TAMPA, Fla. — A close call at Port Tampa Bay and some quick thinking by a harbor pilot stopped a cargo ship from crashing into a dock.
The Tyndall is one of the largest ships that comes into the port, nearly a thousand feet long and 100,000 tons when full. A crash could've taken out cranes, hit another ship, and injured workers on the dock.
Ken Sears has been a harbor pilot for six years and says the engines failed on the ship as he was guiding it to the dock. He had just minutes to come up with a plan and was only a few hundred feet from the dock but says it's all in a day’s work.
“Initially, seconds counted,” he says. “The ship was still moving ahead. In the very early stages, it was important that I responded, recognized the situation, and responded immediately.”
He quickly recruited two tugboats nearby to help slow the ship down.
“The tugboat backing alongside gradually reduced the speed,” he says. “These tugboats are very powerful, but compared to the size of the ship, it still takes a very long time, and you're going to advance several hundred feet before it finally comes to a complete stop.”
It's the pilot, not a ship's captain, who guides cargo and cruise ships into ports of call.
They say the engines go out on the ships they control a few times a year; that's what happened in March when a ship crashed into a bridge in Baltimore, killing six road workers. Even when going slow, ships can destroy cranes used to load and unload containers.
“We board vessels 10 to 13 miles offshore Tampa Bay,” says fellow harbor pilot Brett Baker. “We are the local experts to bring ships in and out of Tampa Bay. There's 21 of us. Without us, these ships basically are not going to safely transit to or from the ports here in Tampa Bay.
For Sears, he's just happy the brief scare ended as smooth sailing.
“I’d like to think that I did a good job today. I was dealt a challenging hand. I responded, I feel appropriately, and I was happy with the end result.”