This thread might have the name of the company Pilotage Trip Verification
I don’t recall sketching charts as difficult so much as tedious. Same an any task that requires memorization. Of course being tedious makes it difficult as you have to stay at it for long periods of time.
Here is part of Stephens Passage chart 17300. It is difficult for me to do a neat drawing.
I use an outfit “Alphagraphics” in Lynnwood, WA. Same type of deal - engineering blue prints. About $50 for lets say 6 chartlets and 4 copies of each. Get a disk copy too.
I’ve started down this same path, and have had a heck of a time trying to commit everything to memory for ups and overs. Buoy characteristics usually follow some logical pattern, and I’ve found small details on the chart I can use to aid in positioning wrecks and obstructions, for instance, to reduce the need to memorize a bunch of numbers.
Based on where other things are located on the chart (lines crossing, corner of an anchorage, etc), I’ve also been able to pretty accurately estimate where something needs to be.
However, I’m having a hell of a time with the contour lines! If I used the same methods I’ve used for the rest of the chart, I’d be doubling what I need to learn / memorize based on up/over, and that does not include depths (which I should be able to interpolate based on the area I’m studying). For the most part, there aren’t many other reference points to base estimates on.
What tips does everyone have, or what methods have people used, to memorize all the irregular contour lines besides using up/over, or range and bearing, to locate key points along the contour lines?
For everyone else who might come to this thread looking for info, and to address part of the OPs question here’s what’s worked for me.
I took pilotage tests back in the 80’s and was a pilot for 30 years. Reading over this topic reminded me how absolutely worthless the exercise of drawing a chart at the level of accuracy required to pass actually is. That extends to 95% of the accompanying exam. I was asked how high the highest highline is at a crossing. You read that right… the highest. What is a pilot going to do? Jump a tanker over the damn thing? It’s like deciding who the next shortstop for the Yankees will be by giving a test on obscure baseball rules and drawing a map of a baseball field where you can fail by drawing the dugout too far from the 1st base line.
A sketch is what used to be specified and is more than enough. It’s good to know the inbound and outbound courses in order and the buoys marking turns. A rough idea of how far each reach is between turns is good. Location of docks and their names, of course (although here the exam only gave a passing mark if the candidate labeled them with the original name on a chart printed 20 years earlier - the fact that the terminal had been bought and sold several times since then and was now known by a different name was not acceptable.)
I’m not sure any written test for pilot can be designed. How do they do pilot exams in Australia and the UK? Is it any better?
I know this wasn’t helpful. I just found a starting point and memorized angles and inches.
I agree (I’m in the U.S.). I’m an Unlimited Tonnage Master who’s been going to sea for over 20 years. When I was discussing the standards with the examiner at the REC, I remarked that the accuracy needed for the test seems to require the material to be studied and learned in a way that does not make it useful in the real world.
The way you pass the test is to memorize the chart, but the methods needed for memorization at the desired accuracy level make this an exercise in reproducing the chart, not in demonstrating a useful working knowledge of the harbor for piloting duties.
Ups / Overs are useless except for reproducing the chart, and you don’t step aboard a ship and need to reproduce a chart. You step aboard needing to know channel headings, controlling depths, pier headings, pier names, buoy characteristics, turning bearings, etc. I get “drawing the chart from memory” is supposed to demonstrate this knowledge, but we’ve pushed the standard so high it’s overcome the underlying intention of its purpose in the first place, as people have had to adapt.
I would suggest a more useful evaluation would be a “sketch” of the harbor where everything is in relation to each other, but not necessarily to scale. Or a chart with the areas, anchorages, channels, etc already there, but you have to fill in all the information, such as the items I mentioned above (channel headings, project depths, etc). I’d also think it should include all ATON characteristics filled in, courses, distances, pier names, lengths, and headings, a general idea of controlling depths (as opposed to “depths every inch”). After the chart sketch, there should be an oral board where you’re grilled on your working knowledge of the harbor, local procedures, frequencies, etc that one would employ in the job of piloting a vessel. While this would make the test more subjective and time-consuming, it would also provide a much better assessment of someone’s actual ability to pilot a vessel.
That was the method employed by the examiners here in NZ . The chart is blank with buoys in position. The candidate is required to populate the chart with all the information including depth contours, light characteristics and arcs, names of features and conspicuous objects. Once finished the examiner requires the candidate to show tidal streams and sets.
The test on the harbour bylaws is a seperate test. Other requirements include having to use tugs during your practical evaluations consisting of 6 entrances and departures, half of which must be at night.
Just keep drawing, that worked for me. The more you draw the more patterns you’ll start to see with associated land marks or other shore contours. It took me a year to memorize the harbor and drawing every day…
