One sunny April day near the LNG tank, a close call on Mystic

From a video of the incident, it appears a 600-foot salt carrier came only a few feet from crashing into the Exxon pier in Chelsea on a sunny Monday last month, in potentially disastrous proximity to the nearby liquefied natural gas terminal in Everett.

No one disputes that the pilot-guided Hato had drifted off course, to the opposite side of the Mystic River, about a half-mile away from its intended dock at the Boston Autoport in Charlestown.

But that's about all that's not disputed by the harbor's vying factions of mariners.

''He was totally out of control," says Jake Tibbetts, president of Boston Towing & Transportation Co., which used video taken by one of its tugboat operators to portray harbor pilots as inferior to their docking masters. ''This wouldn't have happened in a million years if it was one of our guys."

Tibbets and his men insist the incident reflects why the Legislature should pass a proposed bill requiring docking masters aboard large ships entering the harbor.

''This is all about setting standards," says George Lee, Boston Towing's head docking pilot. ''When you put your child on a bus, who do you want driving that bus -- an experienced professional, or someone else?"

Frank Morton, the pilot guiding the Hato, calls the video ''propaganda" and part of Boston Towing's ''goal of taking total control over the harbor."

''If they thought we were in trouble, why didn't they offer to help us, instead of taking pictures," he says. ''How professional is that?"

Morton, 50, who has worked as a pilot for the last 15 years and has guided hundreds of ships through the Mystic River, acknowledges that he should have made a sharper turn as he crossed under the Mystic River Bridge.

But he says the large ship never came closer than 200 feet to the Exxon pier.

The problem, he says, was that the ship got caught in the outgoing tide.

A strong current from the Mystic River caught the bow of the Hato, he says, while another current from the Chelsea River caught the stern, pushing the ship toward Chelsea.

Morton says he tried to steer the ship in the opposite direction, with the help of tugboats operated by Constellation Tug Corp.

But as the starboard-side tug pushed the ship from a right angle, he says, it came close to hitting a buoy and had to break off.

''That changed the whole nature of the job," Morton says.

So the pilot says he decided to take the Hato upriver -- away from the Autoport -- to come around for another try, which he did.

With the tugboats in place, he eventually guided the ship to port.

''It wasn't a pretty docking; it was a missed approach, in what we call the bailout area," says Marc Villa, Constellation's president. ''Captain Morton acted prudently. If there wasn't such intense competition and proposed legislation, there wouldn't be someone standing around taking pictures. I think Captain Morton has been unjustly criticized."

Coast Guard officials investigating the incident say there's no evidence the Hato or any of the tugboats hit a buoy or the Exxon pier, as Tibbetts and others at Boston Towing have charged.

''Nothing happened," says Lieutenant Edward Muñoz, senior investigating officer of the Coast Guard in Boston. ''From a legal perspective, it's a non-incident."

Muñoz also says his investigation has revealed ''no evidence of negligence."

''It wasn't an ideal landing, and it's definitely not normal for a ship to drift that far off course," he says. ''But I don't think the vessel was out of control, and just because the vessel might not have been doing what he wanted, it wasn't negligence."

DAVID ABEL