Mooring Risk Assessments

The Shipowners Club issued the latest in a series of risk assessment articles emphasizing on risk assessments from mooring and unmooring operations.  In 2016, the Club has experienced a high volume of claims which arose from three main areas of causation:

Inadequate supervision/procedures : These include claims arising from a lack of supervision of the task, inadequate or non-existent procedures or a failure to comply with existing procedures.

Communication failure : These include claims arising from communication failures between the various teams involved in mooring operations such as, the bridge team, the pilot and the deck mooring teams as well as the tugs/ shore mooring personnel.

Mooring/equipment failure : These include claims which involved a failure of mooring equipment, mooring ropes and anchors used for mooring.

At times mooring boats. The involvement of so many different groups may cause issues with communication especially if language barriers are a factor. Furthermore, weather and tidal conditions may also add to complexity of this operation.