Puget Sound and Rosario Strait Escort Rules
The federal and Washington State escort layers: 33 CFR Part 168, RCW 88.16.190 from 2020, the shaft horsepower test, and the pending rulemaking.
Two layers of escort law apply in Washington waters. The federal layer, 33 CFR Part 168, requires at least two escort vessels for laden single hull tankers of 5,000 gross tons or more in Puget Sound and associated waters east of a line connecting New Dungeness Light with Discovery Island Light, including Haro Strait, Rosario Strait, the Strait of Georgia, Hood Canal and the eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca.
The state layer is RCW 88.16.190(2)(a)(ii), inserted by ESHB 1578 in 2019 and effective 1 September 2020. In Rosario Strait and connected waterways to the east it requires escort for laden oil tankers between 5,000 and 40,000 deadweight tonnes, and for articulated tug barges and towed vessels carrying oil in bulk internal to the hull above 5,000 DWT, by a tug or tugs with aggregate shaft horsepower equal to at least 5 percent of the deadweight tonnage of a 40,000 DWT tanker. Bunkering and refuelling vessels are exempt. The Board of Pilotage Commissioners defined the geography by interpretive statement on 17 September 2020.
The full article will set out both layers, the older requirement for tankers above 40,000 DWT east of the New Dungeness line, and the Washington rulemaking under chapter 363-116 WAC.