Towing Vessel Licensing
(February 2000)
This past November 19,
1999 the US Coast Guard published Interim Rules for the licensing of personnel
operating towing vessels. These rules do not go into effect until November 20,
2000. The rules impact dramatically upon all licensed personnel and impose
significant changes upon both individuals and operating companies in the
towing industry. These rules place a very heavy burden upon the licensed
public without providing any mechanism to educate them. It is going to be
very difficult for the average mariner to understand what has to be done and
when to do it.
After November 20, 2000
the master, mate or pilot of every towing vessel must have an
endorsement on his or her license authorizing service on towing vessels. Even
an "Unlimited master" cannot operate a towing without an endorsement for which
he must either attend a special school or serve onboard a towing vessel for a
period of time. In other words the "unlimited masters" license has just been
"limited."
Each mariner with a
towboat license or other license with a towing vessel endorsement must carry
with him a Towing Officer Assessment Record (TOAR) that must be executed in
accordance with standards and requirements not yet established by the USCG.
We have been told in the Federal Register that the required methods of filling
out the TOARs needed to complete the renewal process will be published by
November 20, 2000, but the question is will the mariners who have to use these
as yet unknown standards be sufficiently educated in these new standards to
reasonably use them? The USCG has not been known for their ability to educate
individual mariners in USCG administrative processes. I take that to mean
that mariners may not learn how to fill out the TOAR until they appear at the
Regional Examination Center (REC), and have their application for renewal
denied. One must recall that the REC may be hundreds of miles from their
employee’s work place or their home. Any mariner particularly those with
limited licenses, knows how difficult it can be to get reasonable service from
any REC.
The USCG worked for over
twenty years to integrate towboat licenses into the main stream and develop
career paths that would allow personnel to move from one trade to another.
All of that is now out the window and a great wall has been erected between
towing and other licenses.
It could be argued that
the new training methodology leads to less qualified mariners
rather than better, but the Standards of Training Certificating and
Watchstanding, (STCW) the US Navy as well as the US Coast Guard use this
system. Therefore it will be imposed upon towing vessel operations. It in
fact, is not better, it is simply different. The idea that operating
personnel must use a checklist to operate equipment is professionally
repugnant.
New towing vessel licenses
will be hard to come by. The new standards require documentary evidence of
training and experience on a wide range of topics. Any mariner without a
long-term relationship with an employer has little chance to obtain an
original license from the USCG. While one can sympathize and empathize with
the mariners dilemma employers and unions will no doubt establish strong
systems to support permanent employees. Mariners who change employers (for
whatever reason) will find it very difficult (read not possible) to get all
the things done for an original license.
The issues that will no
doubt lead us to disastrous shortfalls in available licensed personnel over
the next few years. Any license expiring after November 20, 2000 will
necessarily have to comply with the new renewal criteria.
It seems to me that we are
seeing the unraveling of the US maritime licensing system. There is no
question that the USCG has the authority to do what they have done. They are
reacting at least in part to criticism from the National Transportation Safety
Board (NTSB) that the USCG previously had not done enough to upgrade the
towing vessel licensing system. The USCG claims to have no duty or even
responsibility to fully understand the individual elements of the maritime
industry: towing/self-propelled, inland/deep-sea, wet/dry, etc. They have
apparently made a determination that the general population must be protected
from people driving vessels, and that this is the way to do it.
The USCG has tasked itself
to develop expertise in the STCW. They have not tasked themselves to develop
professional knowledge about how the various individual elements of the
maritime work, how individual people learn their jobs and what overlap exists
between various parts of the trade.
It seems to many that the
USCG has changed the licensing system such that it will no longer work. It
would seem that not all personnel needed to man vessels could successfully
renew their licenses and retain or obtain towing vessel licenses or
endorsements. In other words, in a very few years, towing companies will not
be able to hire towboat operators in sufficient numbers. Increasing pay alone
will not be sufficient to restore the numbers to needed levels; at least not
in the short term.
Individual companies and
associations of companies will petition the Secretary of Transportation for
redress. Under U.S. law, US flag mobile offshore drilling vessels and
offshore supply vessels need only have a licensed U.S. citizen master onboard
in foreign waters (46 USC § 8103). The remainder of the crew may be made up
of qualified foreign nationals (not holding U.S. licenses). The same law also
provides that the Secretary of the Department of Transportation may extend the
waiver (for other than the master) to any other vessel (excluding a passenger
vessel) on foreign and domestic voyages after an investigation indicates that
qualified seamen who are citizens of the United States are not available. How
does a 60,000 deadweight ton coal tow heading down the mighty Mississippi with
a full foreign crew (except the master) sound to you? Does that fill you with
confidence? Not me.
