High potential near-miss: Mooring rope parted

What happened?

Mooring buoy rope parted while the vessel was moored. No injuries or damage to the vessel occurred apart from the parted mooring rope. The potential severity of incident was categorized as “high” owing to the potential injuries that could have arisen had someone been in the snap back zone.

What was the cause?

Equipment failure following from wear & tear, in turn following from inadequate or insufficient routine inspection. It was evident from inspection after the fact that the condition of the mooring rope was bad.

Lessons Learnt/Preventive Action

• Planned and regular inspection of mooring ropes;
• If mooring ropes are found in poor condition, they should be taken out of use;
• All crew associated with mooring operations should be properly informed and fully briefed with regard to:
  • the mooring operation in general;
  • checking for defects with the ropes;
  • proper precautions relating to keeping out of the snap back zone.

Members may wish to review a list of mooring-related incidents – this can be done by visiting the IMCA website safety flash page and entering the appropriate search text (e.g. parted mooring) in the box entitled “Search safety flashes…”

We will highlight two similar incidents here, although in both cases, injury resulted from parted mooring lines:

• Lost time injury (LTI) during mooring operations
• Mooring line failure resulting in serious injury

Members should be aware of existing IMCA documentation as follows:

• Mooring practice safety guidance for offshore vessels when alongside in ports and harbours
• Mooring incidents (video).