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THE
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF
CAPT. STEPHEN B. HANKS,
SOME SECRETS OF THE PILOTS PROFESSION
Meantime I went on the flora, a stern
wheeler engaged in freighting for a couple of weeks or so
until the Itasca was repaired an I then returned to my regular
berth.
One other incident to illustrate a
peculiar feature of night work that fell to the lot of the
pilot. It was now late in the fall and the nights were long
and often very dark. A bad bar developed a couple of miles
above where we were snagged and a few trips after that
accident we were going down stream with my partner on the
watch after supper. It was dark before we reached the bar in
question and he landed and prepared to go down in a yawl and
stake out a channel. This was done by sounding the depth of
water with a pole and after finding the deepest water a stake
would be driven at the proper place and a lighted lantern
fastened to it, several stakes and lanterns being used
generally. The stakes were usually set in place where turns
were to be made and not in the deepest water. When the
channel was thus marked the boat was run over it, and
generally successfully, the lanterns of course being lost.
Right here wish to call attention to
the different aspect of the river from the pilot house,
generally some thirty feet above the water and from the yawl
close to the water’s edge. The appearance of the river itself
and all the marks by which a pilot knows the channel are very
different and are frequently confusing. There is also a
radical difference in all of these marks at night from the
daytime all of which is confusing and trying to the senses and
nerves of the pilot.
Now, my partner, West, had a lot
of conceit as to his ability in our profession and was quite
free to boast of his experience. On the night in question I
was in bed during the first watch but was conscious that the
boat was not running and when midnight came I was called for m
watch from that time until four o’clock. On getting up I
found him onboard and when I asked why he was not finding the
channel he said he had been down two or three hours working at
it but
Incident to illustrate I do not mean to
assert my superiority as to personal capacity but feel that my
training gave me a great advantage over nearly all the pilots
of that day. It will be remembered that in my early river
career my piloting was done on rafts which kept me close to
the water and I had learned the river most thoroughly from
that position and had learned not only to read it on the
surface but underneath as ell and all this knowledge was
acquired at a period in live when the mind and memory are most
easily and fully impressed and all this had become so
thoroughly a part of myself that it was like instinct in
animal and my actions were governed many times by an intuition
that has remained with me thru all my river life and this
should be considered when examining my claim to more than
ordinary skill a as a pilot.
Note:_ The rafting days of Capt. Hanks,
up to this time, were before there was any attempt to run
rafts with steamboats. The rafts floated down stream and the
crews, including the pilot, returned on a steamer.
Consequently the raft pilot at that time was obliged to know
the river only one way and, as there was no night running of
rafts at that time, only by daylight. Even the uninitiated
will understand that the requirements of a raft pilot at that
time were not as many as those of a steamboat pilot. Later
when rafts were run by boats and the boats brought back the
crews and right running of rafts became popular the
requirements of the two classes of pilots were very similar.
There was always however, a distinctive difference in that the
steamboat pilot had to hunt a channel that would accommodate a
boat, and some times a tow of barges, that rarely exceeded 80
by 300 feet; by the raft pilot must find water that would
float a raft say 200 feet wide and sometimes more than 1000
feet long.
The first rafts to be run by boats
were, of course, handled by floating pilots and many of them
had little or no experience with a steamboat. The boat took
the place of stern crew and for a time was merely considered
as such. She was hitched in at the center of the stern of the
raft; a line from a cabil near her stern on each side was run
to the corner of the raft on that size, passed thru a snatch
block and then passed to crabs or spools windlasses, which
were handled by one or two. |
