CrewChangeJobsby JackStaff DigitalCrewChangeJobsby JackStaff DigitalLive postings from towing companies — day rate and rotation up front. Applying is free and uses your CrewChange profile.
There’s a real path here, and it climbs fast. The day rates below are what hands on the inland boats are actually making — tap any rung for the full pay breakdown.
A hand who’s set on it can go from about $30k to $80k inside the first year. Schedules run 20/10, 28/14, or 20/20 — days worked, then days home. Run your own numbers in the day rate calculator → That first-year road is a whole book now — From Deckhand to $80K →
Most people who never make it aboard get stuck on the paperwork and the screens — not the work. We walk you through every step.
The ID that gets you onto the terminals. We point you to the right enrollment center and what to bring — about $125.
Not needed to start decking — TWIC and a medical card get you aboard. The MMC is your move-up paper (tankerman, wheelhouse), and the entry-level one needs no exam and no sea time.
This is the wall most green hands hit. We tell you exactly what the USCG physical and the drug test look like so nothing surprises you.
A clean packet aimed at the companies actually hiring near you — and if you’ve got experience, we put you in front of them ourselves.
This isn’t a resume dump. You fill out one application here, hiring companies see it, and once it’s built out enough to stand on its own, we start putting it in their hands ourselves. Free for mariners — always has been.
Your papers, the boats you’ve run, the water you know, the rotation you want. It saves as you go — start it in five minutes on watch and finish it at home. No resume needed; the application is the resume.
Completed profiles show up on Pushboat Crews, the employer side of this board, where port captains and personnel managers go looking for crew. They see your experience and your credentials — never your Social Security number.
Fill your application to 75% or better and we don’t wait for somebody to find you. We start emailing it to hiring companies on your behalf. That’s the part below — and it’s the part other job boards don’t do.
When an outfit wants you, they contact you. We are not a manning agency: we don’t take a cut of your day rate, we don’t sell your information, and we don’t stand between you and the offer.
Every application on this site carries a Profile strength meter that fills in as you answer. Once yours reaches 75% or better, you’re not just sitting on the deck waiting to get noticed — we start emailing your application out to hiring companies on your behalf, aimed at the outfits crewing up for the work you do and the rivers you run.
You don’t pay for it. You don’t have to ask for it. Get the application to 75% and it starts.
Straight talk: nobody honest can promise you a job, and we won’t. What we can promise is that a finished application doesn’t sit still.
Finish your application →The work is hard and physical, and you’ll live on a steel boat with the same few people for weeks — when you don’t get along, there’s nowhere to go. That’s what runs most new hands off, and nobody warns them.
Here’s the truth from 18 years of it: the guys who make it aren’t the strongest. They’re the ones who show up, do the basics every single day — sweep, mop, keep the boat right — pick up after themselves, and keep their head when tempers get short. Do that and you’ll move up fast. We’ll prepare you for the part of this job that actually decides who stays.
An interactive barge you rig yourself. Hang your forward leads, backing leads, breasts and winch wires, set the tide, then send a loaded tow past and see if your mooring holds — or watch it part, line by line, the way the casualty reports describe it.
A line only pulls. Forward leads stop her running ahead, backing leads stop her sliding astern, breasts hold her on the dock. The angle decides the job — and here you can see it.
Loaded tow at 5 mph or a ship in ballast at 9 — she gets pulled toward it, sucked off the dock, then snatched after the stern clears. That last snatch is what parts lines.
Rig her wrong and she goes with the river — parted lines, deck-log lesson and all. Better to lose a barge in here than ever lose one out there.
The physics come from Navy model tests, NTSB breakaway reports, and real line strengths. A loaded 30,000-barrel barge with a knot of way on parts any single line ever made — in here, you’ll feel why.
Training simulation for learning concepts — not a substitute for real deck training or your company’s procedures.
You’re paid by the day, only for days aboard — so the same rate pays different money on a 14/7 than a 28/14. Set a rate, pick a rotation, and see what the hitch, the month, and the year really come to.
Estimates only. Gross pay before taxes, per diem, or travel — real checks vary by company, experience, boat, and hitches actually worked.
Position presets, bi-weekly checks on and off hitch, and every rotation compared side by side.
The steersman exam’s toughest module takes 90% to pass. Drill 20 random questions at a time from a 100-question bank — Inland Rules and the Western Rivers calls a towboater actually gets tested on, with the rule behind every answer.
Practice only. Not the exam, and no substitute for studying the official USCG Rules of the Road — use it to find your weak spots before the book does the real work.
Every answer shows the rule behind it — right or wrong. Built for hands working toward the wheelhouse.
Pick your barges, punch in the rate the dock gave you, and see the whole load — pumping time, topping-off slowdown, the shift between barges, and exactly when you’ll be done.
Estimates only. Gauging, stripping, paperwork, and dock delays not included — the Declaration of Inspection’s max transfer rate governs, always.
Topping-off math and a finish-time planner — know your watch before you hook up.
Barrels, gallons, pounds, short tons, metric tons — convert a load between any of them. Pick your cargo or punch in the specific gravity off the docs, and every unit updates at once.
Volume’s exact. Barrels, gallons and liters don’t need a product; pounds and tons do — that’s the specific gravity off your cargo papers.
Built right into the load calculator — scroll down and it’s there.
Just the basics to start — no password, no 100 questions. Add the rest whenever you want; we’ll send you a link.
This site is run by a real working captain — not a bot, not a staffing agency. One more step that matters: you’re in the system, but hiring companies can’t see everything you have yet. Complete your full application for full exposure to employers — endorsements, routes, availability — and you show up when they’re searching for hands like you. Takes a few minutes, no password needed.
You picked your rotation up top — 20/10, 28/14, 20/20. TowCal turns it into a real calendar: one join date locks in your pattern, and it maps every crew change forward and back — plus what you’re owed. Built for working mariners by the same crew behind this site.
20/10, 28/14, 20/20 or a custom swing. One date locks it in — no spreadsheet.
TowCal projects each crew change forward and backward, so you always know your next one — and your days home.
Day-rate or salary, per diem on top, and a take-home estimate for the dates you actually worked.
The math runs on your device. Your dates and your pay never leave it.
Send the whole year to the people waiting on the bank — every crew change, every day home, birthdays flagged. No more "when do you get off the boat?"
Reminders up to 12 months ahead — you pick how early.
