The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny proud­ly announces that eight (8) of the Company’s tugs, rep­re­sent­ing more than a quar­ter of its active har­bor tow­ing fleet, have received U. S. Coast Guard Cer­tifi­cates of Inspec­tion. The Cer­tifi­cates of Inspec­tion, issued a full month ahead of the required dead­line, rep­re­sent the Company’s ded­i­ca­tion to ensur­ing its tugs meet or exceed the new­ly imple­ment­ed Coast Guard tow­ing ves­sel inspec­tion reg­u­la­tions, com­mon­ly referred to as Sub­chap­ter M. 

The new­ly cer­ti­fied tugs include the CLEVELAND and OHIO, two new­ly con­struct­ed Damen Stan Tug 1907 ICE design boats, built by Great Lakes Ship­yard, as well as the ven­er­a­ble “G”-Tugs COLORADO, IOWA, MISSOURI, NEBRASKA, NEW JERSEY, and WYOMING. 

Nick Wallinder, HSSE Coor­di­na­tor, leads the Tow­ing Company’s Sub­chap­ter M com­pli­ance efforts. “We are very grat­i­fied to have hit this impor­tant mile­stone. It has been an ‘all hands on deck’ effort. All of us, from our crews to our cus­tomers, should take pride in the fact that our tugs meet or exceed the industry’s high­est lev­els of tow­ing safe­ty man­age­ment,” com­ments Wallinder.

Over the last few years, The Tow­ing Com­pa­ny has worked in part­ner­ship with the USCG and the Amer­i­can Bureau of Ship­ping (ABS) in prepa­ra­tion for the enforce­ment of the new 46 CFR Sub­chap­ter M laws.

“ABS is an indus­try leader in sup­port­ing clients achieve com­pli­ance with the Sub­chap­ter M reg­u­la­tions. We are proud to have been part of team help­ing The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny to achieve this mile­stone,” said Joseph Kel­ly, ABS Vice Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­ca Region­al Operations.

This ini­tial issuance sets the stage for the next three years, dur­ing which the remain­der of the Tow­ing Company’s fleet will be inspect­ed and issued COIs, and by 2022, the entire fleet will be in compliance.

“The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny is at the fore­front of the industry’s rig­or­ous ambi­tion to imple­ment the new safe­ty require­ments of Sub­chap­ter M. I am par­tic­u­lar­ly proud of my team, and as a com­pa­ny we tru­ly appre­ci­ate the part­ner­ships that have devel­oped with the Coast Guard and ABS as we con­tin­ue to obtain cer­tifi­cates for our tugs,” con­firms Lind­say Dew, Direc­tor of Oper­a­tions & Compliance.

Sub­chap­ter M has tak­en safe­ty in the tow­ing indus­try to a new and his­toric lev­el by set­ting min­i­mum safe­ty stan­dards for tow­ing ves­sels, incor­po­rat­ing and build­ing upon the reg­u­la­to­ry safe­guards already in place, to ensure that the entire indus­try achieves the lev­el of safe­ty nec­es­sary to pro­tect lives, the envi­ron­ment, and prop­er­ty. The issuance of Cer­tifi­cates of Inspec­tion for exist­ing tow­ing ves­sels is being phased in over four years. Sub­chap­ter M is the most impor­tant rule­mak­ing ever to affect the tug­boat indus­try, and the Tow­ing Com­pa­ny is well on its way to suc­cess­ful­ly achiev­ing full imple­men­ta­tion through­out its entire oper­a­tion across the Great Lakes. 

(Stand­ing L to R: Robie Moor­house , Marine Inspec­tor, USCG; Lind­say Dew, Direc­tor of Oper­a­tions, GLT; Lieu­tenant Vau­na Streep­er, Chief of Inspec­tions, USCG; Ken Siford, Jr., Assis­tant Fleet Engi­neer, GLT; Scott Tozzi, Prin­ci­pal Sur­vey­or, ABS Cleve­land; Joe Star­ck, Pres­i­dent, GLT — Sit­ting L to R: Gregg Thau­vette, VP, Oper­a­tions, Sales & Mar­ket­ing, GLT; Nick Wallinder, HSSE Coor­di­na­tor, GLT)