Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/461



Every pilot-boat must be of at least forty tons, painted in a particular manner, and have on board, besides a complete equipment of spars, sails, and the ordinary stores and provisions, "two punts for boarding vessels, a good telescope, two lanterns, a swivel or other small gun, and a supply of rockets and blue-*lights for making signals; also a sufficient number of life-buoys and life-belts," as well as an approved chart of the Bay of Liverpool, and charts of the latest survey of the various places under the jurisdiction of the Board, or which its pilots are required to frequent. Each pilot-boat has a master, second master, and third master, and ten apprentices, who, with the other pilots on board, are to take charge of vessels in rotation, according to their respective grades and qualifications, so that every man has a fair proportion of labour, the master in command always having a discretionary power to set the turn aside in peculiar cases, the circumstances of every such case being duly entered in the log-book, and reported to the Pilotage Committee when required. The earnings of each of the pilot-boats, which, by the way, are private property, licensed by the Board, are divided into shares and distributed in fixed proportions among the owners, masters, and crew, according to their class. Seven separate stations are allotted to the boats on the look-out for inward-bound vessels, which must be strictly kept, so that it is hardly possible, even in the thickest or most stormy weather, for any ship approaching the banks to miss a pilot-boat, if the captain adopts the most ordinary precautions, and the means readily available