The CMA CGM Hugo, seen above being piloted into the San Francisco Bay, is 1095 feet in length -- similar in size the CMA CGM Norma, but 50 feet shorter.
The Port of Oakland nearly missed out on a scheduled visit from an enormous cargo ship last week because of a dispute between local bar pilots and the world’s third largest container shipping company. The dispute is part of a larger battle over the rates shippers will pay pilots to safely navigate oversized cargo ships into and out of the Port of Oakland.
San Francisco Bar Pilots usually dispatch a single pilot to navigate a ship through the Bay. Citing safety concerns, the group wants two of its members to work together on ships longer than 1,115 feet. At night, they want two-pilot teams working on ships longer than 1,000 feet.
The bar pilots want to charge shipping companies a 50 percent surcharge whenever they dispatch a second worker onto a ship. They say they have spent $75,000 on special navigation equipment, and are in the process of training their nearly 60 members on how to work in two-person teams.
Because rates affecting two-pilot teams have not been adopted by the state legislature, the bar pilots have been negotiating the fees directly with owners of large vessels that want to use their services.
Those agreements were effectively scuttled, however, when the Pacific Merchants Shipping Association (PMSA), a trade group that represents large shipping companies, sent a memo to its members advising them that they are not legally required to pay the 50 percent surcharge.