As a ship owner, you are well aware that the United States Coast Guard (USCG) implements hundreds of regulations that ship owners are expected to follow. If you operate a specialized vessel, the requirements can get even more complicated. You will be expected to follow a plethora of mandates, including rules for issues such as ship design, purpose, safety procedures and logging requirements. What is a specialized ship? Specialized vessels have unique purposes, components and needs. The USCG...

A little noticed article in the Federal Register of August 9th contained important draft revisions to Volume 3 of the Coast Guard Marine Safety Manual – Chapters 20 thru 26. The importance of Volume 3 of the MSM is that it deals with Merchant Marine Personnel, and there are big changes afoot. To view the documents go to http://www.regulations.gov and use “USCG-2013-0240” as your search term. There are over 150 pages containing dozens of changes and updates that brought alarming responses from...