'Bad weather is our chance, that's when ships want pilots most'.
- Pilot Bartlett

Pilots commissioned vessels built for speed and seaworthiness. With a long list of pilots, competition was fierce and the first man to reach an incoming ship secured the job.

Image: First come, first served, by Admiral Richard Brydges Beechey: NMM BHC1270

Pilot cutters are the boats that take pilots – men with expert local knowledge – out to larger vessels, so they can guide them safely into harbour. The Bristol Channel has one of the largest tidal ranges in the world and pilotage there was dangerous work.

In the mid-19th century, the South Wales coal industry saw rapid growth. Cardiff docks exported nearly 11 million tons of coal in 1913, compared with 2 million tons in 1862. This increase led to greater demand for pilot cutters to guide coal-carrying ships in and out of Bristol Channel ports.

Cariad was built for a Cardiff pilot, Thomas Richards, who took out a mortgage to pay for her. Her name means ‘loved one’ in Welsh: Richards wept when he sold her, and her second owner kept her until he died.

Cariad was built in 1904 and, at 47 feet long (14 m), was small for her kind. Today, she is one of only a handful of original pilot cutters that survive.

The centrepiece of the exhibition is the Defiant of Lyme Regis, a replica 13-foot pilot punt recently built by Kent boat-builder Marc Chivers. It is based on original plans of a punt built for a pilot cutter called Hilda, drawn by shipwright and model-maker Malcolm Darch.

The punt was a small craft used to transfer a pilot from his cutter to the ship he was to guide into harbour. It was one of the most dangerous parts of his job as he had to row over to the other vessel in open water, often in rough weather.

Lewis Alexander was a Barry pilot, whose 1911 pilot cutter, Kindly Light, cost £525 and was one of the most expensive ever built. Alexander offset this by making record earnings of almost three times that price in one year.

Like many pilots, Alexander was a religious and occasionally superstitious man who would not normally sail on Friday 13th. None the less, he went to sea on this day to try and find work for a fellow pilot who was down on his luck.

The two pilots were hit by a gale and, when serving tea, one of the new earthenware mugs started to whistle. This was seen as a bad omen but the guest pilot drank from it despite warnings. He drowned shortly afterwards when the dinghy or ‘punt’ capsized, while crossing to a ship.