Focussed Inspection Campaign on Mooring Arrangements and Deck Operations
Summary
An FIC was conducted by AMSA Surveyors from 01st March to 31st May. These inspections were conducted in conjunction with regular PSC inspections.
The campaign focus was decided upon due to an increase in accidents, including fatalities, noted by AMSA as having occurred both Internationally and in Australia during mooring operations and general deck work.
The aim of the campaign was primarily to raise awareness of safety issues relating to mooring equipment and procedures, although PSC action could still be taken where issues were noted that required immediate attention.
AMSA also endeavoured to encourage operators to critically assess the level of maintenance of mooring equipment in order to ensure its continuing fitness for use. This is particularly relevant when utilising harbour tugs that have varying capacities that may impact upon the ship arrangements.
The inspections referenced MSC.Circ 1175 extensively, which is a document giving guidelines for implementing the new regulations of SOLAS Chapter II-I Regulation 3 created by MSC Resolution 194(80). These new regulations apply only to vessels newly constructed after 01st January 2007 - but the majority of the provisions are easily implemented by older vessels and were presented as “best practice” during the campaign.
AMSA surveyors inspected 747 vessels during the course of the campaign and recorded 62 deficiencies on 36 vessels; none of which warranted a vessels detention.
Detailed Results
AMSA Surveyors recorded 62 deficiencies on 36 vessels with the deficiencies identified in the following areas:
Area |
Number of Deficiencies |
|
|
Windlasses and Winches |
0 |
Bollards and Fairleads |
19 |
Mooring lines |
5 |
Procedures |
38 |
|
|
Total |
62 |
Types of Vessel:
The number of vessel types where surveyors found deficiencies was as follows:
Vessel Type |
Number of Individual Vessels |
|
|
Bulk Carriers |
20 |
Woodchip Carrier |
5 |
Livestock Carrier |
1 |
Container Ship |
6 |
General Cargo Ships |
4 |
|
|
Total |
36 |
PSC Deficiencies Related to FIC Matters
During the same period AMSA Surveyors carried out PSC inspections on 795 vessels identifying 1761 deficiencies. Of these PSC deficiencies there were 32 mooring related deficiencies identified on 29 vessels, in addition to the FIC deficiencies noted above, as follows:
Area |
Number of Deficiencies |
|
|
Windlasses and Winches |
20 |
Bollards and Fairleads |
2 |
Mooring lines |
3 |
Procedures |
7 |
|
|
Total |
32 |
Summary:
The FIC found that:
About 5% of ships did not have established procedures for mooring operations and/or handling tugs and less than 1% of ships that did have procedures, did not follow them.
About 2.5% of ships were identified with deficiencies with mooring equipment almost all of which were a lack of the recommended SWL markings.
From the FIC findings it would appear that a lack of operational procedures tended to be the predominant problem.
The PSC inspections carried out during the FIC period showed that about 2.5% of vessels had deficiencies with winches/windlasses related to maintenance of equipment.