Sandy Hook pilots guide oceangoing vessels, passenger liners, freighters, and tankers in and out of the harbor.

[1] The peninsulas of Sandy Hook, and Rockaway in Lower New York Bay define the southern entrance to the port at the Atlantic Ocean.

The group of men and women ensure safe passage for ships going through The Narrows, which is one of the entrances into the harbors of the Port of New York and New Jersey.

[3] As the port of New York-New Jersey grew and the ships evolved so did the role of the pilot and the craft with which he used to ply his trade.

The earliest pilots were employed as explorers, tasked with sounding and surveying the harbors for their respective European governments.

[4] Henry Hudson used his pijl lood for three days from the deck of the Halve Maen sounding and charting the Lower Bay.

The channel he found lay close to the spit of land called Sant Hoek; known today as Sandy Hook.

[5] The early colonist of Manhattan Island, kept a whaleboat at Sandy Hook, ready to place a pilot aboard incoming vessels.

A committee of merchants and citizens organized a small group of local seamen to assist the ship masters coming into the port.

[7][8] The sailor on the great Seal of New York City holds in his hand the traditional tool of the pilot; the lead.

On March 9, 1694 legislation passed by the Colony of New York appointed the first local mariners as Sandy Hook pilots.

In 1718 competition began to be recognized as a problem; legislation was enacted to punish those who would pose as a pilot by fines or seizure of property.

By 1763 the Board of Wardens was created to regulate and license pilots and to strengthen compulsory pilotage established by early acts.

[12] When the first American president, George Washington, arrived in Elizabeth, New Jersey he boarded a stately ceremonial barge rowed by thirteen pilots in white uniforms to the Battery for his inauguration.

[16] Complicated politics at both the national and state level prompted industry to take matters into their own hands and underwriters and ship-owners collectively began licensing pilots.

On December 23, 1903, Frank P. Van Pelt was secretary and superintendent of the New York and New Jersey Sandy Hook Pilots Association.

When Charles Wilkes left on the United States Exploring Expedition in 1838 two of the five ships of the fleet were New York pilot boats.

Captain Dick Brown, master of the Mary Taylor, took time away from the service to race the schooner America to victory against the British at Cowes in 1851.

This economic pressure combined with the staggering loss of life to the service during the Great Blizzard of 1888 spelled the end of the era of competition.

[18] There was an impromptu marine evacuation of lower Manhattan, the likes of which the world had not seen since the battle of Dunkirk, and for which the pilots, boats, and crews played no small part.