates up to four feet, depending on whether there are vehicles on it or not, and that in the summer, the higher temperatures make the middle of the bridge sag. “Being in the winter months, and with all traffic stopped, we knew the bridge should be higher,” Roche recounts. “We had an air gap reading, we had a low tide, and we knew that the ship was sitting low in the water.”

The delivery was successful, and today the two blue cranes sit side by side, framing the skyline at Packer Avenue, able to load and unload cargo from even the farthest reaches of the tallest and widest ships in existence.

Job satisfaction extends to more than just the ship and its cargo, though. “I’m from Sussex County, a farm boy. As a younger man, it was fascinating to experience other cultures,” Brad Schell says. “I love kimchi now, which I learned from the Korean crews.”

“I thought I would just be doing my job, but the job really opened my eyes.” Rob Cook adds, “You get to meet people of different nationalities, and welcome them to the States.”

Saturday, 10:30am, Pilot Tower, Cape Henlopen

“We have the best view in southern Delaware,” proclaims Captain Drew Hodgens, First Class Pilot and member of the board of directors for the Pilots’ Association. He’s pointing out across the Delaware Bay from where we are standing here in the vessel traffic office, high atop the old concrete World War II watchtower in Cape Henlopen State Park. “Last hurricane, the eye passed right over here. We have encountered 60 to 70 mph winds.” Today, Hodgens is not working on the river, instead filling in as a vessel traffic watchstander over the Delaware Bay approaches, where it is his job to keep an eye on the ships approaching the bay entrance and exiting the bay after the pilot departs. He can give the ships instructions to ensure a safe passage through congested traffic areas and arrange for the timely dispatch of their pilot.

In 1945, this tower was leased by the Maritime Exchange; the Pilots’ Association moved into the shared space in the 1970s. Perfectly positioned to see both the ocean and the bay, a windowed structure was mounted on top and the beginnings of modern equipment installed, which at the time consisted of radios and radar. Prior to the tower, a pilot boat served the entrance of the bay as both the station and for transportation duties.

Technological advances over the years have made navigation much safer. Not only does the tower operation use the most comprehensive equipment, but today pilots carry their own pinpoint navigational devices called “portable pilot units.” The size of a laptop computer, they use a combination of Global Positioning Satellites (GPS) and specialized software. Captain Kemmerley notes, “That’s not Google Maps on those laptops—that’s bespoke technology. There are only a handful of companies that design those programs, and as pilots, we always have to be at the forefront. As ships gets bigger, channels get dredged deeper. The bigger they get, the more accurate information you need. The current technology provides accuracy of less than one meter, and when you are dealing with ships that are over 1,000 feet long, precision is paramount.”

The Pilots’ Association for the Bay and River Delaware has a special connection to this technology, and takes great pride in the role it played in its evolution. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, now-retired Association Pilot Joe Bradley pioneered the development of a system that is now used in some form around the world.

Kemmerley adds, “Although we’re in competition with other ports in our geographical area, all of the state pilot organizations work together to provide the safest possible standards and systems for our waterways. Our proximity to the Marcellus Shale natural gas deposits, for example, has created the opportunity for exports of this resource. As the economy grows and cargo volumes increase, the Pilots’ Association will respond.  Our port system encompasses three states and over two dozen terminals.”

Saturday, 11:15am, downtown Lewes, Delaware

Next to the canal in Lewes sits a green Victorian house with white trim, originally built by John Penrose Virden, and today is a charming bed and a breakfast run by Ruth and Jim Edwards. Virden’s name pops up in myriad places—stenciled on the hull of one of the Association’s launch vessels to the artwork hanging throughout the pilot house.

“The first guides on the Delaware River were the Native Americans,” explains Roche. “When the settlers arrived in this area, they hired them as guides to show them through the deep water up the bay and river.” The local fishermen then became pilots themselves, making their homes in Cape May and Lewes.

The occupation was handed down through the generations like many family businesses, with some families working together to build their own vessels. “To engage in the act of piloting,” states Roche, “you needed a boat to go out and look for ships that needed guidance.”

As trade expanded, demand for pilots increased, and in 1896, all the informal pilot groups in the area came together under Captain Virden’s leadership to form the association that exists today, with Virden elected as the first president. He was instrumental in changing the culture of pilot life from competitive to collaborative, as pilots now worked together in an organized manner to service ships in need of guidance, rather than racing each other to be the first pilot out to a ship in order to get the job. Virden is also credited with innovations such as the introduction of steam-powered vessels to replace the sailing vessels used up until that time.

Saturday, 4pm, Pilots’ House

The phone jangles next to the bed in Room 14 where I’m napping. It’s Captain Hodgens calling from the pilot tower, and he’s got a ship for us: The Rickmers Seoul needs us aboard at 5pm. Roche and I pack a midnight snack and get ready to board the launch boat. I’m feeling impervious to the seasickness that overwhelmed me last night, thinking I was on my way to becoming a real seafarer.

5pm Saturday, The Breakwater in the Delaware Bay

We climb the long rope ladder to the deck of the Rickmers Seoul, a green-hulled general cargo ship headed to Tioga Port in North Philly. Yesterday morning, this ship was one of the tiny triangles we saw anchored in the bay on Hodgens’ chart in the pilot tower.

I am so seasick when I stumble onto the bridge that I can’t even introduce myself to the captain and crew. Instead, I strip off my jacket and sweater and stand under a vent fan that is blowing gloriously cool air, my body temperature having somehow jumped to about 1,000 degrees in those last ten minutes on the launch boat. I apparently look so bad that Roche makes me sit down on a couch. The mate hands me a bottle of water, leaving me to wonder whether they will bury me at sea should I die from seasickness.

Two giant cranes, their surfaces pockmarked from the elements, loom over stacks of containers and sections of polyethylene pipe 10 feet in diameter. With its onboard cranes, configurable cargo hold, and shallower draft, the Seoul can visit more ports than an ultra-large container ship like the Shreya B.

At 7:46pm, we’re heading into the mouth of the Delaware Bay, where a pink sunset lights up the horizon dotted with the leading lights in front of us. Soon it will be dark.

Saturday, 11pm, Port of Philadelphia

Tourist boat The Spirit of Philadelphia scuttles by far below us. Ahead, the Walt Whitman Bridge, lit blue for the recent Villanova University win, looms larger and larger. In the crisp air outside the wheelhouse, I reach up as we pass silently underneath the bridge, the undergirding so close it seems I should be able to touch it. On this ship, on this night, it is easy to feel simultaneously powerful and insignificant, in a universal moment experienced by all pilots who have traversed this waterway.

“My father did it, and I followed in his footsteps out of high school,” recalls Captain Schell. He attended Maine Maritime Academy and worked on tankers on the west coast for a small company for a couple of years, traveling from Long Beach up to Anacordes, Washington, before returning here to the Delaware.

In high school, Captain Kemmerley seemed destined for Villanova University, where his mother both taught and worked in facilities management, but something about the decision just didn’t feel right. “The only real direction I had was that I wanted to travel, or thought that I was supposed to want to.” A junior high school trip to Ireland had put the idea in his head, and eventually he landed an appointment to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at King’s Point.

And he lucked out again. When he graduated in 1995, a large group of pilots was retiring, and the president of the Association thought Kemmerley had the right stuff for the job and encouraged him to apply. “In most parts of the world you start later in life, after you’ve done something else,” he explains. “In my case, opportunity came early and I was tremendously fortunate.”

Passing the mysteries of piloting down through the generations is essential to the success of any pilot organization. “When an individual is brought in as an apprentice pilot,” says Roche, “he or she is exposed to the experiences of the entire membership.”

One of Roche’s most meaningful lessons comes from Captain Ed Taylor, now deceased, who more than 25 years ago took the apprentice Roche under his wing and mentored him. Taylor’s father had taught him to navigate by the “leading lights,” which are lights placed at the end of the channel in the river that allow pilots to reference their position to the middle of the river channel, thereby avoiding the treacherous shoals. “Taylor’s opinion was that you could not depend on buoys, because the ice in the winters could move them around,” Roche recalls, “and you also could not depend on electronic navigation because the power could go off. There was nothing more accurate than taking your position from a land-based channel light.”

Taylor’s logic made perfect sense, but since half of the channel-marking leading lights faced inbound and the rest faced the outbound courses, Taylor had an extra challenge for his new apprentice. He wanted Roche to navigate by using the lights that were not just in front of the ship, but also base his navigation on the lights that were behind the ship.

Apprentice Roche was incredulous. “I said, ‘you want me to navigate the ship while looking behind me?’ How am I supposed to make the captain feel like I know what I’m doing if I’m standing there looking out towards the stern of the ship?!”

But he practiced, lining up the stern with the range lights, over and over, until he got good at it. “It led to bragging rights and new confidence,” Roche remembers. “Other pilots would make me demonstrate it and were impressed when I could do it. And it was all because Ed Taylor’s dad had taught him how to do it, and so he passed it down to me.”

Sunday, 1:01am, Tioga Marine Terminal, North Philadelphia

Just after one o’clock in the morning, a tugboat finishes nudging the Seoul against the dock, and Roche and I descend the gangway, our duties complete. 

Unlike many jobs, there is no follow up, no checking in afterwards. “There’s nothing to take home,” says Kemmerley. “I don’t have to check email. I just go home.”

“It’s one of the things I love about the job,” Roche agrees. “Once you step off the ship, your job is done. You don’t have to take it home with you.”

As we climb into the shuttle for the ride back to our cars, Captain Roche waxes nostalgic about overnight trips where the sun sets over the Delaware Bay. “I think about all the old-time boats that came up this way, back when there were no markers out here. They would have to navigate by the lighthouses with the white and red sector areas. They’d see the lighthouse, and say ‘Alright, we’re home free now.’”

In her 2014 book Ninety Percent of Everything, British journalist Rose George writes about her journey aboard a container ship to discover the inner workings of the shipping industry, reflecting that today, “we travel by cheap flights, not ocean liners. The sea is a distance to be flown over, a downward backdrop between takeoff and landing, a blue expanse that soothes on the moving flight map as the plane jerks over it. It is for leisure and beaches and fish and chips, not for use or work. Perhaps we believe that everything travels by air, or magically and instantaneously like information, not by hefty ships that travel more slowly than senior citizens drive.”

As consumers, we rest our unwitting trust on a system that delivers our bananas, our coffee, and nearly every product that occupies the span from birth to death, on vessels larger than the limits of our imagination that slip up and down the Delaware River, invisible in the cloak of darkness.  

As a pilot, you rest when you can, waiting for the inevitable call that summons you to service, once again, on the quest for someone’s distant horizon.