In its recently released casebook containing safety lessons learned from maritime incidents, the Swedish Club describes a very serious injury of a crew member during mooring operations.
The incident
It was early morning with no wind or currents and a vessel was approaching port. On the stern, an AB was preparing the mooring ropes. The stern lines were put partly around a bollard with a bight at a right angle to the normal pull direction.
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After the AB had prepared the mooring lines, the Third Officer joined him. The spring lines were sent ashore and made fast, and the Master, who was on the bridge, put the engine pitch to zero allowing the vessel a slight forward movement. The rudder was hard to starboard as the vessel was berthing port side alongside. After the spring lines were secured, the heaving line was connected to both stern lines.
The Chief Officer, who had been by the manifold, came to the stern to assist and took charge of the mooring winch. The Third Officer walked to the stern railing by the fairlead.
The linesmen shouted that they were ready to receive the stern lines, so the AB started to lower the stern lines to the water. He was facing the mooring winch and had his back to the Third Officer by the railing. He let the mooring lines run out at a very high speed.
Suddenly, the Third Officer started to scream and, when the AB turned around, he could see the Third Officer caught between the mooring line and the fairlead.
The mooring line was now coming out very quickly and began cutting into the Third Officer’s leg, with such a speed that his leg was cut off just below the knee.
The Chief Officer saw that the mooring rope was stuck in the propeller and screamed over the VHF to the Master to stop the engine. The Master pushed the emergency stop and the propeller stopped. The Third Officer was in severe shock and collapsed. The Chief Officer ran over to give first aid and the gangway was rigged.
A first aid team from shoreside came onboard, and 30 minutes later an ambulance arrived and took the Third Officer to hospital. The Third Officer survived but is now disabled.
Lessons learned
- The vessel had a risk assessment for the mooring operation, but this did not include the risk of the mooring line getting stuck in the propeller, as the mooring line should be floating in normal circumstances. This time the mooring line was lowered too quickly, ending up under the surface. As the propeller blades were only 2 metres below the surface, the lines were sucked into the propeller, which caused the accident.
- In addition, the mooring line was partly around the bollard, with a bight and a right angle to the normal pull direction. This arrangement caused the snapback zone to cover the entire area between the bollard and railing. When the rope ran out rapidly and got caught in the propeller it snapped back to where the Third Officer was standing, even though he was not inside the normal snapback zone.
This shows the importance of everybody involved in the operation being aware of the risks of potential snap-back zones. Mooring a vessel is a normal operation, but the risks need to be evaluated every time, as it is a risky operation.