I’m no expert on oil barges and tanking. Its been long time since I’ve done any significant amount of tanking. I generally try to avoid towing oil.
I prefer freight for a lot of reasons, among them: no ‘effing tankermen who think they are “barge captains” and don’t want to do the AB work on the tug.
There is often a lot of unhappiness onboard when Tankermen are making about the same money as mates and engineers.
Most companies won’t even hire a very experienced tankerman and put him in charge as the lead PIC on a barge. There is usually going to be a training and assessment period for a new hire and familiarity requirements for the barge, and the paperwork before he becomes the lead Tankerman.
Complying with the company’s ISM and perhaps SIRE and customer requirements are important. Nobody that was hired yesterday is ready to be put in charge of that.
Depending on the desperation of the company and the skills of the Tankermen, this familiarization period might be very short or quite long.
Captains and experienced Mates that have been doing oil for years at the same company know tanking inside out.
However, there are lots of officers with Tankermen PIC - Barge that are just a warm body with ticket.
There are a lot of Mates, and a few Captains, that are just warm bodies with a license too.