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Listen to the interview: Interview with Captain Dan Jordan • 17 min • Download File
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They guide massive ships in and out of the Columbia River Bar, one of the world’s most dangerous waterways, 24 hours a day.
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We asked Mark Hails what it’s like to be a Columbia River Bar Pilot. From arriving to work by air and by sea to crossing the world’s most dangerous entrance to a commercial waterway, hear what he had to say and see him in action in the video below.
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Field Guide follows bar pilots as they encounter crashing surf, unpredictable currents and fierce winds of the infamous Columbia River Bar—a gauntlet that has killed nearly 2,000 men and sunk 700 vessels since record-keeping began.
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At first light on a winter morning off the Oregon coast, the sky begins to luminesce the same creepy shade of doom you might expect at the Apocalypse. A gathering storm is chasing crab boats back to port, but the Chinook is running out to sea. Long as a locomotive and painted rubber-ducky yellow, it…
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By Associated Press Sunday, May 25, 2003 9:47 AM PDT ASTORIA — As the pilot boat Chinook pulls alongside the Japanese freighter Spring Leo, matching its cruising speed, both vessels rise and fall on the seas and swells of the Columbia River bar. A ladder drops over the freighter’s side. Bar pilot Ellwood Collamore backs…
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Daily Astorian Benjamin Romano Siberian winds blow across the 4,500-mile fetch of the North Pacific, producing huge waves that collide with the mouth of the second largest river in North America just as they reach shallow water. Shifting weather fronts add wind waves of different sizes and directions to the fray. “It creates a maelstrom…
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Daily Astorian Last November, as winds roared at speeds up to 50 mph and ocean swells climbed to 35 feet, a decommissioned oil tanker enroute from Portland to China snapped its tugboat tow line. Still loaded with about 20,000 gallons of fuel oil, the 906-foot tanker drifted backward toward Willapa Bay, Wash. and the bay’s…
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Daily Astorian Shane Powell A thin rope ladder dangles over the edge of the mighty Hanjin Marseilles. When Robert Johnson grabs on to its lowest rung, he appears poised to scale a giant steel building. But one glance at the frothy swirling water below, and there’s no question where this long-time shipping veteran is headed.…
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Atmospheres January 3, 2001 Julie Galle The point where Oregon’s powerful Columbia River spills into the Pacific Ocean can become a navigational nightmare for ship pilots, as huge ocean swells crash into a sand bar at the entrance of the river. Add heavy rain, high wind or low visibility to those rough conditions, and you…
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