As part of their Good Catch series, American P&I has published a safety animation to inform interested parties about the good communications which are imperative to safe operations. Make a Good Catch by ensuring that there are well understood hand signals for mooring operations to ensure against preventable injuries.
According to the club, a large tanker was mooring. The vessel called on this port and terminal regularly so the crew was familiar with the mooring arrangement and line placement. The weather was calm and everyone was expecting this to be a smooth, routine mooring operation. At the aft mooring station, the Third Mate was in charge of the mooring party which consisted of 3ABs. One of the ABs manned the winch controls while the other two ABs handled the mooring lines and made sure they were positioned properly on several fairleads. Under the direction of the third mate, the mooring team lowered the aft mooring line.
The line handlers placed the mooring lines on a mooring hook as usual. The Third Mate used a hand signal to instruct the winch operator to begin hauling in the mooring line. The AB who was manning the controls was unsure of what the hand signal meant, but assumed he was being told to operate the winch. He immediately started the winch by moving the winch lever to its high speed setting.
A few seconds later, the aft mooring line took the strain causing the mooring line to jump as it went from slack on the deck to taut about 3 feet of the deck. When the mooring line jumped, it struck the wrist of one of the ABs who was tending the line and it injured his wrist.
When you identify a hazard before something goes wrong, it is a Good Catch.
When you stop an operation before something bad happens, it is a Good Catch.
When you ensure that the mooring which operator is trained and qualified, that’s a Good Catch, too!
