With the constant increase in ship sizes, more mooring incidents are occurring. Sometimes these are due to overloading of bollards, but at present, they are most often as a result of overloaded mooring lines or the brake holding capacity of the winches. Mooring line strength is also increasing more rapidly than the capacity of existing bollards. so there may be more mooring incidents with bollards.
Often the presence of cargo handling equipment, such as a crane track, can result in bollards having to be located close to the berthing line. Consequently they are not often in the ideal situation for effective mooring, which results in relatively short mooring lines and steep line angles.
The WG 186 guideline helps in understanding the mooring issues that berth owners and operators may face, especially for container and cruise vessel berths. WG 186 guides the reader through the mooring issues that may affect safe mooring, including the Safe Working Load of future bollards (Chapter 2). All of the aspects that need to be taken into account in executing a mooring assessment are dealt with in Chapter 3, with some case studies included, showing the effects of a passing ship, time-varying wind loading and waves acting on a moored ship. Chapter 4 provides information on a range of measures that can be used to assist in the safe mooring of large vessels, when conventional mooring arrangements are not adequate. Some of these are relatively simple operational measures, and others are more structural and/or required capital investment.
Sharable operational data from the members’ ports and all of the scientific knowledge from the working group members is incorporated in the document. All with the aim to improve the safety of large ship mooring at all berths around the globe. The same knowledge can also be used to assess an existing facility to allow larger vessels, than those originally used in the design, to be moored in a safe manner. The guidance also focusses on avoiding new infrastructure development by smart engineering, which is often more sustainable.
