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Author Topic: Always tie your ship up securely.....  (Read 6312 times)

Colin Bishop

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Always tie your ship up securely.....
« on: March 06, 2009, 05:02:24 pm »

A lucky escape for this passenger! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7928289.stm
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MikeK

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #1 on: March 07, 2009, 09:27:19 am »

I can imagine myself saying 'best get the moorings doubled up there's a blow coming' - let alone 'get the insurance wire out'. That might dirty the paint work ! Do they still carry the insurance wire by the way ? Thank God no one was killed

Mike

Just played the video again and to be fair it looked like there were a lot of parted ropes hanging off the bow and the forr'd spring was doubled up.
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Colin Bishop

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2009, 09:37:03 am »

Looking at it a bit more closely it appears that the mooring bollards were pulled clean out of the dockside. You can see the mark on the bow where they hit it - bet that left a dent! Mooring lines have stretch in them so it acted like a giant catapult.

Colin
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MikeK

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #3 on: March 07, 2009, 01:35:26 pm »

You are preaching to the converted Colin. Nothing like a parting mooring rope or wire spring to improve your gymnastic capabilities  O0 :o

Mike
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Bryan Young

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #4 on: March 07, 2009, 05:18:13 pm »

I think the answer to this is indeed due to wind pressure followed by inertia. Once started, hard to stop. A 20 knot "breeze" blowing directly on the side of one of these slab sided "things" is going to generate a tremendous pressure. A modern mooring rope will have some elasticity but nowhere even close to that that the "old" nylon ropes had (thank goodness....read back awhile and see what happened on "Bennevis"). These modern ropes will sustain a steady pull of around 30 tons...maybe a bit more..and a prudent ship master will always insist on "4 and 2" That is 4 headlines and 2 backsprings. That is a minimum. Time was when the backsprings were always of wire. This was because the first "ropes" out were used as brakes when slotting a ship between a couple of others, similarly for unberthing. If the aft spring was slacked off or let go, and the ship went ahead then the stern would swing out and the berth could be cleared. Other permutations also applied. The wire being so much stronger than the Manila, Hemp or even Sisal (in "cheapskate" Companies) even though the wire was only about 1" in dia; it was stronger than an 8" fibre rope. But without the "give". But of paramount importance given some warning of an adverse wind, was the need to even up the tension on the ropes.
In this instance this had not been done, and it's a bit unfair to expect one rope to do the work of all of them. So when one goes you will get a "ping" "ping" effect and there is not really much you can do about it. Apart from resign. Thats about it as far as tying up a ship goes. Beware of the wind!. Cheers. BY.
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Bunkerbarge

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #5 on: March 07, 2009, 05:59:57 pm »

Well having now been on two ships and had exactly this happen I can speak with a degree of experience. 

Firstly if a competent, effective and efficient bridge watch is being maintained in port, which sadly does not always happen, then weather such as this will be apparent long before it arrives.  If no-one has actually seen it with thier eyes then the weather channel on the radio should have warned of this squall long before it hit, if of course if anyone was listening to it.  This would have given the ship ample time to get main propulsion on stand by and the thrusters running.  This would have avoided any extraordinary loads on the ropes, end of story.

Secondly if the ropes are not regularly checked and the tension maintained evenly then, as Bryan rightly says, all the load will be on the most tensioned rope.  This will be the first to part transferring the load to the next one, which will then take all the load and hence part and so on.  If all the ropes are tensioned properly they will be sharing the load evenly and vessels such as this will usually have four breast ropes, four head lines and two wire springs.
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Colin Bishop

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #6 on: March 07, 2009, 06:24:19 pm »

There is a slightly longer video here which shows that the forward lines parted first as Bunkerbarge says: http://gcaptain.com/maritime/blog/cruise-ship-breaks-mooring-in-high-winds-incident-video/

The ship was the MSC Fantasia, brand new and 133,000 tons gross!

The incident happened at Palma, Mallorca and three sets of mooring bitts were pulled out of the quayside. Apparently the ship's owners are to make a complaint to the port authority!

Colin
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Bryan Young

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #7 on: March 07, 2009, 07:52:10 pm »

Well having now been on two ships and had exactly this happen I can speak with a degree of experience. 

Firstly if a competent, effective and efficient bridge watch is being maintained in port, which sadly does not always happen, then weather such as this will be apparent long before it arrives.  If no-one has actually seen it with thier eyes then the weather channel on the radio should have warned of this squall long before it hit, if of course if anyone was listening to it.  This would have given the ship ample time to get main propulsion on stand by and the thrusters running.  This would have avoided any extraordinary loads on the ropes, end of story.

Secondly if the ropes are not regularly checked and the tension maintained evenly then, as Bryan rightly says, all the load will be on the most tensioned rope.  This will be the first to part transferring the load to the next one, which will then take all the load and hence part and so on.  If all the ropes are tensioned properly they will be sharing the load evenly and vessels such as this will usually have four breast ropes, four head lines and two wire springs.
Apart from Cruise Liners (and even then, problematical) ships in port do not maintain a Bridge Watch. You will have a Duty Deck Officer whose job it is to see to the security of the vessel (ship type security, not the armed guard variety). Sometimes (often, in fact) the OOD will hesitate before calling out the deck crew because of overtime constraints. As I have said before, modern shipowners are not philanthropists....nor were their forebears. BY.
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Bunkerbarge

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #8 on: March 07, 2009, 10:56:43 pm »

And there lies the crux of the problem Bryan.  Bridges do not keep a normal watch in port but they should do, and all the Safety Management Systems out there quite clearly state that they should be doing.  There is still an officer in charge on the bridge so just what is he supposed to be doing in port?   Too many of them seem to think that when the ship is tied up everything changes and they can relax and switch off but incidents such as this quite clearly demonstrate why bridge watches are just as critical in port as they are at any other time.  Any emergency situation can occur in port and the ship must be in the same state of readiness no matter where it is, that includes fires, floods, medical emergencies etc..etc..

Interesting that they are going to try to hold the port accountable for this.  It will be a lot more interesting when the incident report eventually comes out and we see just what went on because I am certain that if the thrusters were running this wouldn't have happened.
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MikeK

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #9 on: March 08, 2009, 08:03:10 am »

I was in Port Kembla during one of the local gales (can't remember the name - Wiily Wally or somesuch !) We were being blown onto the quay no problem, but the German ship opposite was in the firing line ! Sure enough there was some big twangs mid morning and her bow blew off the quay. Fortunately the berths are on piers there and the opposite berth was empty - she gracefully drifted over until her bow was alongside. By this time the crowd had tumbled out on deck (along with some questionable non crewmembers  %) ) They let go the aft moorings and she did a shift ship you couldn't do as well if you tried ! Luckily for them it happened in daylight and it was all orderly, unlike the more usual scene - middle of the night, blowing a hooley and peeing down!

Mike
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Colin Bishop

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #10 on: March 08, 2009, 10:01:49 am »

You would have thought that a bit more care would have been taken with what is a brand new ship and one of the biggest in the world too.

I suppose there is also the issue that huge ships these days are now tying up to quays which were probably only originally intended for ships a fraction of their size and where the mooring bitts/bollards were sized accordingly.

Colin
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Bryan Young

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #11 on: March 08, 2009, 04:15:34 pm »

Colin, I think you have a valid point there. Lots of windage, a relatively small draught and a low quay. In most ports of the world the tidal range ensures that the ships crew maintains rope tension....either more or less, depending on whether the tide is going in or out. This is not really a problem in the Med so complacency can creep in.
Bunker-B, I am sorry to have to vehemently disagree with you re keeping a Bridge watch in port. This aspect of a ships officers duties would be  totally counter-productive. Manning the Engineering spaces in port is a totally different ball-game to the tasks a deck officer has to do when the ship is in port. For one thing, overseeing the loading of cargo. Then the OOD (or OO the Deck) has to check the ropes and so on, he cannot do this from the bridge. But there will normally be at least one deck officer on the bridge or in the chartroom during the "normal" working day. The 2/O will of necessity be keeping the chart corrections up to date (electronic or otherwise). The 3/O could well be occupied with similar duties such as "llight lists" and so on and a plethora of "stuff" that just cannot be done at sea. The "nitty-gritty" of ensuring that all is well on deck can easily be delegated to the gangway staff, who can summon the OOD if required. It's a pity that you have chosen this subject to disagree on. I will leave you with the thought that a 500,000 ton tanker when loading or discharging her cargo could well need to have her mooring lines permanently attended! Cheers. Bryan.
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Bunkerbarge

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #12 on: March 09, 2009, 08:42:13 am »

Colin, I think you have a valid point there. Lots of windage, a relatively small draught and a low quay. In most ports of the world the tidal range ensures that the ships crew maintains rope tension....either more or less, depending on whether the tide is going in or out. This is not really a problem in the Med so complacency can creep in.
Bunker-B, I am sorry to have to vehemently disagree with you re keeping a Bridge watch in port. This aspect of a ships officers duties would be  totally counter-productive. Manning the Engineering spaces in port is a totally different ball-game to the tasks a deck officer has to do when the ship is in port. For one thing, overseeing the loading of cargo. Then the OOD (or OO the Deck) has to check the ropes and so on, he cannot do this from the bridge. But there will normally be at least one deck officer on the bridge or in the chartroom during the "normal" working day. The 2/O will of necessity be keeping the chart corrections up to date (electronic or otherwise). The 3/O could well be occupied with similar duties such as "llight lists" and so on and a plethora of "stuff" that just cannot be done at sea. The "nitty-gritty" of ensuring that all is well on deck can easily be delegated to the gangway staff, who can summon the OOD if required. It's a pity that you have chosen this subject to disagree on. I will leave you with the thought that a 500,000 ton tanker when loading or discharging her cargo could well need to have her mooring lines permanently attended! Cheers. Bryan.

Hi Bryan,  I think it's far to say that I didn't share my views with the intention of choosing to disagree with anyone.  I was simply putting my own thoughts forward and as long as every one else does the same in the atmosphere of mutual respect that we want to encourage here then we can all benefit from others experiences.

I agree that there are huge differences in the operation of cargo ships, where ever reducing numbers of officers continues to compromise what would be seen as the ideal situation, and the operation of cruise liners, where the safety of possibly 3-4 thousand people are to be considered.  As we are talking about a modern cruise liner I think considering the manning of such vessels is of more relevence than considering any other type of vessel.  These ships have a man on the bridge at all times and part of that officers responsibilities includes monitoring of current weather conditions.  This is not debatable, this is a fact.  The monitoring and tensioning of the mooring ropes comes under the responsibilities of the deck crew.  Don't forget here we are talking of a deck department of possibly a total of 60- 70 officers and crew.  My point is that if the deck officer was listening to the local weather radio channel while he was on watch on the bridge then this weather situation would have been expected and the ship suitably prepared for it.

I also agree that modern cruise ships with shallow draft, very high sail areas, tied up to quay sides that were never designed to take the loads that these vessels put on them only emphasises the requirements for the guy on the bridge to maintain the best possible watch under all situations, whether he is engaged in other activities or not and quite obviously in this case this was not done.  I will say this again because a lot of people seem to be missing this point, if thrusters were running it is very unlikely that this would have happened.

As for tankers, I am well aware of the requirements there as regards bridge officers and crew as reference was made during my recent investigations to the operation of other vessel types.  I was surprised to hear that most tanker terminals do not allow the use of auto-tensioning winches, which didn't make sense to me until I followed through the thought process behind this decision.
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Colin Bishop

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #13 on: March 09, 2009, 09:15:42 am »

Just out of interest, are thrusters rated for continuous operation?

Colin
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Bunkerbarge

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #14 on: March 09, 2009, 11:00:12 am »

It depends on the thrusters and we can encounter problems with the hydraulics overheating if we use them without any movement for a long time, i.e. a number of hours.  It is quite often normal practise though when such vessels are at anchor to have the thrusters running if the conditions in the anchorage merit it.  It is also normal for us to put thrusters on if we see any inclement weather coming over when we are alongside.
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Bryan Young

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #15 on: March 09, 2009, 04:00:18 pm »

At a few Norwegian "ports", or villages with a jetty if you are lucky, or just a flat place to drop a ramp on, it isn't unusual to have a stream flowing in a way as to constantly push the ship out of position. Not an ideal situation if you are loading or discharging heavy Army equipment. In these case we would run the bow thruster at just a power to hold the ship. Sometimes for 12 hours or more. BY.
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John W E

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #16 on: March 09, 2009, 08:20:59 pm »

http://www.shieldsgazette.com/news/Passenger-ferry-strikes-oil-rig.3807663.jp


After reading this topic with great interest, one thing springs to mind and that is surely the securing ropes should be questioned by the Authorities; surely the ropes and securing bollard on land should be capable of holding the ship to withstand a reasonable galeforce wind?

Obviously this has happened many times around the world and also on the River Tyne as the above link shows - even with this there were 2 tugs trying to restrain the vessel from hitting the oil rig and they didn't succeed.   Does the blame land on the crew of the ship/people who purchase the ropes or cables/or those who manufacture them?

aye
John e
bluebird


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Colin Bishop

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #17 on: March 09, 2009, 08:22:43 pm »

I suppose it just shows that anybody can be caught out John.

Colin
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Bunkerbarge

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #18 on: March 09, 2009, 10:52:17 pm »

Even then John as soon as a rope gets used it immediately looses it's ability to hold it's rated load as fibres erode all the time it is service.  During recent rope load tests I was involved with the breaking strain was significantly down on the rated load and the amount of this, of course, is very difficult to quantify.

Consequently rope manufacturers would say that it is the responsibility of the owners to replace the ropes before they become too weak to do thier job, but who is to say when that is?  Tiptoe type ropes are actually covered in a braided cover and the fibres can actually be damaged inside the cover without there being any evidence of this from the outside so you are quite correct the whole thing is a bit of a minefield and where the liability lies is probably determined more by the effectiveness of the lawyers rather than common sense.
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Bryan Young

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #19 on: March 12, 2009, 07:51:59 pm »

As most of you on this forum will understand the principle and reasons for having a bow thrust unit, very few of you will have actually seen one. The pic I am showing is the unit fitted to "Fort Austin". If you go much larger in diameter there is a likelihood that the wash will be above the sea surface. Can't go any lower because of the shape of a hull. So that is (very basically) why some ships have multiple bow thrusters. Before the advent of "pods", I, as a ship handler, used to wonder why the thrusters were always at the front of the ship. I mean...anybody can stick the bow into a jetty, but getting the stern in is another problem altogether. So why weren't the thrusters at the back end? Even better, have them at both ends. But the back end was the important one.
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Roger in France

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #20 on: March 13, 2009, 06:38:27 am »

I am sure the guy in the middle of the photograph agrees with you, Bryan. I think he is saying to his mate, "I thought they had the propellor thingy at the back of the ship. How did it get here?"

I think I have seen photos of ships with thrusters at the bow and stern, Bryan.

Roger in France
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Bunkerbarge

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #21 on: March 13, 2009, 07:17:36 am »

I think you'll find that the vast majority of new cruise ships all have bow thrusters and either more thrusters or azipods at the stern.

The stern thrusters are not too clear on this shot but you can just make out both of them.
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Colin Bishop

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #22 on: March 13, 2009, 08:01:46 am »

Looking at that third picture Bunkerbarge, they'd make damn good blenders!

Colin
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Bunkerbarge

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #23 on: March 13, 2009, 08:16:29 am »

All you'd need is a cheese cloth across one side and hey presto, instant chowder!!
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KitS

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Re: Always tie your ship up securely.....
« Reply #24 on: March 13, 2009, 11:22:05 am »

Last year I watched a tug berth 'Black Prince' in Cork Harbour and it obviously had some means of side thrust as at one stage it went bodily sideways to clear the road bridge at one end of the inlet. After it moored up I asked one of the crew if it had Voith-Schneiders fitted and he replied :-

<Irish accent on>

'Sure now, why would we want to use one of those new fangled things? We have sideways props at both ends!'  ;)

<Irish accent off>
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Kit
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