2 0 1. E d g e w a t e r. S t r e e t. S t a t e n. I s l a n d. NY. 1 0 3 0 5.

TOUGH TRAINING FOR A TOUGH JOB Each pilot completes a tough, five and a half-year apprenticeship, plus an additional seven years as a Deputy Pilot, before being fully qualified and earning the designation of a Full Branch Pilot. Each candidate must have at least four years of college, and many have four-year undergraduate degrees from merchant marine academies. In addition to New York State, or New Jersey State certification, federal licensing is also required. Every Full Branch Pilot is a fully qualified master pilot and all Sandy Hook Pilots participate in the U.S. Coast Guard drug-testing program. Above all, each applicant who comes though the apprenticeship and Deputy Pilot training has a gut feel for the geography, wind and weather of the entire harbor area, including Long Island Sound and the Hudson River to Albany, New York. And it's not just book knowledge. Factual knowledge is multiplied by a sense of the harbor that comes from first hand experience with the Port's subtleties-a critical difference when handling high-value, and sometimes hazardous cargo in a densely populated area. During the five and a half-year apprenticeship, the apprentice works under the constant supervision of a senior, fully qualified pilot. The learning process is based on doing, seeing and experiencing the conditions of the port and the characteristics of today's ships. The knowledge of the senior pilot is gradually passed to the apprentice during the process-first with smaller ships, and finally with the largest ships. A SOLID FOUNDATION      The on-the-bridge training is supplemented by regular classroom work, where new developments and techniques are evaluated and absorbed. Almost all of this classroom training is conducted right at the Pilot's Staten Island base, where a training facility for apprentices and pilots is maintained with a full-time Director. For approximately 15 years, the training facility has been certified to allow college credit for some of its courses. Periodically, the fully qualified pilots take special training and refresher courses at facilities with modern simulators. There, the Pilots' individual skills are evaluated and improved under conditions that match reality. This provides an important additional dimension to the refresher training for the Pilots, all of whom are required to keep their skills as current as the industry's state of the art technology.                                                      Webdesign by Rachael Burns