Well that was the whole point of the Edmund Gardner, to keep pilots on station and handy?
Edit: I think she was made obsolete through dredging and small, fast boats; and probably through the location of the then new container terminal, meaning fewer ships having to crawl their way right up the river.
Yes. She finished service in 1981.
I read there were four of those ships at one time and they worked on rotation. One positioned at Mersey Bar. One at Point Lynas, off Anglesey, a third was a runner ship, moving pilots and supplies between them while a fourth would be in maintenance.
The really big ships don't come that far up river now. The ACL Trans- Atlantic container ships go to Seaforth. The post-panamax sized container ships using Liverpool 2, also at Seaforth. I think the largest ones that come up are the tankers that go to, I think, Tranmere.