NASBLA…sounds like Naz-Blah. However, if you are wondering about new regulations, NASBLA is a name you should become familiar with. The National Association of State Boating Law Administrators http://www.nasbla.org/. Here is small snip from their very extensive website:
Since 1992, NASBLA has had a Model Act for Charter Boat Safety that can be applied to any vessels carrying passengers for hire. This act is intended to provide for the regulation, inspection, and licensing of charter boats; protect the safety and welfare of persons using them; authorize the administering department to prescribe standards and promulgate rules; provide for the seizure and condemnation of certain vessels; and impose duties on certain insurance carriers. In 2006, the model act’s provisions were reviewed and updated and adopted by the NASBLA membership on Sept. 27, 2006. At the same time, NASBLA adoped a set of model administrative rules to accompany the Model Act for Charter Boat Safety. In October, NASBLA co-sponsored with the National Transportation Safety Board and the U.S. Coast Guard a training seminar for state officials: Passenger Vessel Safety on Sole State Waters. The technical program focused on “A Model Passenger Vessel Safety Program For State Regulators” by looking at policies and practices gained from more than 50 years of experience in regulating small passenger vessels by the U.S. Coast Guard and voluntary safety organizations, such as the Passenger Vessel Association.
This sounds like a great way for C-PORT to pursue the issue of local agency competition. Somewhere deep in the archives of C-PORT is a document called “Marine Police Standing Operating Proceedure“. Lets update that document and push NASBLA to adopt it as the “Model Act” for standard operating proceedures in state and local authorities. Any volunteers to head up that battle? Guys in Southern California should be all over this idea…
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I completely agree that this is an issue on which C-PORT should continue working. It’s been addressed on and off for many years but problems continue to arise here and there. This issue HAS been identified as an action item within C-PORT but progress has been spotty. The local towers who experience these problems should keep C-PORT up to date so ideas can be exchanged.
Doug, LOCAL AGENCY COMPETITION, is an extremely important issue and for Inland/Lake towers such as myself, it is the primary issue! Here on the Lake of the Ozarks, we have no USCG presence, stations, radio guard, etc.(with exception of occasional holiday weekend). We do have lots of local agencies with shiny expensive toys,(recently fueled by Homeland Security grants) and they want to play with them! So, they often crew them with un-trained personnel, and throw them on the lake over a holiday weekend to go save “Lives and Property” for free!!
Our main issue for over 5 years, is with the State Water Patrol, they are our biggest competitor.
Several years ago I took the “Marine Police Standing Operating Proceedure” from C-Port, modified it to be specific to the Missouri State Water Patrol, and approached C-Port with a request to review my revised procedures, edit if needed, and send it to the head of the State Water Patrol along with a cover letter briefly outlining how and why commercial on the water “Emergency Towing” came in to existance,(the USCG non-interference, etc. I felt that if the Water Patrol received this information from an organization that represented the industry, along with background information on how the industry was formed, it might begin to educate the agency and provide them with some opportunity to save on operating costs and maybe cut out some of the non necessary towing they were doing. The idea seemed o.k., and truthfully to this day I am not sure if C-Port followed through on this request or not, (there is another long story there). Just in the past few weeks, I have been working with Fiona @ C-Port on this issue as it relates primarily to Inland Towers, we are putting together something to begin getting input from towers on this subject. Your suggestion and reference to NASBLA may also be another avenue to approach. I look forward to working on this issue for inland towers and offshore as well. Many of the problems are the same for both.
Capt C. Meyer – TowBoatU.S. Lake Ozark
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