January 26, 2020
Maritime transport: headwind for river pilots
Published on January 26, 2020 at 5:00 a.m.
Text: Philippe Teisceira-Lessard, La Presse
Photos: Davide Boily, La Presse
(St. Lawrence River) Summer and winter, the St. Lawrence pilots take over from captains of all nationalities in order to limit the risks of shipwrecks in the river. But these specialists are currently overworked and are reducing their rest time because there is a shortage of replacements. Come aboard with them.
Overworked pilots, pilots wanted
Gilles Giroux gives his orders in a soft and even tone as the immense Federal Oshima pulls away from the Sorel quay.
"Twenty degrees to starboard. Engine ahead very slowly." The indication is repeated loudly by Captain Rajat Roychowdhury, then repeated once more by the sailor at the helm, to confirm that the message has been received. Heading for Norway, via Quebec, with 26,000 tons of metal on board.
Mr. Giroux has been a pilot on the St. Lawrence for about forty years, between Montreal and Trois-Rivières. Since the 19th century, captains have been required to take these river experts on board their ships in order to limit the risk of shipwrecks.
Mr. Giroux's career as a pilot is coming to an end. In early retirement, he has reduced his work hours. This did not prevent his corporation from interrupting his rest time so that he could pilot the Federal Oshima from Sorel to Trois-Rivières that night.
"They were short of pilots so they asked me," he told La Presse. "The workload is too great right now. The workload should be 140 boats per year and the guys are doing 170, 180, up to 200. It's really too much."
" Overworked "
This is also the observation of Alain Arsenault, president of the Corporation des pilotes du Saint-Laurent central, responsible for the section of the river between Montreal and Quebec.
"We're overworked," he said in a telephone interview. "We have mechanisms so that it doesn't encroach on safety, but it certainly encroaches on the pilots' quality of life and I think it encroaches on their health, too. After 14, 15, 16 days of work, working alternating days and nights, it has an impact."
At the heart of the problem, explains Captain Arsenault: the lack of candidates. That is, you already have to have a captain's certificate – the highest maritime qualification – to try your luck as a pilot on the St. Lawrence. And the number of Quebec officers trained in recent years was insufficient to meet the industry's demand.
Yves Plourde, his counterpart at the Corporation des pilote du Bas Saint-Laurent, says he is able to meet the needs of ships that must be guided through the treacherous waters of the St. Lawrence.
But "we're short of candidates," he continued in a telephone interview. "We would never have believed that before," because pilotage is one of the only jobs that allows you to work on a ship without being away from your family for long periods. "But we definitely have an atypical work schedule," with on-call mandates, night work and statutory holidays.
Two years at school
It is also that there is a significant obstacle to overcome for captains who want to become pilots of the St. Lawrence. They must become the undisputed experts on the section of the river where they will navigate for the rest of their career. This represents thousands and thousands of pieces of information to assimilate.
Reynald Charest accompanies Gilles Giroux in the wheelhouse of the Federal Oshima . The apprentice pilot is currently assimilating the knowledge needed to pass the exams and become a pilot. He pities the sailors who must embark for months – up to 10 months in the case of this ship – without seeing their families.
At age 30, after a few years sailing the seaway and the Great Lakes for the Canadian company Algoma, he set his sights on pilotage.
"It's a two-year apprenticeship," explained Jessy Bédard, the pilot who works from Quebec City to Les Escoumins, the limit of the pilotage territory on the St. Lawrence. "You do 250 accompanied trips, you have to learn a lot of things by heart, be able to draw the map from memory with the zones, the main soundings, the main currents, the lights, the characteristic points of land, name the buoys and know how to position them." The exam consists in particular of redrawing the exact map of your section.
Like his acolytes who have passed before and after him in the wheelhouse of the Federal Oshima , Mr. Bédard has plugged his own electronic devices into the ship's computer system. Ultra-precise maps on a screen, continuous information on the ship's progress. But they must also be able to cope if everything fails in the middle of the night.
Philippe Cannicconi, who took over from Gilles Giroux by piloting the Federal Oshima from Trois-Rivières to Quebec City, explains: his predecessors identified reliable visual landmarks on the river that they line up to determine the course to take. "If the Saint-Romuald church arrives in the central span of the bridge as I turn left approaching Quebec City, I know I'm heading in the right direction," he explains, pointing to the horizon. "There are some for every change of course."
“If we align the pylon with the village of Sainte-Pétronille, it’s the right course. If the G complex is above the Concorde, it means we’re heading at 221 degrees,” continues Sébastien Delisle, the twelfth in his family to become a pilot. “My great-grandfather. My great-great-grandfather. My great-great-great-grandfather,” he says.
Who wants to take over?
All-season drivers
To avoid pitfalls, pilots who navigate the St. Lawrence must know their corner of the country by heart and remain vigilant at all times. A look at their daily lives on the boats.