Never Say Sell

CHAPTER 8The Challenge of Scale

Captain Mark Fithian looked out from the bridge of his pilot boat and estimated the waves at 10 feet. Tonight marked the first time he'd been asked to dock a boat of this size, and the weather wasn't cooperating. Construction to widen the Panama Canal and support larger ships had just been completed, and the Captain had hoped he would get the opportunity to ride along in a larger vessel before taking the lead himself.

The wind gauge read 20 knots. Everywhere there were whitecaps, the spray blowing back his unruly shocks. His guide boat bounced forward, bursting through the swells. Shortly after midnight, Captain Fithian saw the dim outlines of the massive Rania, a Panama-flagged container ship looming in the distance.

As he closed in on his charge, he could feel his pulse quicken. Docking the big boats never grew old and the Rania was 50% wider and 25% longer than anything he had worked with. At 1,090 feet from stem to stern, the Rania, if it was stood up on its propellers, would rise up into the sky nearly as high as the Empire State Building. With a carrying volume equivalent to 15 Hindenburgs, it was a beast.

Peering through the murk, he could see the Rania turn to its starboard, blocking the wind and creating a pocket of relative calm on its lee side. Captain Fithian nosed his vessel alongside, tied up, crawled up the short ladder to the hatch in the hull, and made his way to the bridge where he shook hands with Captain Nick Watts. They would ...