While a mooring operation may appear easy, there are various dangers associated with it. You could lose your life during a mooring operation. For this reason, you should uphold various safety precautions and familiarize yourself with deck systems and machinery to keep yourself and your crew members safe. Read on for five yacht mooring safety tips.
1. Safety clothing
Every personnel involved in boat berthing should wear the appropriate personal protective equipment. This should include gloves to protect your hands against injuries that may arise from broken wires, high visibility coveralls, safety boots, and a hard hat. In cold weather, ensure that you wear high visibility warm clothing. Safety goggles also come in handy, especially when the anchor is let go in an emergency.
2. Choose appropriate mooring lines
The success of your mooring operation often depends on the condition of your lines and where you intend to moor. To choose appropriate mooring lines, you should consider:
- The water depth
- The elasticity of the line material
- Tidal range
- Durability. The mooring line should withstand strong chemicals, sunlight, and high temperatures.
- Ease of maintenance
- Diameter and weight of the mooring line based on the required strength
- Wave energy
- Availability of mooring lines in the market in case you need to replace
- The exact position of the mooring line on the vessel during replacement
3. Avoid mixed mooring
Mooring lines, ropes, and wires differ in size, material, and elasticity. Mixed mooring results in excessive load on some wires or cords, therefore, endangering the yacht. For this reason, you should always ensure that mooring ropes of similar size and material are used for all leads. If you have limited equipment and cannot use similar lines, you should ensure that all cords in the same service, including headlines, spring lines, breast lines, and stern lines are of the same material and size.
4. Equipment maintenance
You should regularly inspect your mooring equipment, including capstans, winches, mooring fixtures, and fitting and the mooring lines for any kind of problems. This ensures the smooth running of your mooring systems and equipment. Proper routine maintenance involves;
- Visual inspection of all mooring equipment
- Examining brakes to ascertain that all linkages are working properly
- Ensuring that the pins that secure the clutches are connected to the clutch control levers and ready for use
- Greasing rollers on fairleads, moving machinery, pedestal fairleads, clutches, and open gearing
- Making sure that the fairleads are turning freely
- Ascertaining that drum ends and mooring fairleads are rust and damage-free
5. Check the weather condition
You should ensure that you consider the current weather condition in your area before planning a mooring operation. Ensure that you consider factors such as wind strength and direction, tidal flow, and current. This helps prevent any accidents that may occur when mooring. For instance, strong winds can cause your yacht to break the mooring lines posing a danger to your boat and other ships in the harbor.
Endnote
Yacht mooring operations can result in fatal accidents and collisions. As such, you should ascertain that you and your crew members wear personal protective equipment, consider the weather condition before planning an operation, choose appropriate lines and avoid mixed mooring to ensure safety.
Want to read more of our latest posts? Check out these 5 common holiday accidents you should avoid.
