IF the waters of Portland Bay could talk, wouldn’t they have millions of stories – but it’s fair to say Bill Fellows could just about match them.

Mr Fellows recently retired as launch master for the Port of Portland, bringing to an end 40 years with the company.

But it has pretty much been a lifetime down at the harbour for the 73-year-old – born in Casterton, his family moved to a house at 3 Gawler St when he was two, a stone’s throw from the water.

Raised there, young Bill got to know his surrounds pretty well.

“The Port was always my domain for playing,, all the way through to now,” he said.

“It was such a great playground in Portland – the old ocean pier, we used to go out there and get up to all sorts of mischief.”

But all that play didn’t lead to a job there at first.

Mr Fellows started out delivering telegrams at 15 before treading the then-familiar path to the Borthwick meatworks, which he did for several years.

A spell at felling pines and picking spuds followed before his first ‘water’ job working for local boatbuilder Bob Hodgson, based on the foreshore.

Then in 1980 Mr Fellows was aware of an opportunity at the port and went and saw harbourmaster Tom Lloyd.

That led to him working as a deckhand on the tugs – after obtaining his boatmaster ticket he moved on to the line boats then the pilot boat in 1986 “and I stayed there”.

 Back then it was the “old style conventional boat” the Louis II and jobs might include anything from pilot transfers to helping shunt trucks and unloading wheat or legs of mutton.

“It served us well for many, many years but it was so slow,” Mr Fellows said of that boat.

There have been a few since, with the current one, the Tiger, a far cry from those days.

“She is really, really, fast, 30 knots (54 km/h).

“It’s nice to go from a boat flat out at seven knots (13 km/h) to one doing 30 knots.

“It’s so much more pleasant and much safer.”

Safety is key in the kind of job Mr Fellows did – the main role being to get a pilot safely on to and off a ship – something he points out is not that easy, with statistics showing a handful die each year worldwide falling from pilot ladders.

“It’s a very dangerous job, probably one of the most high-risk occupations,” Mr Fellows said.

“We’ve had a few incidents over the years unfortunately but we’ve never lost anybody which is a pretty good record.”

When he first started as launch master Ian Baird was the pilot, followed by Vijay Pallan, both long-serving employees.

These days the job is shared between Milinda Gammune and Altaf Hussain.

“They’ve all been great to work with, really good,” Mr Fellows said.

“The job has always involved a lot of cohesion to make it work.

“When you’re putting a pilot on a ship there’s about five minutes of concentration where you really have to put your mind to it.

“That’s the only requirement – concentrate when the pilot steps up off your boat on to the ship, it’s our responsibility.

“I’ve seen the pilot ladder going up and down 5-6 metres and side to side the same amount.

“That’s because the ship’s rolling and the pilot boat is rolling down when the ship’s rolling up.

“It’s a fairly complicated process to get them together.

“Over the years I’ve seen a lot of improvements in terms of pilot ladders which made our jobs safer.

“No two jobs are ever the same, so to speak, every day there are different conditions, different weather, different heights and different swells.

“You never get bored doing it, it’s always a challenge and you challenge yourself how good a job you can do putting the pilot boat alongside the vessel.”

Mr Fellows said there was perhaps “one day a year” when conditions made it impossible tog et pilots on and off ships – “sometimes we can manage that in terms of putting the ship in the right position, sometimes you’ll have several attempts before it gets done”.

Another pretty good record is the stability of the workforce – even as fewer crew have been required due to better technology.

“It’s amazing how the job has just no throughput of employees,” he said.

“Occasionally you get to the stage where four or five of us leave but why leave when you love the job.”

That’s also been helped by an improvement in working conditions – gone are the days when the launch master and crew might be woken at all hours to work.

Now it is a roster of two weeks on and two off.

“Before they’d call you up and you’d really struggle with no consistency,” Mr Fellows said.

“But that changed as the port got busier and busier and busier and we fell into line with the standards in the rest of Australia.

“The number of times in the early days you used to be asked to go out for dinner on a Saturday night and a ship would turn up – there was lots of apologies to many people.”

Mr Fellows said the Port was a “really great employer over the years”, and it was something he gave back in return.

“One of the most pleasing aspects of the job was being a mentor, helping other people get to where they’ve got to,” he said.

“That’s been really good and the social club aspect of the Port has been fantastic, lots of good times, lots of yarns.

“Being on a pilot boat is a bit like a footy trip – what you say on the pilot boat stays on the pilot boat.”

And while pilot transfer has been the major role, there have been a few other jobs as well – that’s when the stories really kick in.

There have been rescues of stranded boaties, kayakers, fishermen, you name it, before Coast Guard Portland  took over that role, and some other things besides.

“I’ve rescued plenty of kangaroos,” Mr Fellows said.

“They’re always good fun. They don’t particularly like getting on the deck of a ship but it’s better than the alternative…

“I’ve also recovered a lot of injured people off ships, and a couple of bodies unfortunately, though nowadays they get choppered off or the Coast Guard goes out there – we didn’t even use to have a medic out there.

“I’ve seen a few desperate people come off ships – one had a raft of a spare tyre about (5km) out as if nobody was going to see him.”

And now it’s retirement time.

“I only retired because I’ve got a crook back,” Mr Fellows said.

“Otherwise I’d still be working there.

“But you’ve got to accept the fact at some stage you’ve got to go – I’m 73.

“I suppose there’ll be a bit of travel (Vanuatu is a particular favourite from where Mr Fellows has some great stories) and we’ll (along with wife Ruth) continue to do that.”

Mr Fellows has been replaced by Aaron Bird – “he’s been good, he’s got the ability” – and while he might still like to do the job, there are other things on the horizon now.

“I’ve got a little bit of an artistic bent so I’ll probably join the (Portland) Artists’ Society,” Mr Fellows said.

“I’d like to have a go at some clay mediums and some different things.

“It’d be nice to have an artistic bent where you can spend the time doing it.”

Model aeroplanes are another hobby as is fishing.

“I don’t mind catching a yabby, I think it is important to move on and do something.”