Board of Pilot Commissioners for the Bays of San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun is the California state agency responsible for licensing and regulating pilots within one of the largest harbors in the world and the tributary Sacramento River delta. It licenses and regulates up to 60 pilots of the San Francisco Bar Pilots Association. They are called "bar pilots" because they maneuver ships across a large and dangerous sand bar just outside the Golden Gate at the mouth of San Francisco Bay. The Board of Commissioners was created in 1850 during the first session of the California State Legislature. Once an independent agency, the Board of Commissioners became a department of the California Business, Transportation and Housing Agency in 2009 and currently is part of the California State Transportation Agency. Surcharges paid by shippers on pilotage fees finance the work of the Commission, making it completely self-supporting. Jurisdiction The commission's jurisdiction includes all of the bays and ports in the San Francisco Bay area, and the tributaries up to the ports of Stockton and Sacramento, and Monterey Bay. Pilots on other California waters operate under the authority of their federal (US Coast Guard) pilot’s license. Port of Los Angeles pilots are municipal employees. Port of Long Beach pilots work for a private contractor. Pilots in the ports of Humboldt Bay, San Diego, and Port Hueneme are commissioned or contracted with by their respective port authorities or districts. San Francisco bar pilots are required to hold Coast Guard licenses in order to be licensed by the Board of Pilot Commissioners. Commissioners The commission has eight members appointed by the governor of California as follows. Secretary of the California State Transportation Agency who serves ex officio Three public members who are neither pilots nor work for companies that use pilots Two licensed pilots Two industry members, one from the tanker and one from the dry cargo shipping industry. The first President of the Pilot Commission was Commander Cadwalader Ringgold, USN. History and significant incidents The Board of Pilot Commissioners does not conduct a pilotage service, nor does it or has it ever owned or operated pilot vessels used by its licensees to board on and off ships. However some of the history of pilot boats used on San Francisco Bay may be of interest to the reader: Some of the pilot boats used in San Francisco Bay have independent histories. The