The Towing Vessel National Center of Expertise announced on its website Dec. 6, 2017, the availability of a new job aid, Tug Safe, designed to assist with preparation, completion and documentation of inspections and/or surveys of commercial towing vessels required to comply with 46 CFR Subchapter M. The job aid will generate a custom requirement list for a specific commercial towing vessel using a computer, laptop, tablet or smart phone.

Tug Safe will work in any browser, on any operating system, but it has been optimized for Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox on Windows 8 or greater. In order to save the completed checklist, instead of printing it, users will need to have a portable document program installed. Although this app has been designed to function on a variety of devices, using it on a device with less than 320 pixels of resolution in width will present a number of difficulties.

A collection of Frequently Asked Questions for using Tug Safe is available online. For questions about compliance with any of the requirements listed by the job aid, contact your local Officer in Charge, Marine Inspection (OCMI), the nearest Coast Guard Towing Vessel Safety Specialist or the Coast Guard Towing Vessel National Center of Expertise.

This blog is not a replacement or substitute for the formal posting of regulations and updates or existing processes for receiving formal feedback of the same. Links provided on this blog will direct the reader to official source documents, such as the Federal Register, Homeport and the Code of Federal Regulations. These documents remain the official source for regulatory information published by the Coast Guard.