[beatnavy]

Not much tide difference in most of the bay - less than 3 feet. Seahawk is right, the wind has been pretty brutal here lately. Just on simple observation off my property it's usually wind and offshore storms that have a much bigger impact on water levels than actual tides.

I was under the impression that Bay Pilots stand on the bridge and provide instruction but don't physically control the ship. So "under control of the bay pilot" may not mean literal control, but I'm not sure.

A couple of years ago I bought a 15 foot sailboat from a bay pilot that lived in Annapolis. He had some interesting stories and observations about his job. Two things that I specially remember him saying: communications, specifically language barriers, can be a problem on these foreign owned ships. He said the ships from eastern Russia and parts of China were the most difficult in terms of trying to communicate instructions for navigation. This ship is owned by Taiwan (IIRC), so maybe that wasn't an issue.

The other thing he said is that these cargo ships now are totally maxed out in terms of cargo and really pushing the limits of what a navigation lane can safely handle. He used the example that these large ships have to wait for a specific tide/water level to get under the Bay Bridge, and even then they have only a few feet of clearance under the bridge and only about 4 feet under their keel in the channel in some spots. That's not a lot of room for error.