AMSA to focus on mooring safety

Mooring operations are among the most dangerous tasks carried out on board ships

AMSA has issued Safety Bulletin with a focus on mooring safety as mooring operations are among the most dangerous tasks carried out on board ships.

Data collected by AMSA indicates that mooring incidents occur regularly and often result in injury. Furthermore, in the last 10 years, two fatalities have occurred during mooring operations in Australian waters.

While there have been various innovations across the maritime industry to reduce the hazards associated with traditional mooring systems (see example of automated mooring technology below), the majority of vessels still rely on mooring arrangements involving ropes and winches. These systems have benefits, as they are flexible and enable berthing at most ports. However, the risks associated with operating traditional mooring systems continue to increase as vessels become larger.

AMSA bulletin uses data to provide an overview of the factors associated with mooring incidents in Australia and provides some guidance to assist in improving safety.

Mooring incident data

In the last 5 years, AMSA received 227 mooring related incident reports. Fifty-one (22 per cent) of these incidents resulted in injury. There were no mooring related fatalities recorded during this period in Australia. However, mooring fatalities have continued to occur internationally.

Analysis shows that design and equipment safety factors played a significant role in 62 per cent of the reported mooring incidents . Of particular note is that 51 per cent of the identified design and equipment safety factors were the result of a parted mooring line.

Shipboard conditions, such as heavy weather, workload and crew competency played a role in 22 per cent of mooring incidents. Individual actions and organisational influences played a role in 9 and 7 per cent of incidents, respectively

Percentage of safety factors identified in mooring incidents 2010-2014 (source: AMSA)

Safety actions following mooring injuries

The Hierarchy of Controls is a model commonly used to demonstrate the effectiveness of risk controls. It clearly shows that the most effective way to control risk is to eliminate hazards

The Hierachy of Controls model was used to examine the actions taken following the 51 reported mooring incidents that resulted in injuries. This analysis revealed that only 3 per cent of the reported actions taken following these incidents involved elimination of the associated hazards. Ten per cent of actions involved implementing engineering controls to isolate people from the hazards.

The other 87 per cent of preventative actions were taken at the administrative and PPE levels. These actions included:

safety meetings, briefings and training

displaying incident photographs

including incident details in a bulletin

equipment inspections

review of procedures.

While these changes assist in improving safety outcomes, they focus on changing behaviours, rather than eliminating hazards. These actions are commendable and worthwhile, but they are not as effective as addressing the source of the hazards

Rethinking mooring operations

Accidents feel sudden when they occur. However, accident investigations show that there are almost always small failures and weak links in the system that were visible beforehand. While studying accidents and learning from them after they occur is important, it cannot make up for the losses suffered.

A proactive way to look at safe operations is to use analytical tools to identify weaknesses that could lead to accidents during normal operations. Every potential accident will be different, because every ship is different, through design, equipment, crew, company culture, procedures and many other features.

Therefore, the best way to determine the weak parts of your mooring system that could lead to an accident is to look at every safe mooring operation carried out on board the ship and think about how it could go wrong. Ask ‘why didn’t we have an accident?’ This is one of the ways in which high reliability organisations such as air traffic control and the nuclear industry go about improving performance. Industries like these value learning methods which depend on the open flow of information about the potential for failure.

They use this information to guide constructive changes without waiting for major accidents to happen. Looking at normal operations and thinking about ‘what could possibly go wrong’ has shown to be a useful tool for minimising accidents in these industries.

Conclusion

The risks associated with mooring operations continue to challenge the maritime industry. Ship designers, owners, operators, classification societies and regulators must work together to ensure that mooring system designs and layouts are developed along human centred design principles. Meanwhile, those on board must be wary of becoming normalised to the risks associated with mooring operations. Always remember that the dangers associated with mooring operations are very real, regardless of your experience.

Please click below to read AMSA Safety Bulletin on mooring operations

Source: AMSA