Maintaining Crabber/Towboat Lane Agreements

Conflicts between ocean-going tugs and commercial crabbers in Washington, Oregon and California were a major problem in the late 1970s. Crab pots fouled tugs as they moved between coastal ports, and the loss of their gear was a severe economic loss for crab boat owners. 

Sea Grant programs on the West Coast helped broker an agreement that provided navigable towboat and barge lanes through the crabbing grounds between Cape Flattery and San Francisco. Washington Sea Grant took a leadership role in the late 1990s that remains pivotal in saving these industries hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.

Meetings

2012-13 Towlane Charts for Crabbers and Towboats – Cape Flattery to San Francisco

Alerts

A slight modification to the towlane at Cape Alava is now in effect to reduce conflicts between vessel traffic and fishing gear. Please see the following PDF files for detailed information:

Charts

Data Files

For your convenience, Washington Sea Grant has made available electronic data files for commercial crabber and towboat towlane charts. Nobeltec data comes in a single text file; the other two formats entailed larger files, and so we compressed those into two different formats for downloading. Note: Please note lane change information for Cape Alava above.

Please note:

  1. The following links provide access to data files. You must download the appropriate file (Maptech, Nobeltec, or WindPlot), decompress it (see 3 below), and import it into the appropriate program.
  2. To facilitate faster download speed, we have compressed all files into zip and sitx formats. You can obtain a free version of the program required to decompress these files from Allume Systems.
  3. Color key: blue = summer-only lanes; red = advisory only lanes.

Maptech Data

Rose Point ECS/Coastal Explorer

Nobeltec Data and Loading Instructions

WindPlot Data

2013 Proposed Towlane Changes - Oregon Coast

If you require the towlane chart data in printed form, please contact Steve C. Harbell, Marine Resources Agent, 360.875.9331, sharbell@u.washington.edu. If you have trouble accessing the data, please contact Marcus Duke, WSG Web Editor, 206.685.0171, mduke@u.washington.edu

Contacts