by Jim Haynes
One such was William Rockett, who decided to run boxing tournaments as a sideline. On attempting to ferry spectators to Mud Island in the middle of the Bay, foul winds forced him to deposit the poor souls at a beach in Dromana. Mr Rockett was suspended for six months for his indiscretions.
Another story tells of a pilot crew who had run ‘clean out of grog and tobacco’, and took it upon themselves to dress a member of their number as a pilot captain. Offering their services to an unsuspecting Dutch merchant vessel, they piloted the ship safely through the Heads. So relieved was the captain that when the crew asked him to sell them ‘a case of gin and about 10 lb of tobacco’, he would accept no payment and happily gave the men what they wanted, even doubling the tobacco amount.
Fanning was nonetheless appreciative of the bravery and skill of the port’s pilots:
To criticise before a good coal fire, and in a well carpeted room on a winter’s night is one thing, but to be lowered down in a small boat in a gale of wind, amid the howling and seething sea, momentarily expecting to be dashed to pieces, is quite another aspect of affairs.
Piloting was certainly a risky career. As each incoming vessel approached the Heads, no matter what the time or conditions, the pilot ship sailed near to the new arrival, and lowered a boat with pilot and crew aboard to row alongside. A rope ladder would be lowered from the vessel, and the pilot would need to leap onto it from the boat, judging the swell and the movement of both the rowboat and the ship. In rough seas and at night, this was extremely dangerous.
The two pilot ships (from 1887, three) took eleven-day shifts working inside and outside the Heads. On 16 July 1873, the pilot schooner Rip was sailing out into a powerful gale to begin an ‘outside’ shift when, according to the report in The Argus, ‘a huge line of breakers appeared on her weather beam, which laid her on her broadside, carrying away the mainmast, and making a clean sweep of everything on deck’. Pilot Mackenzie and three crew were lost as the Rip floundered in the foul conditions.
The Australasian Sketcher reported the tragedy on August 1873:
She was standing out through the broken water at the entrance to Port Phillip Heads, heavy seas continually breaking on board, when, in attempting to wear, she was struck by a huge wave like a wall of water, and thrown on her beam ends, her mainmast going by the board at the same time. The mate, Mr Loiseau, had his arm broken, and the steward, John Wells, had his leg torn open from the thigh to the ankle, the others all receiving injuries to a greater or less degree. They had not, however, much time to think of their sufferings, for almost immediately, several seas broke on board in succession, and Pilot McKenzie, Wells, the steward, and Classon, the cook, were swept away. Marr, who was clinging on to the wreck of the mast, motioned his comrades on board to cut it adrift, in order to save the vessel, although their action in so doing would have taken away his last chance of escape. He then nodded to them calmly when they bade him ‘good-bye’. Surely there was something of the hero in this man.
Miraculously the ship drifted through the Heads and was salvaged. The next year another pilot ship, the cutter Corsair, was wrecked at the same spot, this time with no loss of life.
The years between 1887 and 1892 proved to be a testing time for the service, with eight wrecks near the Heads, including the SS Cheviot, which sank, claiming the lives of 35 passengers and crew. Not only did pilots have the dangers and responsibilities that came with the job, they also had to face official inquiries and public criticism when things went wrong.
In 1901, the service acquired its first steam-powered ship, the Victoria, marking the beginning of the end of the age of sail for Port Phillip pilots. By 1903, when the second steamer, the Alvina, was purchased, the separate pilot companies had finally been amalgamated into one organisation.
Even with the improved quality of ships at their disposal, mishaps and catastrophes still plagued the waters of the Bay. In 1904, the P&O liner Australia, under the control of a pilot, struck Corsair Rock, tearing a sizeable portion out of the ship’s bottom. Although no lives were lost, the reputation of the bay’s pilots took a battering.
The outbreak of World War I heightened the need for tight security in the Bay. In response to the threat of German raiders attacking Australian ports, the pilots were commissioned as lieutenants in the Naval Reserve, and undertook patrols and naval control duties for the duration of the war.
Today the pilots operate in fast, powerful launches, and tragedies at sea are mercifully rare, although piloting is still a risky business. In 1991, the launch George Tobin was overwhelmed by an enormous swell on the return trip to Queenscliff after escorting a ship out to sea. Three men were lost, and the launch sank near Mud Island.
The Port Phillip Sea Pilots continue a tradition of more than 150 years, providing the skill and knowledge of this particularly tricky port entrance to safeguard the shipping that has been so essential to the growth of Melbourne and Victoria.
‘Sea Fear’
Charles Souter
I can’t go down to the sea again
For I am old and ailing;
My ears are deaf to the mermaid’s call,
And my stiff limbs are failing.
The white sails and the tall masts
Are no longer to be seen
On the dainty clipper ships that sailed
For Hull, and Aberdeen!
I can’t go down to the sea again:
My eyes are weak and bleared,
And they search again for the gallant poop
Where once I stood and steered.
There’s nought but wire and boiler-plate
To meet my wand’ring gaze.
Never a sign of the graceful spars
Of the good old sailing days!
So I will sit in the little room
That all old sailors know,
And smoke, and sing, and yarn about
The ships of long ago,
‘The Flying Cloud’, ‘The Cutty Sark’,
‘The Hotspur’ and ‘The Dart’ . . .
But I won’t go down to the sea again,
For fear it breaks my heart!