Based on the analysis of the characteristics of the tugboat scheduling problem,  the similarity between the tugboat scheduling problem and the multiprocessor scheduling problem, this paper formulated a 3stage scheduling model considering multianchorage,  aimed at minimizing the total tugboat operation times. A hybrid simulated annealing algorithm was designed to solve the proposed problem. A two-dimensional real integer coding was used to illustrate the solution. The heuristics of the first available tugboat was embedded to generate the initial solution, and the threepoint crossover approach was adopted to generate new solutions. Numerical examples prove that the convergence characteristics of the algorithm are good and the results are better than those obtained from the existing scheduling rules by around 20%. Sensitivity analysis of related parameters reveals that the objective function is most sensitive to the proportion of the shifting-berth operation and ship style, slightly changed by the tugboat deployment scheme, and not sensitive to the handling operation times.