Harbor pilot steers clear of trouble

If the Guinness Book of World Records included an entry for the most short trips on ships, Grover Sanschagrin would probably be the person listed.

The 75-year-old from Locust Valley is the dean of New York harbor pilots. A maritime pilot guides ships in and out of harbors. But the complexity of New York Harbor has led to specialization. There are docking pilots, who get ships in and out of slips, and sea pilots, who direct the passage between open sea and the dock.

Sanschagrin (the name is French and means "without remorse") has been docking ships since 1943. He's had such a busy career that when he supervised the departure of the fruit carrier Atlantic Ocean from Port Elizabeth in January, it marked his 40,000th docking movement.

Despite reaching that milestone and working with a pacemaker that required a special Coast Guard waiver to keep his license, Sanschagrin shows no sign of slackening his pace.

His experience and judgment are so valued that shipping companies ask for him. One of those companies is Cunard, which tries to have Sanschagrin aboard every time the Queen Elizabeth 2 enters or leaves a slip. So when the QE 2 prepared to leave for England with 1,200 passengers and 1,100 crew last month, Sanschagrin was on the bridge.

"He's the best pilot on the river as far as I'm concerned," says QE 2 Captain John Burton-Hall.

Sanschagrin boards the 963-foot liner 45 minutes before it leaves the Hudson River passenger terminal. As usual, he is wearing a suit and tie. Arriving on the bridge 122 feet above the river, he makes small talk before quizzing the officers on the ship's condition. "The bow thrusters are working?" he asks.

A Cunard manager consults with him about the ship's next docking in New York because a visiting aircraft carrier will be sticking out 200 feet into the Hudson beyond an adjacent pier. No problem, Sanschagrin says. He'll just order four or five tugs instead of the customary three.

There is a single tug when the QE 2 is outbound. Sanschagrin instructs the Margaret Moran to attach a line to the stern of the liner. The pilot stands on the bridge wing with the captain and other officers as the dock lines are let go. When the QE2 is free of the pier, Sanschagrin begins issuing orders.

Margaret, half ahead.

At his command on a handheld radio, the tug begins to pull the stern out at an angle so that when the ship backs into the downriver current, it will not be swept back into the dock.

One long blast.

The QE 2's officer of the watch repeats this and every other instruction for the crew to avoid mistakes. The ship's horn reverberates off piers and office buildings.

Thrust to port.

The liner's bow thrusters start to push the bow from the dock.

Standby to let go the tug. Okay, Larry, let go.

Once the ship is properly angled, the tug must get out of the way and its mate, Larry Campbell, orders the tow line cast off.

Slow astern. Half astern two.

The QE2 begins to pick up speed in reverse. Sanschagrin orders the tug to take up position on the port bow to help swing the ship parallel to the river. The power of both engines is increased. The ship clears the dock.

Half ahead port.

Putting the port engine into forward helps to turn the ship to starboard. The outgoing tide starts to carry the ship sideways. The orders come faster and faster.

Full thrust to starboard. Slow ahead port. Slow ahead two. Stop your thruster. Midships.

Twelve minutes after the ship began to move, the QE 2 is pointing downriver several hundred yards south of its berth. Sanschagrin's work is done. Sandy Hook pilot W.J. Ferrie Jr. will guide the vessel on the two-hour trip out to the Ambrose light tower and the open sea. An officer leads Sanschagrin through a maze of corridors to a steel door just above the waterline and the pilot climbs onto the Margaret Moran for the short hop back to the dock.

"If you figure it out by the minute it's not a bad deal," Sanschagrin says with a laugh. "The money is good, but there's a lot of hours." He's on call for 48 hours and then off two days, and he may dock up to 10 ships in a shift.

Sanschagrin got into the unpredictable business through his maritime family. His French-Canadian father was an upstate canal barge and tug captain and his grandfather was also a seaman. Sanschagrin went to work on barges for his brother-in-law when he was 14, getting his only formal education at P.S. 29 in Manhattan during the winters when the canals were frozen.

He worked up to being a barge captain, then a deckhand and mate on tugs. He was a Navy torpedo man in 1942 when an explosion brought him a medical discharge and he went back to tugs. By 1943 he was a tug captain and also began working as a docking pilot.

He says he likes to concentrate on docking because it's the most challenging part of piloting. "Inches count," he says. "It takes a lot of experience because of the currents and the wind." And docking is a lot more complicated than undocking. "When you approach a pier the chance of damage is a lot greater than when leaving a pier."

Sanschagrin has a pretty good record when it comes to hullbenders. The few mishaps he's had were the result of circumstances beyond his control - a ship or tug losing its engine or steering.

As far as he knows, nobody has docked more ships than he has, and no one ever will. "It's impossible to do it now." No one can start docking ships as young as he was because of the apprentice training system that has developed. "And you don't have the volume we used to have . . . I could ride twelve, fifteen-hundred ships a year. Today if you ride 400 ships a year, you're doing a lot."

Sanschagrin says he hasn't thought about retirement. He stays healthy by climbing up and down the sides of ships on ladders. "I rode over 400 ships last year alone. I've done almost 80 ships so far this year. In order to be able to continue to work, I have to stay in shape. And working keeps me in shape."