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BSafe Case Study 20 — A Line That Sprang Loose From an Open Fairlead

🕑 5 min read words Safety • Incident

Vessel: 20,236 GT general cargo vessel, moored alongside another bulk carrier at anchor
Date & location: Aft mooring deck, during a warping operation to reposition for cargo transfer
Outcome: Fatal — the chief officer suffered closed blunt force head trauma when a tensioned mooring line sprang from its fairlead
Human factors: Fatigue on a Late-Night Task · Open Fairlead Design Risk · Positioning Relative to a Loaded Line
Source: Britannia P&I Club BSafe case study — Mooring line accident leads to fatality

1 real case studyPublished 2026~4 min read

An Overnight Two-Metre Adjustment

Two bulk carriers were moored together at anchor for a cargo transfer, an eight-metre freeboard difference between them. Vessel B needed Vessel A moved forward two to three metres to accommodate the crane grab. Vessel A's master, notified by radio, ordered a warping operation using spring lines rather than wake the off-watch crew to help — despite having noted the chief officer's own tiredness. The operation began at 2234, with the chief officer and an AB on the aft mooring deck preparing to heave the aft spring.

The Line Left Its Fairlead

As the forward springs were slackened and the AB began hauling the aft spring, the line came under tension — and sprang out of its open roller fairlead, striking the chief officer's head and knocking him unconscious. The AB radioed the master immediately. First aid began at once, including oxygen and a defibrillator, and the crew was still breathing with a pulse detected. A local tug attempted evacuation; a helicopter proved unavailable. By the time a paramedic reached him ashore, the chief officer had died — a post-mortem found closed blunt force trauma causing brain swelling and haemorrhage.

What This Illustrates

An open roller fairlead allows a tensioned line more freedom to jump or spring under load than a closed fairlead design — a real difference in equipment risk profile for exactly this kind of failure.
The master had explicitly acknowledged the chief officer's tiredness before assigning him to an overnight mooring task rather than waking rested off-watch crew.
Personnel working near a line under tension were positioned close enough to be struck the moment it failed — the space around a loaded mooring line carries real risk even during a routine, low-distance warping move.

Recommended Actions

Grounded in what this incident shows:

Personnel handling or standing near a mooring line under tension need to actively account for the line's potential path if it fails or springs free — treating a ‘routine’ short warping move with the same positional caution as a full mooring operation.
Fairlead type and condition are a real factor in mooring line failure risk and worth factoring into where crew are positioned during any tensioned-line operation, not just during full mooring/unmooring.
Assigning a task to a crew member already known to be fatigued, rather than waking rested off-watch personnel, trades one operational convenience for a real, acknowledged safety cost.

Human Element Analysis

Fatigue accepted rather than addressed

The master didn't miss the chief officer's tiredness — he noted it and proceeded anyway, weighing it against the cost of waking off-watch crew. That's a real trade-off many ships make routinely; this incident is what happens when it goes wrong.

Equipment risk not factored into positioning

An open fairlead is a known higher-risk design for line failure under tension. Whether that specific risk shaped where anyone stood during this operation isn't recorded — but it's exactly the kind of equipment-specific knowledge that should inform crew positioning.

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