Wording

[Captian Wolfy Wench]

...themselves "pilots" back in the days? Or even use the word "pilot" in any form. I read it in a historical novel somewhere and I begin to wonder. It was a navigator who said this of himself. O_o

Captain Wolfy Wench

[JoshuaRed]

Absolutely. Typically pilots were responsible for steering a ship into harbors and ports, past reefs, anywhere that had potential for the ship to run aground. Pilots were not members of the crew, but rather would row out to meet incoming ships at ports, hop on board and guide the ship to anchor or pier or mooring, for a fee of course.

[hitman]

There is a very good thread here that deals with pilots and all they're variations. Scroll down its called pilots on ships what did they really do.

In general pilots were as JoshuaRed described however there were variations of this almost all of witch are enclosed in its two pages of replies.