I had posted this in another thread but thought I would start one of it’s own to see what everyone thinks.
I was just reading a write up on all of the proposed changes coming to the Un-Inspected towing vessels. After reading the entire thing one thing jumped out at me. They mentioned that some of the vessels will not be able to meet the new regulation plus the cost of the new regulations might / will drive the cost to run these vessels up which will be passed on the the customers.
Now the good part, this might OPEN THE DOOR TO BRING FOREIGN VESSELS IN TO JONES ACT TRADE. It was mentioned that with some of the smaller companies might go out of business plus that some of the older tugs might be put out of service, as the cost to bring them up to the new standards might out weigh the value of the boat. If this happens and there starts to be a shortage of tugs and then here come the waivers. This got me thinking is this entire evolution of making these vessels inspected is just another way to try and get Foreign Crewed Towing Vessels into Jones Act Trade.
The mandatory inspections are not cheap, for instance on most of our boats we had the clear glass lower bowls on our racor filter housings. The new regulations require you switch to a metal bowl collector for fire retardant reasons. Racor charged 200$ a piece per bowl. Each of our bigger ocean boats run 3 racors housings per main engine plus 2 per generator. So 8 per boat @200$. We have about 17 ocean going tugs. That’s 27,200$ to come into compliance plus paying our yard crew workers to install them. This is just 1 small change of many that has been required to come into compliance. All the while we have to stay competitive with our competition on tow jobs. Is it hurting to small guys in the industry yes I would say so.
[QUOTE=rshrew;87933]The mandatory inspections are not cheap, for instance on most of our boats we had the clear glass lower bowls on our racor filter housings. The new regulations require you switch to a metal bowl collector for fire retardant reasons. Racor charged 200$ a piece per bowl. Each of our bigger ocean boats run 3 racors housings per main engine plus 2 per generator. So 8 per boat @200$. We have about 17 ocean going tugs. That’s 27,200$ to come into compliance plus paying our yard crew workers to install them. This is just 1 small change of many that has been required to come into compliance. All the while we have to stay competitive with our competition on tow jobs. Is it hurting to small guys in the industry yes I would say so.[/QUOTE]
200 each? Are you sure? They sell on Amazon.com for 80 shipped for the kit. Ebay is a little cheaper. Also they take about 5 minutes to install each. We had to change out all 25 racors a few months back on here. Its 4 small screws. If a deckhand/engineer cant install a racor bowl then maybe you guys should look for new help.
Just going off what one of our port engineers said to me. On our boats we do not carry engineers and most maintenance is done at a shore side level due to short trip rotations. The point of the post is yes it is costing money, and now with Canada requiring engineers within the next year on US vessels over 1,000hp it is going to hurt small towing businesses more.
Boo Fucking Hoo. If the OSV guys can keep their boats to CG regs and still make money so can the tugs.
It’s their own fault for going cheap for years and now it’s coming around to bite them in the ass.
Of course the cost gets passed on to the customers, that’s how capitalism works. I don’t see foreign boats coming inshore anytime soon. I do see the smaller shops closing up, but that’s the way things go.
Most of the coastal/ocean towing tugs are already up to speed on the bridging/inspection program. If your company has a safety management system in place, subject to SOLAS or ISM than most likely you are already good to go. The USCG bridging program checklist contains less safety inspection items than my monthly preventitive maintenance checks. What’s really gonna hurt is the companies that carry unlicensed engineers. Thankfully when licensed engineers are required on all towing vessels, it should create a shortage and our rates should go up, just like a few years back with mates with NY harbor experience.
Exactly the company’s without unlicensed engineers are screwed our guys been being head
Hunted for year+ (licensed). Some stayed some don’t be interesting as companies get more desperate.
There a couple of items that were listed in order to be in line with the new rules that might cause some problems. The biggest problem that I see is the requirement for Fir Resistant Paneling. Most of the older (70-80’s) vintage tugs that I worked on had a lot of wood through out the accommodations. The others are Mechanical Seals on the Shafts to allow for a dry bilge and Fire Suppression Systems.
The company that I worked for was pretty good about supplying pump trucks for waste whenever we asked but even with that we always seemed to have something in our bilges. Even though my old company was one of the best that I worked for they will need to do a good amount of upgrades to meet most of the new regulations.
I just wonder if the old excuse of the cost of manning will come around when they all start complaining about the costs and try to justify getting rid of the U.S. crews or at least a part of the crew. Remember it was not all that long ago that no one would have thought that we would have Mexican Trucks driving all over the U.S.
I guess we will have to wait and see but this Administration has not been a friend to the U.S. Merchant Mariner up to now.
Our biggest hassle has been the fuel shut off valves. We had a few boats without them so we had to add them to a few boats everything else has not been too bad.
Fuel shut off valves have been required for a long time. It does not have to to do with being inpected or UTV.
The duality of system, re-wireing of electronics and basing your operations on full OSHA guidelines is part of the biggest parts of Subchapter M.
Just in case, people out there remember that the biggest impact is for companies that do not use a TSMS. Its a big culture change for mom and pops companies.