FREMANTLE Ports has extended its pilotage services agreement with Fremantle Pilots.
The port has issued a statement saying it valued its long-standing and operational partnership, which plays a critical role in supporting the safe and efficient movement of vessels in and around Fremantle Port.
“Under the renewed agreement, we remain committed to working collaboratively with Fremantle Pilots to uphold high standards of safety, strengthen operational performance, and drive continuous improvement across our shared responsibilities,” the statement said..
The WA-owned marine pilotage company has operated in the Port of Fremantle since 1994, though pilotage services in the area date back to 1829.
The fascinating history of pilotage at the Port is outlined on the Fremantle Pilots website.
It traces its origins back to the early days of the Swan River Colony in 1829 and claims pilotage in Fremantle is one of the oldest continuing professions in the state operating in a single location.
Fremantle Pilots have been operating the pilot service at the port since 1994.
But Fremantle’s first Pilot, Captain Daniel Scott, began operations in 1829 operating his own boat in an unofficial service from Arthur Head.
He’d arrived in Fremantle on board the Calista on 5 August 1829 and was appointed Deputy Harbour Master and Pilot for a salary of £100. Captain Scott was also largely responsible for having the first sea-going vessel built in the colony of Western Australia, launching the Lady Stirling in May 1836.
The first full-time Pilot based in Fremantle was Edward Back in 1845, and in 1848, Captain Charles Fitzgerald RN, Western Australia’s governor designate, was nearly shipwrecked waiting for a Pilot to come out from Fremantle.
This prompted moving the Pilot Station to Rottnest Island, where Edward Back arrived on 11 September 1848, with his wife and six children. He received a salary plus rations, which in 1849 is recorded as being 60 pounds annually, plus rations of 1 pound of meat and 1.5 pounds of flour per day, the website says.
In 1897, the SS Sultan is the first vessel to enter the incomplete Fremantle Inner Harbour, designed by WA Chief Engineer C. Y. O’Connor.
Rottnest Pilots bring vessels to the harbour entrance, where a river Pilot then boards and berths the vessel.
1903, after 55 years of continuous service from Rottnest Island, the Pilot service was transferred back to Fremantle. The reasons given included “good lights on Rottnest, a new leading light at Woodman Point and the introduction of steam driven pilot boats”.
On August 1, 1903, Pilots Cleary and Heaney took up duty in Fremantle and were housed in purpose-built houses at Arthur Head.
The Outer Harbour in Cockburn Sound is declared a harbour on January 11 February 1955. Its deep-water bulk port facilities are developed to service the Kwinana industrial area, which expands rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s, and Fremantle Pilots are trained to manoeuvre vessels in this new port.
When the Fremantle Harbour Trust became the Fremantle Port Authority in 1964, the new Port Authority building was opened adjacent to Victoria Quay and included offices and a lounge for Pilot rest periods.
In 1969, Fremantle welcomed the first container ship to berth anywhere in Australia, marking the beginning of the bulk transport revolution.
In 1985 Pilot vessel Paddy Troy entered service.
The Fremantle Port Authority’s existing Pilots formed a private company named Fremantle, Kwinana and Cockburn Sound Pilots Pty Ltd trading as Fremantle Pilots, in 1994.
Fremantle Pilots returned to one of the original Pilot cottages at Arthur Head, 12 Captains Lane, in 2000, which was occupied by Captain Albert Trivett and his family for 60 years from 1926 to 1985. (Captain Trivett was a Fremantle Pilot from 1920 to 1943 and Harbour Master from 1943 to 1953).
Pilot vessel Parmelia entered service in 1999.
In 2005 Fremantle Pilots was the first Pilot company in Australia and one of the first in the world to use a Personal Pilotage Unit (PPU) (an independent vessel positioning system), as a required aid to Pilotage.
The website says that in 2006 Fremantle Pilots was the first Pilot company in Australia and the first in the world to use Simulation not just as a training aid, but as a means for developing and evolving specific procedures to account for various incident and emergency contingencies.
In 2013 Fremantle Pilots moved to 1 Quarry Street in the east end of Fremantle.
Pilot vessel Berkeley entered service in October 2016, and Fremantle Pilots bought the vessel outright, making it the Pilot company’s first directly owned Pilot vessel. It was built by Dongara Marine to suit the unique west coast sea conditions and was the first of the Berkeley class pilot vessels built by the family-owned Midwest boat builder.
In 2019 Fremantle Pilots undertook what the website says was the first and only pilotage in Australian waters to facilitate Ship to Ship crude oil transfer between VLCC and smaller Aframax oil tankers.
Dual pilot manoeuvres began in 2020 on the new generation large container vessels visiting Fremantle Port (up to 349m length overall). This followed extensive simulation exercises undertaken by all pilots to ensure ship handling skills and procedures were developed to handle these very large vessels (when swinging across the harbour, where there is just 25 metres clearance between each end of the ship and the wharf).