COLUMN | Recent accidents place anchoring and anchors in the spotlight [Grey Power]

Anchors and anchorages have been very much in the news of late, what with all the alerts in the Baltic over damage to undersea cables and pipelines from errant anchors, whether through malign intent, a neglect of simple seamanship, or mechanical failure.

One might have thought the rash of these incidents would surely sharpen alertness and encourage a close inspection of windlasses and securing mechanisms, but there is no accounting for some failures.

Additionally, those involved in what is described as hybrid warfare have surely worked out that anchoring equipment is exposed more than most other gear to brutal treatment, bad weather, and boarding seas and to prove a deliberate act will be notably difficult.

But the damage, however it has been caused, has illustrated all manner of vulnerabilities to undersea infrastructure. Perhaps this has been positive in that responsible authorities have been forced to consider more monitoring and protection.

It is interesting to see that the Danish authorities have decided to take a closer look at the number of ships anchoring in their waters and are to subject more suspicious craft to inspections under port state control.

There has also been a reminder, (if any sensible mariner needs such a thing) that anchorages can be very hazardous places; sometimes crowded, often confusing, with ships weighing anchor or mooring at their most vulnerable.

The roadstead off Gibraltar, for instance, is sometimes not a place for the faint-hearted, with ships treating this maritime nodal point as a convenient place to await orders or to take bunkers and supplies. As with any such places, think of both ends of the Suez Canal or the Singapore Roads as examples, maximum alertness is the order of the day.

After a particularly nasty accident in the Gibraltar roadstead in 2022, where a departing bulker collided with an anchored LNG carrier and subsequently sank, the harbour authorities are now considering the imposition of mandatory pilotage for ships departing the roadstead.

It is already a requirement for arriving vessels, but pilotage on departure is optional. And while such an accident is a rare event, the potential for something even worse occurring with a crowded anchorage and busy traffic in and out of Gibraltar and nearby Spanish terminals suggests that mandatory pilotage on all occasions would be a sensible move.

Perhaps a more general lesson from the Gibraltar incident is the need for the utmost care at a time when a ship has just weighed anchor and is effectively uncontrollable, until properly underway.

During this vulnerable period, the master of the steel-laden bulker failed to take account of both wind and tide and opened up two of his holds on the bulbous bow of the LNG carrier. The damaged ship, directed into shallow water by an alert VTS operator monitoring the situation, had to be demolished in situ, in a ten-month salvage operation.

This would not be the first serious accident where a ship has got into trouble in that uncertain period between the anchor lifting off the bottom and the ship becoming fully under control.

It is exacerbated in places where the anchorage is worrisome in certain weather conditions, or simply where the port authorities have failed to take into account the huge increase in ship dimensions when reviewing their anchorage positions on the chart.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but there are recorded accidents that would not have happened if the ship had stayed safely at anchor, rather than attempt a port entry in marginal weather conditions.

Others where an ill-advised demand by the terminal or charterers to arrive with minimum ballast aboard have left a ship prone to dragging anchor, or becoming uncontrollable because of the windage in a narrow channel.

You might argue that a truly safe port will closely monitor the status of ships in its roadstead, recognising that an anchorage is not a place where watchkeepers can relax and that anchors can be an unreliable guarantee of safety.

Unexpected arrival of wild weather will see instances of vessels dragging, collisions in anchorages with other ships, and, especially these days, all the other obstructions being erected in shallow waters.

Classification societies point out that an anchor is a device for “temporary mooring” and should be treated as such. This was perfectly illustrated during the Covid pandemic with a serious number of large ships, lying to their anchors for weeks on end, reporting anchors and cables broken.

It is an old adage that “you anchor in hope,” which works just as well today.