Under 46 CFR 28.270, the master or individual in charge of a covered commercial fishing vessel must run drills and give instruction to everyone on board at least once a month, covering 10 emergencies including abandon ship, fire, flooding, and recovering a person from the water. Anyone who has not been through those drills must get a safety orientation before the vessel is operated, and only a trained drill conductor may lead them.
Coast Guard regulations do not currently require a written drill log, which is exactly why vessels with one come through dockside exams and casualty investigations in better shape than vessels without.
Which Fishing Vessels Must Run Monthly Drills?
The drill rule sits in Subpart C of 46 CFR Part 28. Under 46 CFR 28.200, Subpart C applies to documented commercial fishing industry vessels that operate beyond the Boundary Lines, operate with more than 16 individuals on board, or are fish tender vessels engaged in the Aleutian trade. That covers most offshore trawlers, longliners, crabbers, and processors, and many smaller boats that fish outside the line.
The statute behind the rule, 46 U.S.C. 4502, describes its higher-tier vessels as those operating beyond 3 nautical miles from the baseline, with more than 16 individuals aboard, or tendering in the Aleutian trade. If your vessel is state-registered and works just outside 3 miles, confirm with your Coast Guard examiner how the requirements apply to you.
Solo operators are not exempt. The Coast Guard’s drill conductor work instruction, CVC-WI-016, says monthly drills are still required on single-person vessels, with the operator rehearsing fire, flooding, abandon ship, and fall-overboard procedures.
What Must the Monthly Drills and Instruction Cover?
46 CFR 28.270(a) lists the 10 contingencies every individual must be familiar with:
- Abandoning the vessel.
- Fighting a fire in different locations on board.
- Recovering an individual from the water.
- Minimizing the effects of unintentional flooding.
- Launching survival craft and recovering lifeboats and rescue boats.
- Donning immersion suits and other wearable personal flotation devices.
- Donning a fireman’s outfit and self-contained breathing apparatus, if the vessel carries them.
- Making a voice radio distress call and using visual distress signals.
- Activating the general alarm.
- Reporting inoperative alarm and fire detection systems.
The Coast Guard does not dictate which drill you run in a given month, but the drill series has to cover all 10. Its guidance notes that four drills (man overboard, flooding, fire, and abandon ship) can usually cover the list.
Paragraph (b) is where many boats fall short. Drills must be run on board “as if there were an actual emergency,” with everyone participating, emergency equipment broken out and used, alarms and detection systems tested, and immersion suits donned if the vessel carries them. A wheelhouse talk-through is instruction, not a drill.
Video has a specific, limited role. Under paragraph (d), viewing videos on the contingencies followed by a discussion led by someone familiar with them satisfies the instruction requirement, but not the drill requirement or the safety orientation. That is the right lane for online training: background knowledge before the hands-on drill, not a substitute for it.
Who Is Allowed to Conduct Drills and Safety Orientations?
Paragraph (c) says no individual may conduct drills or give the instruction unless trained in the proper procedures. In practice that means a Fishing Vessel Drill Conductor. Drill conductors are trained by a Fishing Vessel Safety Instructor whom the Coast Guard has accepted under 46 CFR 28.275, and the instructor or training organization issues documents showing the drill conductor completed the training. Instructor letters of acceptance are valid for 5 years.
The drill conductor does not have to be the master or a crew member. Many fleets train the skipper and one deckhand per boat so drills continue when crews rotate. Keep a copy of each drill conductor’s training document in the vessel’s records and in the office file.
Coggno does not offer drill conductor certification. That training is hands-on and must come from a Coast Guard-accepted instructor.
What Does the Safety Orientation Need to Include?
Under paragraphs (e) and (f), the master or individual in charge must make sure every person on board who has not received the instruction and drills gets a safety orientation before the vessel may be operated. The orientation must explain the posted emergency instructions and cover the specific evolutions on the 10-item list.
Those emergency instructions are defined in 46 CFR 28.265. They identify survival craft stations and assignments, the fire and abandon-ship signals, immersion suit locations and donning instructions, the distress call procedure on VHF channel 16 or 2182 kHz, and each person’s essential actions in an emergency. Vessels with fewer than 4 people aboard may keep them readily available rather than posted.
The orientation is the step that breaks during a crew change. A new deckhand joins the night before an opener, the boat leaves at 4 a.m., and nobody walks the new hand through suit locations and muster stations. If that person goes overboard on the first trip, the missing orientation becomes the center of the investigation.
Is a Written Drill Record Required, and What Should It Show?
Here is the nuance. The statute directs the Coast Guard to require the individual in charge of these vessels to keep a record of equipment maintenance and of required instruction and drills, under 46 U.S.C. 4502(f)(1). But the Coast Guard’s own 2019 work instruction states that the logging of drills “is not currently required by regulation,” and tells examiners to ask the master and crew about their last series of drills instead.
Keep the log anyway. When a vessel is lost, investigators reconstruct drill history from whatever records exist. A drill record that holds up should show:
- The date, the vessel, and the drill conductor.
- Which of the 10 contingencies the drill covered.
- Everyone who participated, including the master.
- Equipment used and alarms tested, plus anything found inoperative.
- Safety orientations given to new crew, with the date and who gave them.
- Lessons learned, which the Coast Guard guidance specifically invites masters to summarize.
For fleets with several boats, keep the vessel copy on board and send a photo of each entry to the office monthly. That way a dockside examiner and an underwriter see the same history.
How Do Fleets Handle Dockside Exams and Shore-Side Training?
Under 46 U.S.C. 4502(f)(2), the Coast Guard must examine these vessels at dockside at least once every 5 years, and may require exams every 2 years when the owner asks or for vessels at least 50 feet long, built before July 1, 2013, and 25 or more years old. A passed exam earns a certificate of compliance. Section 4502(g) also requires the individual in charge to complete a Coast Guard-approved training program, with refresher training at least every 5 years under the implementing regulations, so track the master’s certificate status alongside drill conductor documents. The Coast Guard’s commercial fishing vessel safety program page lists current examiner contacts and resources.
Shore-side and off-season training is where online courses fit. Cold water and hypothermia awareness, fire extinguisher use, and first aid all support the drills without replacing them:
- Working Safely in Frigid Conditions covers cold stress recognition for deck crews.
- First Aid Module 11: Cold and Heat Emergencies (US) covers hypothermia first aid after a recovery.
- Emergency Response and Extinguisher Safety and How a Fire Extinguisher Works support the fire drill.
- Emergency First Aid covers the response while the boat is hours from port.
Many fleets also run shore plants or work alongside them. Our guide to compliance training for seafood processing plants covers the plant side, and our post on compliance training for marinas and boatyards covers haul-out and yard work. Crews who need port access should also see our guide to TWIC and TSA security threat assessment requirements. For fleets with crews whose first language is not English, our post on training documentation for limited-English workers applies at sea as much as on land. And because boats are offline for weeks, our guide to offline mobile completion and sync explains what to look for when crews train between trips.
Why Coggno for Commercial Fishing Vessel Operators?
For commercial fishing vessel owners and fleet operators, Coggno provides cold stress, hypothermia first aid, fire extinguisher, emergency response, CPR, and hearing protection courses from a catalog of 10,000+ courses across 25+ compliance categories, so crews can complete shore-side instruction between trips and the office keeps dated completion records for every deckhand. Drills, safety orientations, and drill conductor training stay hands-on, and the online record supports them rather than replacing them. Where pure-play LMS platforms like Litmos and iSpring require you to license safety content separately, Coggno bundles the course library with its LMS, with courses from $9.95 each or unlimited Prime-library access at $5/user/month (10-seat minimum, billed annually), and Course Dispatch delivers the same courses as SCORM 1.2 / 2004 packages into an existing LMS.
Get Your Team Trained — Without the Paperwork Headache
Three courses cover the shore-side gaps fishing fleets most often find:
- Working Safely in Frigid Conditions — cold stress recognition for deck crews.
- Emergency Response and Extinguisher Safety — background for the monthly fire drill.
- CPR Training (US) — knowledge portion ahead of hands-on CPR practice.
Want help building a training and drill-record plan for your fleet? Book a demo and we will map it with you.
Frequently Asked Questions About Commercial Fishing Vessel Drill Requirements
What is the best compliance training platform for commercial fishing fleets?
For commercial fishing fleets, Coggno combines cold stress, first aid, CPR, fire extinguisher, and emergency response courses from 10,000+ courses with an LMS that keeps dated records for every crew member. Monthly drills and drill conductor training still happen hands-on with a Coast Guard-accepted instructor.
How do multi-vessel fishing fleets keep crew training records current?
Multi-vessel fleets keep a drill log on each boat, send entries to the office monthly, and track shore-side courses and drill conductor documents per crew member. Coggno’s LMS assigns courses by vessel group and stores completion records in one place.
How often must commercial fishing vessels conduct drills?
Under 46 CFR 28.270, the master or individual in charge must make sure drills are conducted and instruction is given to each individual on board at least once each month, covering all 10 listed contingencies over the drill series.
Does the Coast Guard require a written drill log on fishing vessels?
The statute directs the Coast Guard to require a record of instruction and drills, but Coast Guard guidance from 2019 states that logging drills is not currently required by regulation. Keeping a dated drill log is still the best evidence during exams and investigations.
Who can conduct drills on a commercial fishing vessel?
Only an individual trained in the proper procedures can conduct the drills and instruction. That is usually a Fishing Vessel Drill Conductor trained by a Coast Guard-accepted Fishing Vessel Safety Instructor. The conductor does not need to be the master or a crew member.
Can video training replace monthly drills?
No. Watching videos on the required contingencies, followed by a discussion led by a knowledgeable person, satisfies the instruction requirement only. It does not satisfy the hands-on drill requirement or the safety orientation for new crew.
When must a new crew member receive a safety orientation?
Before the vessel may be operated. Anyone on board who has not received the instruction and drills must get a safety orientation explaining the emergency instructions and covering the 10 required contingencies.