In this chapter:(1) 'Board' means the board of pilot commissioners for the Port of Corpus Christi Authority.(2) 'Consignee' means a person, including a master, owner, agent, subagent, person, firm or corporation, or any combination of those persons, who enters or clears a vessel at the Office of United States Customs.(3) 'Port of Corpus Christi' means a place into which a vessel enters or from which a vessel departs and the waterway leading to that place from the Gulf of Mexico under the jurisdiction of the Port of Corpus Christi Authority.(4) 'Pilot' means a person who is licensed as a branch pilot or certified as a deputy branch pilot under this chapter.(5) 'Pilotage rate' means the remuneration a pilot may lawfully charge a vessel for pilot services.(6) 'Pilot services' means acts of a pilot in conducting a vessel through navigable water in this state and the ports in which the pilot is licensed or certified as a pilot.(7) 'Vessel' means an oceangoing vessel. Added by Acts 1997, 75th Leg., ch. 359, Sec. 4, eff. Sept. 1, 1997.