Mooring bollards and hooks are critical pieces of port and waterway infrastructure, whether existing or new, and will continue to serve the maritime industry for the foreseeable future. Ships and their mooring line loads are growing while waterfront facilities are aging, yet there is still a dearth of industry-recognized standards for material specifications, manufacturing, inspection, and testing of bollards and hooks. PIANC MarCom/InCom Working Group (WG) 231 is entitled “Mooring Bollards & Hooks: Selection, maintenance and testing”. The WG’s objective is to produce a benchmark document which provides clear guidance and recommendations when specifying shoreside mooring equipment (from 200 kilo-Newtons upwards) including mooring bollards and quick release hooks, including a list of types and typical capacities for different ship sizes, and guidelines for the full scope of testing during the manufacturing process and subsequently after installation (WG 231 Terms of Reference, 2020).
This presentation provides an overview of WG 231’s scope, progress, and challenges. Key topics include:
1. Load-case criteria to be used for specifying bollards.
2. Loading of bollards relative to the number of mooring lines each bollard can be allowed to take.
3. Factors of safety (FOS) and other criteria to be used for the safe operation of mooring equipment, including permitted vertical mooring angles and possible horizontal angles.
4. Material specifications, non-destructive and proof load testing.
5. Practical monitoring, inspection, and maintenance of mooring equipment in service including recommendations for regular calibration of load monitoring systems and guidelines for replacement criteria.
6. Realistic in-situ testing methodology that simulates real-world mooring operations.
7. Consideration of how load monitoring can be incorporated into standard bollards as well as quick release hooks including ATEX (ATmosphères EXplosibles) requirements.
8. Anchorage of mooring equipment to superstructure to safely transfer the forces from the mooring equipment into the main mooring structure.
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