WELLINGTON HARBOUR PILOTS - COMPLETE LIST

The following article appeared in The Evening Post 11 March 1915.

PIONEER PILOTS - PERILS OF OLD TIME SERVICE - EARLY DAYS AT THE HEADS. CAPTAIN SHILLING'S REMINISCENGES BUFFETINGS IN A WHALEBOAT

An open whaleboat battling against wind and wave was a frequent sight off Pencarrow Head forty years ago. In it would be seen four small specks, representing four sturdy specimens of manhood pitting their strength against the elements. These would be the crew with the oars, every sweep of which would bring their small craft nearer to the larger one in the distance beating up against the breeze. Perhaps half a gale would be blowing and a heavy sea running. And sometimes,in addition to these handicaps, it would be in the dead of night, and a wild night, too. But all these things would make no difference. The larger vessel in the offing had signalled for a pilot and duty must be done. The open whaleboat was the pilot boat, the task of whose occupants it was to bring the sailing vessel to the safe anchorage of the inner waters of the harbour.

Those were the days of the early pilot service. There was no tug boat to steam perkily to the assistance of the ship from overseas. Manual labour alone had to be relied on, and nearly every day the men of the service carried their lives in their hands. These were the conditions under which Captain W. Shilling, deputy-harbourmaster and senior pilot, first made his acquaintance with the pilot service in Wellington. For thirty-seven and a-half years he was continuously associated with the service, although his connection with it dates back even beyond that time. On 28th February this year he retired from active service on the waterfront, with an honourable record of which any public servant might feel proud.

Naturally those early days were crammed with incident, and adventures tumuled so thick and fast upon each other that they became no more than part of the day's work. Captain Shilling is genuinely adverse to publicity, but he consented to relate some of his old-time reminiscences to a Post representative. Worser Bay Pilot Station The exact year in which he first joined the pilot service was in 1869, but the next year he left it. In 1871 he joined again as a boatman, and step by step he advanced up the ladder until he reached the position he held at the time of his retirement. In those days Captain Holliday was harbourmaster, Pilot Holmes was the chief pilot, and Captain Holm, at one time of the HELEN DENNY,  G. M. TUCKER, and other well-known traders, was assistant pilot and coxswain. The service had its headquarters at Worser Bay, four miles inside the Heads and the old buildings may still be aeen there. Control was in the hands of the Provincial Government, instead of the Harbour Board, as at present. The rate of pay was 5s 6d a day for boatmen, and it was no unusual thing for them to have to wait four or five months for their money. Often the journey to the pilot station was no light task. Miramar was frequently flooded with water, and the men of the pilot service had to "pad the hoof" right round the hills to get to Lyall Bay. The only buildings at Worser Bay were those belonging to the station and tho huts of one or two fishermen. All the stores for the Fencarrow Lighthouse had to be carried up the hill, and the work was indeed gruelling.

Changes in the Staff In 1870 Captain Shilling heard the sea a-calling, and, leaving the pilot service, he "went on the coast", taking command of various vessels belonging to Messrs. Fell Bros., of Blenheim, and trading round Cook Btrait. The schooner FALCON was his last command. In November, 1877, the pilot service once more claimed him, and in that year he was appointed assistant pilot, taking the place of Captain Holm. Eleven years later in March 1888, Pilot Holmes retired and Captain Shilling took charge as pilot at the Heads, with Captain Henderson (still on the waterfront) as assistant pilot and coxswain. In December of the same year he was relieved by Pilot Simms and came to the town headquarters.  Captain Holliday was then still harbourmaster. Until November 1890 he did inside and outside work, with the assistance of Captain Henderson. Then Captain Johnson was appointed chief pilot in Wellington and Captain Shilling went out to Worser Bay once more.  He remained there until July, 1894, when the pilot service at the Heads was abolished and was worked by a steam tug from the harbour. From that time until his retirement a few days ago Captain Shilling had his headquarters in the harbourmasters office.

A Tragic Episode In those days of strain and stress there is one tragic incident which stands  out prominently in the memory of Captain Shilling. The ship PLEIONE arrived at night-time on 17th August 1889, and burned blue lights as a signal that she required a pilot. A southerly wind was blowing and there was a nasty jobble on the sea. Pilot Simms went out with the crew, and the whaleboat was towing behind the ship, when it suddenly capsized in the trough of the waves. Pilot Simms and two of his men were drowned. Captain Henderson, who was in the boat at the time, was one of the two men saved. There were many other exciting experiences, but luckily these were not accompanied with disastrous loss of life. Captain Shiliing has good cause to remember one particularly thrilling episode. Two ships appeared off the Heads one day just as dusK was settling down and signalled for pilots. Captain Shilling and his crew launched their boat and pulled out past the Heads, a long pull and a strong pull with a freshening nor'west wind. Before the boat could reach the vessels they had 'bout ships'and were standing across the Strait. The pilot boat was, therefore, left in the lurch, a tiny speck tossing about four or five miles from the Heads. The heavy sea threatened to swamp  the whaleboat unless the best of seamanship was used. There was nothing for it but to pull back to shelter, no enjoyable prospect after a stiff pull of nine or ten miles. After six hours strenuous oarsmanship, however, the signal station on Beacon Hill was reached. By this time day was breaking, and after climbing up to the signal station the weary mariners saw the two sailing vessels coming across to the  Heads again. There was no alternative but to  go down, sleepless and weary, and launch the boat again.  Eventually the tired  oarsmen reached one of the vessels, both of which were beaten safely up into the harbour. Blown Off For Ten Days

Like all other occupations, the pilot service has its disappointments, and Captain Shilling well remembers an experience he had on a Liverpool barque. The wind was blowing off the land and although the vessel tried on two or three occasions bo sneak up to the Heads she could get no closer than within four or five miles from land. Meanwhile Captain Shilling's boat had reached her, and he clambered aboard to pilot the boat up the harbour. The barque was slowly getting blown further out, and then her skipper made the discovery that he had only two days' supply of water aboard. The prospects of the barque  making the harbour in such a short timt were not too rosy, and so the skipper decided to run for Lyttelton. Under a fair wind the barque  reached the Kaikouras, and then, to the disgust of everybody, the wind veered round to a southerly gale. Back the vessel was headed to Wellington, and then once more much profanity was caused through the wind turning round to a hard nor'wester when the barque was four miles off Wellington. It looked as though she might be zig-zagging indefinitely, but the steam tug MANA (which was sometimes used when the sea was too rough to allow the whaleboat to venture out) came to the rescue under the command of Captain Jones, and towed the much delayed barque into the harbour. The time occupied in all this manoeuvring was ten days.

One of the narrowest escapes from shipwreck that Captain Shilling calls to memory is that of a vessel named the MARGARET GALBRAITH. She appeared seven or eight miles off the Heads just as night was coming on. A strong southerly wind was blowing and the skipper, mistaking Chaffer's Passage for the proper entrance, was running right smack on to Barret's Reef, when Captain Shilling managed to board the vessel. He swung the barque clear of the dangerous rocks not a moment too soon, dodging disaster by a few feet only. By careful piloting he managed to get the vessel to a safe anchorage, and the skipper, who had up to this time smothered down his feelings, collapsed as the result of the reaction after his close call. A Will-o'The- Wisp Errand.   

Captain Shilling has good cause to remember the arrival of the first direct steamer from England on 19th March, 1883. The vessel was the BRITISH KING, in command of Captain Kelly, and her advent resulted in a will-o'-the-wisp chase for Pilot Holmes and Captain Shilling. As she came up on the Heads she was burning blue lights and sending up rockets. Thinking she was in distress or wanted a pilot. Pilot Holmes's boat pulled out sixteen miles to her, and then, to the astonishment of all aboard the whaleboat, the steamer commenced to forge ahead. It transpired that a slight breakdown had occurred in the machinery, and the whaleboat's long pull had been all in vain. Those aboard the steamer were astonished to find that the pilot boat had come so far out, and the only satisfaction the chagrined pilotmen had was "a ride- home".

Almost Forgotten Wrecks.  Several wrecks occurred during the time Captain Shilling was in the pilot service. One of them was. that of the barque EARL of SOUTHESK, coal-laden from Newcastle. She anchored outside and a gale came up from the south with a heavy sea, The vessel dragged her anchor, and canted stern onto Barrett's Beef.  She sank in a few minutes, and the crew had just time to take to one of the boats floating on her deck and pull for the shore. For the next few days the fishermen in the locality neglected their calling, and had a busy time collecting the flotsam and jetsam washed up from her, mostly oranges, of which her deck cargo consisted.  Then there was the HANNAH BROOMFIELD, which was lost off Constant Point, fortunately with no loss of life. Another vessel which met with disaster was the CARLOTTA, which missed stays at Pencarrow Head, smashed on to the rocks, and went to pieces. Her crew were saved by the men of the pilot service. On 31st August, 1888, the schooner COLONIST was lost on the Western Ledge, at the east end of Lyall Bay, and only one man of her crew of four or five was saved. The Shaw-Savill barque HALCIONE went ashore at Fitzroy Bay on 8th January. 1896, and some of her ribs, gaunt and stripped, are still to be seen there. Another vessel to find Davy Jones's locker in this vicinity was the barque WILLIE  M'LAREN, which struck a rock off Steeple Reef (Worser Bay). She was run into the bay, where she sank at anchor, and was eventually blown up. Disaster also overtook the small ateamer TUI, which met her fate in Chaffer's Passage, and the last and most sensational wreck of them all was that of the DEVON, some eighteen months ago, within a biscuit's throw of the low-level light at Pencarrow.