Vessel Safe Working Loads

Monday, 10 May 2010 15:10

With the newer and more powerful tugs now available for ship docking, there have been a number of occurrences where bitts and fairleads have been damaged as a result of insufficient information on their safe working load (SWL). To date we have been fortunate in that the only damage has been to the bitts and fairleads.  The concern of the Pacific Pilotage Authority and BC Coast Pilots is that a fairlead might give way in the future at a critical juncture in the berthing operation causing major damage to the ship or even shore equipment such as loaders or gantries.

The classes of vessel that are most impacted are:

• Container vessels, Panamax and above
• Capsize and Panamax bulk carriers
•  Panamax and Aframax tankers. 

For this reason PPA is again stressing the importance of advance information of safe working loads which can be shared in advance with pilots and which will also be maintained on a data base for future reference.

A few picture examples  of recent damage incurred.