Real Life Incident: Mooring Lines Self-releases

A tanker had docked at port and a pre-loading meeting was being held.

About 40 minutes after mooring was completed, an officer on a safety round discovered that one of the aft mooring lines had un-spooled from its drum and had been lost overboard. He informed the personnel at the meeting and crew were mobilised to recover the line with the help of a mooring boat and a tug.

The line was recovered and re-installed. The investigation revealed that the drum control level had been left slightly in the release direction. The drum had then slowly un-spooled