Entry & progression
Optional endorsement. Governing regulation: 46 CFR 11.482. Available on both OUPV and Master.
What it authorises
46 CFR 11.482 provides a commercial assistance towing endorsement — the credential of the tow-service operator, the harbour salvor, and anyone who takes payment for pulling a boat off a sandbar. It is optional on an OUPV or a Master under 100 GRT, and it is listed as such on both NMC checklists.
Helping a friend off a bank is seamanship. Doing it for a fee, or for a company that charges one, is assistance towing — and the moment money is involved you need the endorsement.
Towing versus salvage — the distinction that decides who gets paid
| Towing | Salvage | |
|---|---|---|
| The situation | The vessel is not in peril. She is inconvenienced. | The vessel is in peril. Without help she may be lost. |
| The payment | An agreed fee for a service | A salvage award — a share of the value of what was saved |
| The paperwork | Agree the terms before the line goes across | May arise with no agreement at all |
| The exposure | Contractual | Potentially very large |
WARNING — Settle the terms before you pass the line The single largest source of litigation in this trade is a tow that one party thought was a favour, one party thought was a hundred-dollar job, and a court later decided was salvage. Establish — out loud, on the radio, ideally recorded — that this is an assistance tow at an agreed rate, and that the vessel is not in peril. Do it before you are committed, because afterwards nobody remembers it the same way.
The seamanship
Taking a vessel in tow
- Assess. Is she taking water? Are her people safe? A vessel in danger of sinking is a rescue, not a tow, and the priorities reverse.
- Agree terms, and confirm she is not in peril.
- Rig from a strong point, as low and as far forward of your rudder as practicable — a tow made fast too far aft will pin your stern and take away your steering.
- Use a long, elastic line, and set its length so both vessels ride the same part of the wave.
- Take up the strain slowly. A snatch load parts lines and tears out cleats.
- Keep a knife or axe at the towing point, and keep everyone out of the snapback zone.
- Shorten up for harbour work, and go alongside for close manoeuvring.
The thing that kills
A tow line under load stores an enormous amount of energy, and when it parts it releases all of it at once, along its own axis. Nobody stands in line with a loaded tow line. Nobody stands in the bight. This is not a rule of thumb — it is the reason the endorsement exists, and it is the difference between a bad afternoon and a fatality.