Boats get boarded.
Ours are already checked.

Illegal charters — boats carrying paying passengers without a licensed captain, a drug-tested crew, or real insurance — are not a hypothetical on this coast. The Coast Guard stops them here, and federal prosecutors charge them. Before you hand a stranger several hundred dollars and your family's Saturday, here is what's actually at stake, and what "IronJetty Verified" means.

This happens on our water

Houston / Galveston area · 2026 The Coast Guard and partner agencies terminated the voyage of an illegal charter near Houston — a paid trip operating without the required credentials. Passengers went home; the operator faced civil penalties that can run tens of thousands of dollars per violation.
Texas · federal prosecution A Texas operator who kept running illegal charters after repeated Coast Guard warnings faced up to ten years in federal prison; another Southern District of Texas operator was convicted at trial. The government treats this seriously because people have been hurt on uninspected, uninsured boats.

Why it matters to you: if a boat isn't legal, its insurance likely doesn't pay when something goes wrong — and the trip can be ended by a boarding team mid-charter, with no refund coming from an operator who just got cited.

What "IronJetty Verified" actually means

Most platforms check that a license number exists. We confirm each of the seven pillars with the authority that issued it — and the badge carries the date each item was last confirmed.

01
USCG captain's credential — confirmed with the National Maritime Center, not read off a frame on the console.
02
Drug & alcohol testing program — enrollment in the random-testing program federal law requires of every charter crew (46 CFR 16), confirmed with the consortium. This is the violation Coast Guard boardings catch most.
03
TPWD guide license — sighted and current for the water the trip actually runs.
04
Insurance — confirmed with the captain's broker, as a commercial charter policy, not a personal-boat policy.
05
Federal permits — matched to every trip sold: reef fish, coastal migratory pelagics, HMS for tuna/shark trips.
06
Vessel — documentation endorsed for carrying passengers, and COI-inspected where the law requires it (more than six passengers).
07
Rank never sold — placement on IronJetty is earned by verification and performance. It cannot be bought.

What happens when a document lapses

The badge is not a plaque — it is a live reading. The moment any document behind it lapses — an insurance renewal misses its date, a permit ages out — that captain's ✓ Verified badge comes down automatically, the same second. No grace period, no queue for someone to notice. The badge only means something if it can never be stale.

Losing the badge is not the same as losing the boat. A captain whose insurance lapsed has fallen short of our standard, and the badge says so honestly — but they keep operating while they fix it. The hard line is the one the government drew: if a lapse breaks what the law requires to carry passengers for hire — the USCG credential, the federal drug-testing program, the TPWD guide license, the COI on an inspected boat, or a Master credential where the passenger count demands one (a six-pack OUPV license cannot legally run a boat carrying more than six) — their trips come off this site automatically, that instant, because running without those papers puts lives at risk. The moment the paper is current again, the listings return on their own. No favors, no exceptions, no one to sweet-talk: the system enforces itself around the clock, and every movement is reported the moment it happens.

One question to ask any charter

"Can I see your Coast Guard credential and your insurance certificate?" A legal captain answers in ten seconds and is usually proud to. On IronJetty, you never have to ask — we already did, at the source, and the receipts are public: see every captain's live verification ledger →

Book a verified boat Captains: get verified →