Local port pilots essential to safety, Georgia port officials say

SAVANNAH, Ga. — The Georgia Ports Authority says it has extensive safety measures in place to prevent disasters like the one that happened in Baltimore.

Channel 2′s Bryan Mims traveled to Savannah, where he spoke with the authority’s chief communications officer, Tom Boyd, who described the delicate process of safely guiding ships into port and back out to sea.

Every container ship that passes beneath the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge has a local pilot on board.

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This is someone who knows the waterways – their obstacles, their currents and their nuances.

The pilot is indispensable in safely leading ships into port and back out to sea, Boyd said.

But cargo ships are getting bigger, and the state plans to lift the suspension bridge 20 feet.

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“Right now, what we do with our vessels – if they’re very high – they will go out at a certain tide level to make sure there’s no air draft issues with the Talmadge Bridge,” Boyd said.

“If there’s a new vessel coming in, we want to have that vessel come in during daylight hours. We want to see how it handles,” he said.

The local pilots are highly trained mariners who guide the massive ships in and out of port. A pilot team meets the ship about 20 miles off the coast, where the pilot gets on board and joins the ship’s captain. The pilot then navigates the vessel into port, where it’s accompanied by tug boats.

“Our pilots and tugboat captains are working together, so there’s always two to three tug boats with every vessel that’s coming in and out of port,” Boyd said.

The pilots associations in Savannah and Brunswick declined interviews. But Boyd says the pilots’ knowledge of channels and tidal flows is essential to safe navigation.

“And so we’re quite proud of our pilots here in Savannah and in Brunswick. They have a great safety record. They have a lot of training that goes on,” he said.

As for raising the Talmadge Bridge, it would involve shortening the massive cables and lifting the center span by 20 feet. Work is expected to begin next year. But the Georgia Department of Transportation has a long-range plan to eventually replace the bridge with a higher span or a tunnel.

“Raising the bridge is just keeping pace with the larger-size vessels that are entering the global trade,” Boyd said.

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