Testing the Mooring Winches

Chief Officer Andre van Schoonhoven sent us the latest photos from the yard. They’ve just completed testing of the mooring winches — the machines that pull the ship to the dock and hold it in place. Here’s how Andre described it:

The mooring winches were tested for their rated power. Rated power is 52 tons of bollard pull, and we got them up to 57 tons on the strain gauge. (Note: a bollard is the strong post on a pier that the mooring line is attached to.) That means they can pull an object of 125,400 lbs!

The test also provided the opportunity for Rolls-Royce, manufacturer of the winches, to adjust all the settings on the electro motors and their control stands.

The winches are equipped with so-called self-tensioning modes, which means that if the strain on a mooring line gets above a certain setting, the winch will pay out the line, rather than breaking it, and when the strain gets lower, it will automatically heave in again.

The testing is performed by putting a steel cable on the winch drum, and putting the other end around the bollards on deck, with the measuring device in between.

That way, the bollards get tested at the same time.

UPDATE: In response to a question from a reader, Andre gave us the lengths of the anchor chains and mooring lines:

The mooring lines are 220 meters long, tip to winch line, manufactured by Lankhorst Sneek. The anchor chains are 364 meters long.