202119 Mooring Morass

29 Mar 2021 MARS

A vessel was at berth and a MARS reporter who was not a member of the crew noticed some possible mooring arrangement problems. Below is a photo taken at the time.

Some of the possible problems are:

  • Improper leads of the mooring ropes around rollers including full turns and chafing situations.
  • Ropes left on warping drum ends instead of being transferred onto mooring bitts.
  • Too many turns on the working part of the split drum winch. 
  • No SWL marking on mooring bitts.
  • Different types of ropes (so different breaking limit) working in same direction.

Lessons learned

  • Once again, new eyes can see hazards that may not be apparent to crew who are desensitised to the hazard.
  • Unfortunately, poor design is also often at the basis of improper mooring patterns; something which is often overlooked during building.

 

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