Chapter 26
ANCHORING, MOORING AND TOWING OPERATIONS
All seafarers involved in anchoring, mooring and towing operations should be given additional instruction on the specific equipment and mooring configurations used on the vessel.
This should include (but may not be limited to):
· the types of winches and windlass and their operation;
· the location of emergency stop buttons;
· the types of ropes and/or wires used; and
· the location and use of rollers, dollies and leads.
Records of instruction should be maintained.
Particular attention should be paid to potential risk of snap-back.
When anchoring, mooring or towing operations are taking place, all seafarers should be adequately briefed on the mooring configurations and correctly dressed in appropriate personal protective equipment.
Anchoring and weighing anchor
Before using an anchor, a competent seafarer must check that the brake is securely on and then clear all securing devices. A responsible person must be put in charge of the anchoring party, with a suitable means of communication with the vessel’s bridge. The anchoring party should wear protective clothing, including safety helmet, safety shoes, gloves and goggles, to protect from injury by rust particles and debris that may be thrown off the cable during the operation. Where the noise levels generated may be harmful, hearing protection may be considered; however, the time exposure and the greater risk from impaired communication should be taken into account. During anchoring, the anchoring party should stand aft of, or at a safe distance from, the windlass/capstan and be mindful of the potential risk of snap-back.
Where the means of communication between bridge and anchoring party is by portable radio, the identification of the ship should be clear to prevent confusion caused by other users on the same frequency.
Before the anchor is let go, a check must be made that there are no small craft or other obstacles under the bow. As a safety precaution, it is recommended that the anchor is ‘walked out’ clear of the pipe before letting go. For very large ships with heavy anchors and cables, the anchor should be either walked out at intervals or all the way to avoid excessive strain on the brakes (and on the bitter end, if the brakes fail to stop the anchor and cable).
When the anchor is let go from the stowed position, if, on release of the brake, the anchor does not run, seafarers should not attempt to shake the cable. The brake should be reapplied, the windlass placed in gear and the anchor walked out clear prior to release.
Cable should stow automatically. If, for any reason, it is necessary for seafarers to enter the cable locker, they must first take proper precautions for entering an enclosed space. They should stand in a protected position and be in communication with the windlass/capstan operator.
Anchors that are housed and not required should be properly secured to prevent accidental release.
Making fast and casting off
During mooring and unmooring operations, a sufficient number of seafarers should always be available both forward and aft of the vessel to ensure a safe operation. A responsible person should be in charge of each of the mooring parties, and a suitable means of communication between the responsible persons and the vessel’s bridge team must be established. If this involves the use of portable radios, then the ship should be clearly identified by name to prevent confusion with other users. All seafarers involved in such operations must wear protective clothing, including safety helmet, safety shoes and gloves, and be fully briefed on the berthing plan.
Owing to the design of mooring decks, the entire area should be considered a potential snap-back zone. All crew working on a mooring deck should be made aware of this with clear visible signage.
The painting of snap-back zones on mooring decks should be avoided because they may give a false sense of security.
Working on enclosed mooring decks adds additional hazards and therefore extra caution should be exercised. Particular attention should be paid to ensure adequate lighting.
To prevent personal injury to those receiving heaving lines, the ‘monkey’s fist’ should be made with rope only and must not contain added weighting material. Safe alternatives include a small high-visibility soft pouch, filled with fast-draining pea shingle or similar, with a weight of not more than 0.5 kg. Under no circumstances is a line to be weighted by items such as shackles, bolts or nuts, or twist locks.
Areas where mooring operations are to be undertaken should be kept tidy and clutter free. All mooring ropes should be properly stowed, heaving lines and stoppers coiled away and any oil and grease cleaned up immediately. Decks should have anti-slip surfaces provided by fixed treads or anti-slip paint coating, and the whole working area should be adequately lit for operations undertaken during periods of darkness.
Equipment used in mooring operations should be regularly inspected for defects. Defects found should be corrected. Particular attention should be paid to oil leaks from winches. The surfaces of fairleads, bollards, bitts and drum ends should be clean and in good condition, and drum ends should not be painted. Rollers and fairleads should turn smoothly and a visual check be made that corrosion has not weakened them.
Pedestal roller fairleads, lead bollards, mooring bitts, etc. should be:
· properly designed for the task;
· able to meet all foreseeable operational loads and conditions;
· correctly sited; and
· fixed to a part of the ship’s structure that is suitably strengthened.
Mooring ropes, wires and stoppers are to be in good condition. Ropes should be inspected frequently for both external wear and wear between strands. Wires should be regularly treated with suitable lubricants and inspected for deterioration internally and broken strands externally. Lubricants should be thoroughly applied so as to prevent internal corrosion as well as corrosion on the outside, and wires should never be allowed to dry out. Splices in both ropes and wires should be inspected regularly to check that they are intact. Where wire rope is joined to fibre rope, a thimble or other device should be inserted in the eye of the fibre rope. Both wire and fibre rope should have the same direction of lay.
Ropes and wires that are stowed on reels should not be used directly from stowage, but should be run off and flaked out on deck in a clear and safe manner, ensuring sufficient slack to cover all contingencies. If there is doubt over the amount required, then the complete reel should be run off.
Ship’s equipment can be employed to best effect if the following general principles are remembered:
· Breast lines provide the bulk of athwartships restraint.
· Springs provide the largest proportion of the longitudinal restraint.
· Very short lengths of line should be avoided when possible because such lines will take a greater proportion of the total load, when movement of the ship occurs.
· Very short lengths may be compensated for by running the line on the bight.
Careful thought should be given to the layout of moorings, so that the leads are those most suited without creating sharp angles, and ropes and wires are not fed through the same leads or bollards. Pre-planning of such operations is essential and a risk assessment of the operation must be completed, especially in cases where unusual or non-standard mooring arrangements are used.
Personnel should not, in any circumstances, stand in a bight of rope or wire. Operation of winches should be undertaken by competent seafarers to ensure that excessive loads do not arise on moorings.
When moorings lines are under strain, all personnel in the vicinity should remain in positions of safety, i.e. avoid the snap-back zones. It is strongly recommended that a bird’s eye view of the mooring deck arrangement is produced to identify danger areas. Regardless of designated snap-back zones, seafarers should always be aware of other areas of potential danger – the whole mooring deck may be considered a danger zone.
Immediate action is to be taken to reduce the load should any part of the system appear to be under excessive strain. Care is needed to ensure that ropes or wires will not jam when they come under strain, so they can be slackened off quickly if necessary.
Where a mooring line is led around a pedestal roller fairlead, the snap-back zone area will change and increase in area. Where possible, lines should not be led round pedestals, except during the operation to moor the ship. Thereafter, lines should be made up on bitts, clear of pedestals if at all possible.
When moorings are to be heaved on a drum end, the winch operator must have a full view of all activity. The ‘fleet angle’ or lead angle of the rope onto the drum should be no more than a few degrees. One person should be stationed at the drum end, backed up by a second person, who is standing at least a metre away, backing and coiling down the slack. In most circumstances, three turns on the drum end are sufficient to undertake a successful operation and avoid riding turns. A wire on a drum end should never be used as a check wire. A synthetic rope should never be surged on the drum end. After being hauled tight, a stopper is to be used to allow the rope to be removed from the warping drum and then placed on a bollard or bitts by using either single turns or figures of eight. For wire rope, at least the top three lays of the figure of eight must be secured by a fibre rope to prevent jumping. The stopper material should be like for like (i.e. natural for natural, and chain for wire ropes).
A wire should never be led across a fibre rope on a bollard. Wires and ropes should be kept in separate fairleads or bollards.
When stoppering off moorings, the following applies:
· Natural fibre rope should be stoppered with natural fibre.
· Man-made fibre rope should be stoppered with man-made fibre stopper (but not polyamide).
· The ‘West Country’ method (double and reverse stoppering) is preferable for ropes.
· Wire moorings should be stoppered with chain, using two half-hitches in the form of a cow hitch, suitably spaced with the tail backed up against the lay of wire, to ensure that the chain neither jams nor opens up the lay of the wire.