More safety for vessels calling at Le Havre
To improve the safety of ships at Le Havre, Haropa Port has installed the shore tension system – a solution enabling vessels to remain securely moored along the quayside.
Ships regularly have difficulty in keeping securely alongside quay, a problem known as “surging”, which refers to back and forth movements by the ship along the terminal berth. Such movements are generally encountered when other vessels pass nearby.
The new equipment is based on a study, conducted with boatmen, pilots, owners and stevedores in Le Havre in 2019 and involving the installation of centimetre-level GPS units on around forty ships.
Building on the results obtained, Haropa Port decided to equip the port with the shore tension solution developed by KRVE, an association of boatmen working in the port of Rotterdam. Special mooring ropes in Dyneema (an ultra-resistant polyethylene fibre) are attached to hydraulic rams. This standalone system is additional to the ship’s conventional mooring. (sh)