Presently a small boat came alongside near the boarding ladder that had been let down to receive the pilot. The ship was heavily loaded and was low in the water - she was taking seas across her bow as she buried her nose in the oncoming sea and then rose again. The small pilot boat was sometimes way down near the bottom of the ship, and then just as quickly lifted on a rising wave to actually be level with the deck of the ship. Timing is everything, they say, and Captain Thompson waited for just the right combination of position and wave height, judged it to be just so, and stepped directly on deck without using the ladder at all. I didn't come out here to read a magazine - let's go,' Captain Thompson assured the ship's Captain.
Ships coming into port never come in solely under the direction of the ship's Captain.
River bottoms and channels change all the time, and no matter how fresh charts are, there is no knowledge like local knowledge, and ships always use river pilots to guide the way across the bar, through the river channels, and safely to dockside. Often done at night, during stormy weather, in flood, and with navigation aids like range lights that may or may not be working, the pilot has complete and total responsibility for the safekeeping of the vessel during this phase of the passage. Captain Thompson joined the Cape Fear Pilot's Association as an apprentice in 1931, after completing his first year at Duke University. His father was a ship's engineer, and both his grandfathers had been river pilots on blockade runners. In the early days, pilot boats were sailing schooners.