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Photograph of John Marshall on the pilot cutter on the River Tyne with a ferry in the background

John Marshall

John belongs to: Souter Lighthouse

John was born in South Shields. He is the fifth generation of Tyne pilots in his family.

John was interviewed by Carl Greenwood on 12 April 2006. The interview took place at Discovery Museum and lasted 28 minutes and 26 seconds.

Photograph of John Marshall on the pilot cutter on the River Tyne with a ferry in the background
Photograph of John Marshall on the pilot cutter

The Bonga

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"Yes, well, we were all involved, all the pilots were involved with it"

Yes, well, we were all involved, all the pilots were involved with it. Prior to her arriving, she was going to be the largest ship that had every come into the river. And of course the fact that it was being towed, it was totally dead, meant that it was being brought it with the assistance of very large tugs which weren’t local tugs either.So we had three pilots involved in the operation; one actually on the ship and one on each of the large tugs accompanying it.

But prior to the ship coming we did simulations on the marine simulator at South Tyneside College, of which all of our pilots actually attended because we didn’t know when the time came just who would be the pilots, so I think we, I think we had eight pilots at the time and rather than try to nominate three people a year and half in advance, the easiest way was if everybody went to the simulator and did the job, so that when the time came there was no question of somebody not having had the simulator experience to do the job.

And when the ship sailed, it was similar situation, except that as the ship was much larger, having had all sorts of equipment added to it and, and the tugs were completely different, we had an awful lot of simulations for the outward passage as well and it was the same procedure again, we had three pilots; one on the ship, and one on each of the towing tugs.

John has 24 memories in the memorynet:

This memory has these themes:
The North East | Work

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