No person shall be authorized or permitted to conduct and pilot any vessel, except those excepted in Section 54-15-270, over the bar, into, out of or within the harbor of any port, unless such person shall be a then currently licensed pilot and no branch pilot shall be authorized to so pilot any vessel with a deeper draft of water than his branch. Any person so prohibited from pilotage who shall presume to pilot vessels in violation of such prohibition, shall be entitled to no fee, gratuity or reward for so doing, shall pay the regular pilotage to the group of associated licensed pilots in the port and shall be subject to a fine of five hundred dollars or imprisonment for not more than thirty days. The foregoing prohibition shall not prevent any person from assisting any vessel in distress provided such person shall deliver up the vessel to the first licensed pilot who shall offer to board.