Capt. Jeffrey McAllister discusses his plans for undocking with officers of the the guided missile cruiser USS Vella Gulf (CG 72) on her day of departure, May 27.
Docking pilot Paul Frank talks to tug Ellen McAllister from the bridge of HMCS St.John's, while Capt. Brian Costello keeps an intent watch on things as his ship pulls away from Stapleton.
a two-line makeup from each tug, one on the bow, one on the stern, giving us side-to-side and fore-and-aft motion. If I wanted to move the ship three feet to the side, we could do it." The deployment of tugs, the development of maneuvers, the preparation for the forces of physics, is what docking pilots are about. Yet their vital services are little known outside the maritime industry. During Fleet Week, the unique skills of the working mariner stand in considerable relief, so many of them being placed on exhibit in one long day. Relatively few motorized tools count their bodily mass among their operational resources. Bulldozers do. Certain kinds of excavators, maybe, and army tanks sometimes. And tugboats. Unlike the others, the tugboat's connection to the planet is itself in motion, sometimes in two directions or more. It's that much more to keep track of
amid the physics of which bitt to use, how fast to approach, when to reverse, how to angle the tug, all considerations that benefit from a continually open mind. It's not the kind of thing expressed well by books. The mariner steps from the dock to the piling to the bitt to the caprail, finally to the deck, like he's crossing a ballroom floor. "Most of these captains are 'the old man' for only about 18 months," said Capt. Paul Frank, McAllister docking pilot, "and that's not a lot of sea time." The crew of a tug spends 100 percent of its working time involved with the nature of water, but to those who don't, a lot of their reasoning must seem obscure. Adds pilot Steve Brown, "if there's an incident, the military captain could watch his career disappear in an instant." Especially when the cameras are rolling for Fleet Week.
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