This document is intended to portray tug’s operational safety issues for the attention of all those concerned, mainly Pilots, Masters of vessels being assisted, their bridge teams and mooring parties.
In February 2011, the European Tug owners’ Association (ETA) and the European Maritime Pilot’s Association (EMPA) jointly issued a document mainly on the subject of bitts, bollards and chocks. This document was intended to raise awareness of ship owners, naval architects, new-building superintendents, classification societies, shipyards and insurers about the concerns of the towage industry.
Structural issues are, however, not the only liability for safe tug operations. Other types of risk that tug crews are imperilled by without having any control whatsoever of them are brought about by certain practices of pilots, ship’s command and mooring parties of the vessels being assisted.
ETA has identified a need for a set of general guidelines, widely applicable to all types of vessels and ports. These general guidelines have been kept as concise as possible and presented as a list of “DO NOT” and “DO” when making use of harbour towage services.
The list of “Do” and Do not” has been presented in bullet form for ease of reference and can be found in the last 3 pages of this document. The background to all the relevant points is presented in the first part of this document and ETA strongly recommends all concerned to read through them carefully in order to get a better understanding of the tugs’ crews concerns.
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