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Bridgewing Professionals Senior pilot Jim Naughton is well known in New York After 34 years as a docking pilot, Capt. Jim Naughton seems to know just about everyone on the New York waterfront. He greets stevedore supervisors and ship captains with equal affability. And after almost 40 years affiliated with MORAN, his name is known to almost everyone at the company. Naughton's strong connections to the maritime world are probably what he will miss most as he moves towards a new life of retirement sometime in the next year or so. Meanwhile he enjoys being the senior pilot at Metropilots, the organization of docking pilots to which he belongs. "I still enjoy coming to work after all these years," he said. "Every ship presents something of a challenge, and I meet old friends almost everywhere, including many of the ship captains. Believe me, after 37 years in this port I know a lot of people."  Naughton worked on a half dozen different MORAN tugs before he became an independent, full-time pilot. He began his career as a deckhand on the Diana Moran in 1967 and, two years later, got his first 'steering' position, soon BRIDGEWING PROFESSIONALS becoming mate and captain and earning the licenses to go with those positions. "Almost the same day I got here I knew I wanted to be a pilot," he said. "To me, that seemed the only way to go. It seemed more prestigious and there was more money to be made and the work was more interesting." Naughton began working as an apprentice pilot in 1972. In the long history of the Port of New York/New Jersey, as long as there have been tugboats, there have been docking pilots. With hired tugs pushing and pulling on ships, someone had to be on the ship's bridge who was familiar with the tugs and their crews and who knew how best to use them for close-in maneuvers at local piers and slips. In the beginning the docking pilot was often a senior tugboat skipper working a ship-assist job. In those years, the tug skipper would leave the tug in the hands of his mate as he climbed up the side of an arriving or departing ship to take charge of its dockside maneuvers. A separate deepwater pilot typically takes the ship out to sea, or meets an arriving ship outside of the harbor entrance. Today's docking pilots no longer wear two hats as tug captain and pilot. Rather, they are full-time pilots who are either appointed by the state or are members of independent pilot organizations that customarily work with particular tug companies. Still, most docking pilots get their earliest training as tugboat skippers. Tim Nilsen, for example, who became the youngest pilot in the Metropilots organization in November, 2005, is a former captain of the tug Brendan Turecamo from MORAN's New York fleet.  As an apprentice, Nilsen works a schedule that, at first, is limited to size of ship, draft or location. When he began as a pilot he had already done hundreds of pilot jobs, riding with experienced Metropilot veterans like Capt. Naughton. "Tim already has a number of years in the industry, and then he started riding with us," said Naughton. "There a lot to learn, and a lot of it is easier to learn when you can ask questions of a colleague. Among other things, you’ve got to learn the master/pilot relationship and how to use the tugs in different situations. You’ve got to know your people on the tugs, know how best to use each skipper’s abilities. You’ve got to develop a feeling for which tug performs best in which situation." Read Page Two Of Story |
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50 Locust Avenue | New Canaan, CT 06840-4737 USA | Tel: 203.442.2800 |
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