What does this have to do with academy people? Went to an academy and have done nothing but sail tugs.
Well Z, I know this will come as a shock to you, but some of our fellow mariners on here are occasionally whinny little trollops. I’m sorry, but it’s true…
I went for working on tugs I’ll join ya traitor!
[QUOTE=OBXmariner;143205]It’s a giant load of horse crap! Academy folks want a freebie , they don’t want to ride a real ship and upgrade correctly so let’s get on a freaking tug and change the rules to call it a ship. A tugboat is a tugboat. (Articulated TUG and Barge)That’s it! You wanted that big license now go use it. Anybody who enters the towing industry with a unlimited license does it for experience or a lifestyle change so leave it like that. If you want a fight that makes a difference get some ship made back in the USA. Quit dumbing the system down. A tugboat and a OSV is not what you went to a prestigious academy for.[/QUOTE]
I’m a bit surprised by this comment. Think about what many tugs do. Run coastwise with a barge from port to port. Short sea shipping, etc. How is that not equivalent to a “real ship” running coastwise? Why not get some credit for that? May even help hawsepipers too. Lighten up.
Lol c.captain, where are you? Another bozo. The pharaoh, now this guy! We usually only have one a week!
Lol I’m ruining my prestigious academy edumacation sailing tugs, and that whole unlimited pilotage thing I’ve been getting is embarrassing me equally as much.
Let’s end this on a kind note since I don’t have nearly enough vocabulary to hold an intelligent conversation with y’all educated folks, if you went to an academy to come on out and sail on tugs and supply boats, so be it. I welcome you and will embrace your knowledge and earned wisdom. I just can’t fathom someone with an unlimited license wanting to sail on a tug or a small supply boat . I believe that’s why you fight so hard to change the rules on tugs and other smaller vessels because you want them to be like little ships. Not cool.
You are painting with an awfully broad brush there. I can make the same kind of sweeping statements about hawsepipers wanting to dumb down the requirements so any mouth breather can get a license. I won’t because it is only a statement that applies to a handful of hawsepipers I have met. It makes for great prose and a stirring argument that is sure to get people pissed off. It doesn’t make it accurate though.
For the record I don’t think we need to any of the large OsV’s as ships. The nature of the work, especially OSV’s is sufficiently different that the watch structure doesn’t really work. Do they need more people than the COI calls for? Of course, however keeping that COI the way it is allows our employers to charge the client extra for every man above the requirements that they use. The extra men we already know they are gonna ask for! If the company makes more money, they are more secure. Their security is part of my security. So I’ll roll with it.
There is nothing small about the Crowley 750 class ATBs. Those are small ships with a detachable house/propulsion unit. They have the same capacity as the state class product tankers (330,000 bbls), draft 34 feet and are 74 feet longer. That is a small 2 piece ship. The newer OSVs are small ships as well. Just because they keep raising the tonnage of what defines an OSV doesn’t make them a 165 ft mud boat anymore. I am an academy grad and have mainly worked on large workboats. I do it because I enjoy it more. Better rotation, typically more engaging, more new steel and technology, etc. I don’t believe that that the large OSVs or ATBs need to be manned like a ship or even run like one necessarily. Whatever works and is safe and efficient. But I do think mariners running around on 750 class ATB should be able to use the tonnage of both tug and barge. That being said anyone that can read should be able to ascertain what the current rules and regs are and know what they are getting into when they take a job that will/won’t be able to advance their license. No sense in complaining about something that is a fact of the industry.
[QUOTE=OBXmariner;143240]Let’s end this on a kind note since I don’t have nearly enough vocabulary to hold an intelligent conversation with y’all educated folks, if you went to an academy to come on out and sail on tugs and supply boats, so be it. I welcome you and will embrace your knowledge and earned wisdom. I just can’t fathom someone with an unlimited license wanting to sail on a tug or a small supply boat . I believe that’s why you fight so hard to change the rules on tugs and other smaller vessels because you want them to be like little ships. Not cool.[/QUOTE]
We have KP (and Cal and Mass etc) graduates at NOAA. Ok? Only one ship >4000 HP. They go where they want to go, for the experience or schedule or whatever. When you are in your 20’s, the world is your proverbial oyster. At least they are sailing. Why is it such a big deal to you? Complain about the grads who don’t sail if you must, but not the ones who fulfill their obligations.
[QUOTE=dredgeboater;143252]There is nothing small about the Crowley 750 class ATBs. Those are small ships with a detachable house/propulsion unit. They have the same capacity as the state class product tankers (330,000 bbls), draft 34 feet and are 74 feet longer. That is a small 2 piece ship. [/QUOTE]
So why let you away with a smaller license than people who sail on a real ship?
[QUOTE=Kraken;143270]So why let you away with a smaller license than people who sail on a real ship?[/QUOTE]
Define “real ship” please.
[QUOTE=catherder;143276]Define “real ship” please.[/QUOTE]
Something that is not “a small 2 piece ship”
[QUOTE=Kraken;143278]Something that is not “a small 2 piece ship”[/QUOTE]
You are playing at semantics.
You mean to say that you disagree with granting even some credit for a tug/barge combo, even though it may handle like a larger vessel? And said tug may exceed 4000 HP?
Well it’s still 2 pieces. It is just a way for companies to get around the manning and regulations for a ship of similar size. No way that the barge piece has to meet firefighting/life saving regs anywhere near that of an equivalent size ship. I have never worked them. They were not always as big as ships. Companies keep building the barge bigger but the tug is still under 1600 GRT because they have not expanded at the same rate as the barges. Hence the limited license.
[QUOTE=catherder;143283]You are playing at semantics.
You mean to say that you disagree with granting even some credit for a tug/barge combo, even though it may handle like a larger vessel? And said tug may exceed 4000 HP?[/QUOTE]
Yes i disagree with letting the companies getting away with the manning and regulations of a comparative vessel because you can split it into two. It is to play with the safety of the crew and the environment, as one can see by accidents in recent years.
I will admit that “real ships” was not what I really meant, I have to blame “lost in translation” 
[QUOTE=dredgeboater;143287]Well it’s still 2 pieces. It is just a way for companies to get around the manning and regulations for a ship of similar size. No way that the barge piece has to meet firefighting/life saving regs anywhere near that of an equivalent size ship. I have never worked them. They were not always as big as ships. Companies keep building the barge bigger but the tug is still under 1600 GRT because they have not expanded at the same rate as the barges. Hence the limited license.[/QUOTE]
Shortcuts allows for accidents.
Agreed. But until those accidents happen it will be business as usual. Every regulation in the maritime has been written in response to major incidents. Some flag states and companies are better at being proactive, but that is usually the exception. With regards to the semantics about unlimited tonnage/horsepower seatime for something the size of a ship (even a 2 piece ship) it is the mariner getting the short end of the deal in this case.
At least a Towboater can go to prison for being a bad ship driver… "misconduct of a ship operator " being the operative term here…
“A man at the helm of a tug boat and barge that crashed into a sightseeing “duck boat” in the Delaware River in Pennsylvania last year - an incident that killed two tourists - has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. Matthew R. Devlin, of Catskill, New York, was sentenced for misconduct of a ship operator causing death, according to a U.S. attorney’s office.
Two tourists from Hungary - one 16 years old, the other 20 - died when a 250-foot sludge barge towed by the tugboat overran a disabled 33-foot “Ride the Ducks” tour boat on the Delaware River in July 2010, plunging the amphibious vessel and its 35 passengers and two crew members underwater.”
That’s right let’s just call everything a darn ship! HAAA! How you like me now!
[QUOTE=Kraken;143291]Shortcuts allows for accidents.[/QUOTE]
ATB’s have one of the most exemplary safety records of any type of vessel in the maritime industry anyway. Manning requirements or no manning requirements the ATB platform is proven and it WORKS.