Enclosed focsle head mooring stations.

[John Arton]

No doubt all of us on the site has seen, if not sailed, on vessels with enclosed focsle mooring stations. Container vessels and passenger vessels spring to mind. I can see the advantage in protecting all the valuable equipment sited there from the worst of the seas breaking over the focsle but often on many of the smaller ships the aft mooring station is not protected in a like manner.
Now my last company's latest new buildings have been built with covered focsle's.
My question is what happens if you get the bitter end of an achor cable come flying out of the spurling pipe and whipping around in such an enclosed space or a mooring rope breaking under strain and again whipping around in that enclosed space? The danger must be magnified, in my view, when such an occurrence happens and the design of the vessel has reduced the space available for the results of such occurrence's to dissipate, or am I just being an old fart and thinking that vessels built as such look more like something out of a Naval Architects' dream world rather than from a practical seaman's vision.
rgds
JA

[Jim Dixon]

Cannot envisage the event specified being magnified in any way by the enclosed space. The whip effect of the length of chain between gypsy and top of spurling pipe would not be sufficient on the size of ship I have experience of and that was 4kTEUs. If considerations be given to enclosing the poop then, time to get out of her.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi John.
I have never experienced a closed fo'c'sle so can't say much about the danger, other than to say how do they throw a heaving line ashore? And as for the poop some of the ships I was on had very little room around the **** end anyway, as far as the anchor cable parting I would be more worried about the nylon ropes twanging back as i saw on the Thames one day when a seaman on a German ship had his legs cut from under him when the tug decided to test this new stuff, this was in the 50s.
Cheers Des

[John Arton]

After putting up this thread it suddenly occurred to me that even if the rear of that covered focsle is open to the tank deck, would those officious berstewards who call themselves vetting inspectors, class the area beneath the cover to be an enclosed space and if so does that mean that every time you went forward to that area you would have to do a risk assessment followed by an Enclosed Space Entry Permit with time limits and repeated checks to be carried out on the atmosphere therein?
Don't laugh at that. On a number of my last ships (all chemical tankers) I had to show to these idiots that the aft end of the tank deck where the (solid) accommodation block bulkhead was joined to the tank deck with solid bulwarks sited either side was not and could not be classed as an enclosed space. Their (the idiots) argument that there were high velocity pressure/vacuum tank vents within 20 metres of the area and only by showing them the manufacturers of those vents, dispersement vapour diagrams could they be persuaded not to class that part of the deck as an enclosed space.
rgds
JA

[Colin Wood]

Never sailed on a vessel with enclosed forecastle but had a serious incident aft when leaving Surrey Docks. We still had a lumber deck cargo stowed around the warping winch which hardly left enough room for a man on the drum end to stand. We had a nylon tail on the wire rope, which we had ben told to hold on to. The tug was instructed to pull the stern around so a significant strain was on the mooring. Suddenly there was blue flash as the nylon tail parted and the wire swept around the stern bending the stanchions. The wire went back and up and luckily hit the lumber deck cargo not the ab on the drum. If it had been a foot higher it would have been over the height of the rails and would have seriously injured the 2nd mate and possibly some of the crew.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi John.
Don't know if they still use wire back springs these days but would be terrified in an enclosed space, bad enough down on the well deck with a ship going ahead and the skipper screaming out hold on to that back spring as it judders around the bits.
cheers Des

[Nigel Smith]

Hi John.
Don't know if they still use wire back springs these days but would be terrified in an enclosed space, bad enough down on the well deck with a ship going ahead and the skipper screaming out hold on to that back spring as it judders around the bits.
cheers Des

I did a short period on a home trade ferry once (hated it!). We were 'weekending' in Jersey and had to move the ship down the quay without engine power. I was on the a**e end, the crew on the focsle were hauling away without any thought of how we were to stop. The order came down from the bridge to 'hold fast', we were moving at a fair rate of knots and the stern line soon disappeared over the wall. The 'after spring' (wire) quickly became the stern line, it was clear the wire line was about to part. The AB on the line allowed it to surge on the bits, this more or less annihilated the line but it held. Shortly afterwards the AB on the spring was summoned to to see the Mate, seems the old man expected the AB to pay for the spring having 'destroyed' it by surging. Had he not surged it and it had parted, god knows what injuries may have ensued. I left the ship shortly after that but met up with the AB in question a year later on a deep sea job. He never paid for the spring and told the old man where to shove his spring, he still had a VG in his discharge book

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Nigel.
Had some very hairy moments with a backspring, but none worse than putting out the thick insurance wires fore and aft down in Westport and Greymouth on the South Island when on the Kiwi coast colliers, used to berth facing up the river, when leaving we used to take in the fore wire and all the ropes then take in all the ropes aft leaving the insurance wire out the skipper then went ahead and turned hard a port which swung the ships head into the fast flowing river, she would then spin around then he would stop engines until we got the Aft insurance wire in clear of the screws, it was bloody hairy with all hands pulling the wire in, the for'castle men had to run down and help, when clear it was full ahead.
Cheers Des