What happened?
A vessel was transferring an old main engine liner to a utility vessel (UV) at Singapore anchorage. Prior to the transfer, the UV provided 14 lifting straps and four slings with hooks to the vessel to be used for the transfer operation. The vessel’s crew secured the liner with the equipment before undertaking the transfer operations to UV using the vessel’ provision crane.
The UV’s crew did not secure the liner properly when it landed on UV’s deck. Moderate swells caused UV to roll, which in turn caused the liner to shift to another end of the deck. This resulted in the UV capsizing and sinking. No reported injury and pollution resulted from the incident.
Why did it happen?
When the liner was landed on UV’s deck, it was not properly secured (i.e. no precautious were taken to ensure that it would not move at all). Despite not securing the liner properly to prevent movement, UV’s crew released the lifting equipment (see below Figure 1).
Note:
UV’s crew prematurely removed the slings from hooks ‘A’, ‘B’ or ‘C and D’ before the liner was properly secured on deck to prevent movement.
Conclusion
Based on the information gathered, it was deduced that UV’s crew had not carried out correct procedure in relation to securing heavy load on deck.