Valuable Lessons Learned – the Hard Way. Unfortunately, vessel collisions on America’s busy (but too often overlooked) inland waters have been a fact of life for a very long time. With towboats, barges, ferries, oceangoing vessels and recreational vessels all jockeying for position in limited space, many collisions, and even more near misses, are bound to happen. And while, thankfully, most of these incidents involving professional mariners do not lead to suspension and revocation proceedings against the involved licensed mariners…