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Midnight Heroes

Their name may conjure up clever guides helping tourists find their way around the San Francisco bar scene during cocktail hour, but the work the San Francisco Bar Pilots do is of an even riskier nature: they work around the clock, guiding the 9,000-some ships that enter the Bay each year safely to their destinations.

Only 25% of the Bay is actually navigable, says Captain Stephen MacLachlan, one of the pilots. With 62 pilots on staff, half on-call at any given time, the Bar Pilots' mission is to keep ships away from sand bars (including the immense bar stretching from Pacifica to Marin just outside the Golden Gate), from running aground and spilling oil, or from running into bridges, docks or any of the Bay's many other man-made obstacles.

From a boat stationed 11.5 miles outside the Golden Gate Bridge, the on-call pilot leaps aboard the incoming vessel-tanker, container ship, bulker, large private yacht, or any ship sailing under a foreign flag or weighing over 300 gross tons-and guides it into and around the Estuary, sometimes as far upstream as Sacramento. A "medium-traffic" day might include escorting nine ships into port and as many as 13 out to sea, says MacLachlan. (A pilot sometimes rides one ship in and takes another back out to the station.) Pilots must be familiar with nine different "pilotage" areas in the Bay, receiving a pilotage license only after completing 30 safe roundtrips to each area. San Francisco Bar Pilots must also be skilled at navigating rivers: San Francisco Bay is the only U.S. port that requires pilots to have the skills to navigate bars, the Bay and rivers, and is considered one of the most dangerous pilotage areas in the country.

The job, says MacLachlan, is stressful but fun-most of the time. "When it's storming in the winter and you've got 60-70 knot-winds from the south with 20-foot swells and you have to board a vessel, you think about people in their homes, listening to the trees tap on the window," he laughs.

Despite the hazards, the Bar Pilots are devoted to their work. Although they are paid by the shipping companies (which are legally required to use pilots), most of the pilots, says MacLachlan, see their duty "not so much as protecting the ships but more as protecting the Bay." Contact: SF Bar Pilots (415)362-5436 LOV

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