Hi there deltaecho,
I was 'right in the thick of' all this..what you're talking about.
I remember being busy from 8 in the morning till 10 in the evening. Vermaas's And Latitudes would line up from North Entrance stretching several 100M's sometimes out to sea. Many a time I had to dock both latitudes and Vermaas's without any assistance, and don't forget, this was with damage on and no pushing! (Although I did push sometimes....but required literally 0.25 of a knot so's not to damage yourself and the other ship. On top of this, don't forget, ships were coming out as well as in...so very often, I would be regulating traffic as Harbour master as well as towing.
As for towing services...I set IJTS up in the latter part of Ship Sim 08's life really. When the server software came out people became lost in so many custom made servers...and our once humble home sort of dissapeared into thin air. (At one time I could tell you who would be on the server at what time. I knew everybody that would be on that server!!). Anyway, as I said, things didn't turn out well at all when the server software was released...and for about half a year to a year, I sat not doing much, simply because there was nobody to tow. So, I really got fed up of this, and set up IJTS. Captain Matt was able to provide us with a server, and the old "Marseille Server" was re-born...
The IJTS site really took off...with over 10,000 posts and 122 members now. I still hope to have this carry on into SSE.
So...I'm quite proud to say, i've always done towing (2-3 years now!) and still intend to do so in SSE. And will still make it my mission to make Multiplayer as brilliant as it was when SS08 was born!!
Jack.