The San Francisco Bar Pilots have set a new standard for American pilot boats with the arrival of the 67-foot Golden Gate.
The San Francisco Bar Pilots has a rich history and is one of the few pilot groups left in the U.S. that operates offshore station boats 24 hours a day with its 104-foot vessels loitering 12 miles outside the Golden Gate Bridge to await their assignments.
Golden Gate serves a different purpose – it can carry pilots anywhere they need to go within San Francisco Bay, as well as make multiple runs to the station boats, 24/7 with two two-person crews working 12-hour shifts.
Seattle-based Snow & Company built the all-aluminum launch at its shipyard on the Lake Washington Ship Canal. The new craft features a refined Camarc Designs hull form that builds on the company’s proven platform.
San Francisco Bar Pilot Capt. David McCloy oversaw the design, outfitting and construction of Golden Gate. He said the new launch checks some important boxes, particularly around the state’s new regulatory requirements.
“Meeting California’s CARB [California Air Resources Board] requirements is number one,” he said. “Number two is building a world-class pilot boat.”
One of the cleanest-running pilot boats in the country, the new boat is powered by MAN engines that meet EPA Tier 4 emissions standards and is one of the first pilot boats specifically designed to accommodate a diesel particulate filter.
CARB’s new emissions standards for harbor craft mandate that most tug and workboat operators in California transition to EPA Tier 3 and Tier 4 engines equipped with diesel particulate filters (DPFs) that capture more particulate matter than is required by existing EPA rules.
Considerable time went into studying various designs before arriving on platform designed by Scotland-based Carmarc, which has designed hundreds of pilot boats for operators around the world, including Los Angeles and along the Columbia River.
Months of testing showed Camarc’s refined hull form delivered more than 2.3 knots higher speed at full power and a 9 percent increase in efficiency with a 10 percent decrease in vertical accelerations, all of which combined to reduce slamming with no discernable impact on seakeeping.
Golden Gate operates with a two-person crew consisting of a captain and a deck hand. To eliminate the danger to a pilot or crew member going overboard, San Francisco Bar pilots are outfitted with personal locator beacons with the Golden Gate is equipped with waterjets and a Luminell searchlight with built-in FLIR camera and Rhotheta radio direction finder (RDF). The system is integrated with a large color display on the operator’s console.
The boat is also equipped with a hydraulically operated man-overboard rescue basket at the transom and a Hadrian safety rail system that runs stem to stern along the entire length of the boat.
Crew and pilot comfort was another important consideration on Golden Gate. For example, the deckhouse is mounted atop eight rubber and aluminum mounting cones keeping engine noise and vibration from reaching the cabin. “This is the quietest boat of this performance level that I have ever been on,” said McCloy.
The vessel has large windows with a full 360-degree line of sight with the ergonomic wheelhouse console instrumentation layout that keeps important systems within arm’s reach and configured so the captain can monitor displays while keeping eyes on the water, he added.
Golden Gate is outfitted as a dayboat. In addition to the pilot chairs in the cabin, a settee, head, two bunks, and small galley are installed in the forecastle. Air conditioning is provided via TechniCold.
The engine room aft is roomy for a 67-foot vessel. Two Northern Lights generators provide electrical power, while propulsion is provided by two 1,200-hp MAN engines that power Hamilton HTX52 waterjets through Palmer Johnson Power Systems Twin Disc gears and Geislinger carbon fiber shafts. The engine room is equipped with a pair of Pyrogen Afp-1781 aerosol fire suppression generators.
The Bar Pilots opted for waterjets in part to reduce maintenance. Debris in the Bay frequently damages boat props requiring replacements multiple times a year, McCloy said. The vessel’s top speed is about 34 knots, although it can cruise efficiently at 25.
One primary appeal of the MAN engines is that they occupy a relatively small footprint, for their output, McCloy said. Another plus was the SCR system necessary to meet Tier 4 emissions standards. MAN is currently developing a DPF system that can be installed alongside its main engines and Golden Gate’s design allowed for space to accommodate a DPF system once it is available.
Golden Gate, said McCloy, “hit all of the marks we were looking for.” •