‘No stranger should attempt any of the anchorages or channels without a pilot. — Daniel Robert Tucker, “Channels and Reefs Around Bermuda”, 1840

The history of Bermuda is intertwined with the profession of piloting, being the trade, and perhaps art, of bringing seagoing vessels into the harbours of the island, through the treacherous reefs that are at once a barrier to such ingress and a protective skirt around the place.

It was piloting that facilitated Bermuda’s early forays into the maritime trade of the Western North Atlantic, and indeed supported the 19th-century development of the agricultural economy and the tourist trade.

None of these ventures would have succeeded without the safe passage of increasingly large vessels into Bermuda’s official harbours — initially comprising St George’s and Castle Harbours in the east, and Ely’s Harbour in the West, and later expanding to include Crow Lane or Hamilton Harbour, as it became known after the shifting of the capital to that location.

In the first couple of centuries, the bringing of ships — and their valuable cargoes — into the rather ‘unofficial’ harbour at the west end was also a common practice, if one that caused a great deal of pain to those trying to collect customs duty on behalf of the government of the day.

Those involved in piloting usually kept several boats for the purpose of meeting incoming vessels to put the pilot aboard, being the famed pilot gigs and the less-well-known sailboats.

Of late, an image of a pilot gig has been donated to the National Museum by the directors of HA&E Smith Ltd, the company that once owned and operated the famous eponymous clothing and fine goods store on Front Street, now sadly in the category of the Mauritian Dodo, along with Trimingham’s and other businesses that were once such a significant part of Bermuda’s tourist trade and reputation for elegance.

Edward James, perhaps Bermuda’s preeminent artist of the third quarter of the nineteenth century, executed the painting, which came to be in the collections of a member of a local family, but was purchased by the directors with the intention to give it to the National Museum.

Roger Davidson recently presented the image to the Museum on behalf of the Directors and in memory of William (WB) Blackburn Smith, son of Henry A and Edith Smith, founders of HA&E Smith Ltd.

In his day, WB was a Bermudian icon and is still remembered and looked up to by some of his descendants, including, for example, the grandson trio of John, Arthur and David Sculley, all high achievers once associated with major American businesses.

After training as an engineer at the great Liverpool shipbuilders Cammell Laird, WB returned to Bermuda to marry Mabel Wellspring West from Shelly Bay and among his many other achievements, he established the Bermuda Perfumery at Bailey’s Bay, for many years a major tourist attraction.

Appropriately, given its export to the USA as a flower trade, his first perfume was labelled “Easter Lily”; under the energetic new ownership of Isabelle Ramsey-Brackstone, it and many other scents can still be purchased at the Perfumery, now located in the World Heritage town of St George’s.

The painting — a portrait of a classic two-masted Bermuda pilot gig under sail in 1875 — is a rare subject for James, whose watercolours usually depicted broader harbour scenes, larger vessels such as blockade runners, and local events such as the opening of the Causeway.

The painting is of particular importance as there are few extant illustrations or photographs of the nineteenth-century piloting activities that were such an important part of Bermuda’s maritime economy.

In gigs such as the one in the painting, pilots and their crews raced under oar or sail to ‘catch’ incoming ships and thus earn the associated piloting fees. Pilot gigs were long, narrow boats crewed by six oarsmen, a coxswain and a pilot and rigged with two or three loose-footed, leg-of-mutton sails and a jib.

Gigs were built for speed and could reach up to 14 knots (26km/h), essential when racing other gigs to incoming ships under Bermuda’s competitive piloting system.

Unlike the pilot sloops, gigs could be hauled up in shore locations with quick access to the open sea and near prominent hills, which served as lookouts.

West end spots included Conyers Bay, Spring Benny’s Bay and Boat Bay. In the East End, gigs were kept at St Catherine’s Beach, Red Hole, below the Lighthouse and in several of the Bays obliterated in the building of the US base, Fort Bell. Pilot boats and gigs ranged far offshore, hoping to gain the edge on their competitors and be the first aboard an incoming ship.

There are stories of pilot gigs seen 50 miles off Bermuda waiting for ships in order to beat rival pilots.

Several piloting vessels ranged so far offshore in winter that they reported encountering snow.

In addition to their piloting work, pilots and their crews played a large role in rescuing passengers and crew from vessels in distress, often placing their own lives at risk.

They also used their boats, equipment and skills in the salvage of goods and materials from shipwrecks, sometimes preventing loss of the vessel itself.

The Bermuda Gazette and Weekly Advertiser in 1792 stated: ‘Attention and perseverance of pilots ... in boarding and assisting shipping in distress in heavy gales of wind has saved many vessels and numbers of lives.’

Rambler, the last of the Bermuda pilot gigs, is on display in the Boat Loft at the National Museum.

Restored some years ago by Stuart Lambert, she has Bermuda cedar frames and measures 37 ft 8 ins in length, with a 5 ft 6 ins beam.

Thus the painting donated by the directors of HA&E Smith Ltd joins the Rambler as some of the last physical evidence of a proud maritime tradition in these Islands.

However, one might say that the boat and the image are gigs for another century and beyond, as their job now is to represent that aspect of our heritage that has joined other cultural Dodos in extinction.

Edward Cecil Harris, MBE, JP, PHD, FSA is Director of the National Museum. Comments may be made to director@nmb.bm or 704-5480.