Capt. Krystal Rankin has taken Lady A, a 110-foot tri-deck with a Cayman Islands flag, through the Chesapeake Bay dozens of times over the years. The owner lives in Philadelphia and enjoys cruising the inner harbor with its charming port towns and marinas.

Enjoyed it, that is, until the yacht got a $4,324 bill in July for harbor pilots Rankin said she didn't need.

"They didn't even care if a pilot was really on board, just as long as we paid," she said. "They said it was because of security, but not one time have I been boarded by the Coast Guard. And the pilot, when he boarded us, he didn't look around or ask us any questions."

Several megayachts have been surprised this summer with a radio call from the pilots associations in Delaware, Maryland, New York and even Georgia's Savannah River, all advising the foreign-flagged vessels that they need pilots to transit the waters.

Capt. Les Annan got the call as he was driving the 118-foot M/Y Portofino from Ambrose Light to the dock at Chelsea Piers in New York. Portofino flies the St. Vincent flag; in New York, foreign-flagged vessels over 100 feet need a pilot.

"He said, You need a pilot, but if you don't want one, that's OK,'" Annan said. The pilot then asked for the yacht's fax number and sent a bill for $770.62 “ one way.

"It's all 9-11 fallout and bureaucracy," Annan said. "Even the pilot insinuated it was a waste of his time."

Sept. 11 fallout

Annan is partly right, at least in New York. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the long-time regulation requiring vessels of 100 feet or greater to take a pilot has been revisited for yachts, said Bob Pouch, executive director of the Board of Commissioners of the Pilots of the State of New York.

"It had come up in conversations to review the policy on yachts in the post 9-11 environment," he said. "All of us in the system have a great deal of respect for the captains of these yachts. They're sitting on a lot of fuel."

Pouch said the key element pushing enforcement of the regulations on yachts is the sense in the security environment that megayachts are at a high risk for terrorism. The act of having a pilot onboard as a yacht enters or leaves New York's waters minimizes the likelihood of someone using it as a missile in a terrorist attack.

"Some of our board members are marine insurance people and deal in the world of liability and negligence," he said. "A vessel that deliberately fails to take a pilot and commits a crime of some sort, or if the vessel had a casualty or an oil spill, the insurance company could deny the liability and offer no coverage. The stakes have been raised somewhat, and that's why you see more compliance in a post 9-11 era."

Many yacht captains never have had to pay for a pilot in the United States.

"In my career, 20 years, this is the only time," said Annan, who has paid for pilots in Harbor Island going over Devil's Backbone, in Cannes and going through the Panama Canal.

While New York requires a pilot on yachts over 100 feet, Delaware and Maryland require pilots on foreign-flagged vessels over 100 tons. And although those rules have been in place since the mid-20th century, they had been enforced only on commercial vessels until a few years ago.

"It's just something that came up," said Michael Linton, president of the Pilots Association for the Bay and River Delaware, when asked why the rule was now being applied to yachts.

"Someone said why are all these things floating out there without a pilot? Do we like it? No. But we have to enforce the law."

When asked if the pilots association, a non-government group, had been given a directive from some government authority to begin putting pilots on yachts, Linton said:

"I can't comment on that."

As megayachts continue to get larger, drawing military or commercial captains, some expect pilot fees to become more accepted.

"Pilots are designed for commercial ships but megayachts are getting bigger," said Leslie Lallande, the refit and service consultant at Global Ship Systems, a shipyard on the Savannah River. Lady A is headed there this fall and Global notified Capt. Rankin of the fees. "More and more captains are coming onto yachts from the commercial side so they're used to it. If it gets to be a problem, we'll pay it. It's not the sort of thing we'll let people use as reason to turn away."

Some, though, are steering clear of the fees.

Capt. Dave Ober of M/Y Magic found out ahead of time that he might have to pay for a pilot in the Chesapeake. So he made some calls, and found it might have cost him as much as $6,000 to travel from Cape May to Baltimore and Annapolis. After talking with the owner of the yacht, they decided to forgo the Chesapeake this summer.

"I just finished canceling two weeks of reservations at marinas in Annapolis and Baltimore," he said. Instead, the 130-foot Northern Marine spent August heading north to Maine before turning south again this fall.

"They think these yachts drive around with money in the bilge, but they're going to kill the golden goose," he said. "If they made it over 500 tons, I could see that. That's a pretty big boat. But it's anything over 100 tons. That's everybody."

Contact Editor Lucy Chabot Reed at lucy@the-triton.com.