8.1 Introduction

8.1.1 Pilotage generally

Pilotage has a long history in admiralty and maritime law and practice and in shipping itself of course. In a charter of 1532 in a provision common for the period it states that “when as it shall ples god to bring the said ship to the said yle or place or ney thereunto that then it shall be leffull for the said master to take in a nable lodysman for his own dysscharge unto the said ile [sic] or place at the cost of the said ownner and freyghtters…for…the said ownner for to pay the one halfe lodmanage and the fryghtters the other halfe”. ¹ In The Guy Mannering ² in the UK Court of Appeal Brett LJ described a pilot as “a kind of living chart” whose duty it is to regulate a ship and guide its course. Later in The Andoni ³ Hill J quoted Lord Tenterden's definition of a pilot as a “person taken on board at a particular place for the purpose of conducting a ship through a river, road or channel or from or into a port”. The US Supreme Court in Bisso v Inland Waterways Corp ⁴ said that pilots “hold a unique position in the maritime world [and by both law and custom] they have an independence wholly incompatible with the general obligations of obedience normally owed by an employee to his employer [and as] a rule no employer, no person can tell them how to perform their pilotage duties”. For interesting discussion on the practice of pilotage service, see the decision of the Philippines Supreme Court in The United Harbor Pilots Association of the Philippines Inc v Association of International Shipping Lines Inc. ⁵