Ever come close

[Captain Kong]

My brother was on the Vancouver City in 1949, after a Nine month trip arriving in London when the spring snapped and whipped one of the lads into the fairleads and took both legs off, they fell into the dock and he was spouting blood everywhere then he died. Sad end to a voyage .
Brian.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Like Leratty I never minded backspring duty, it seemed to be an art in determining when the singing was going to change into a breaking strain, and easing off just in time, but then one could never count on the pilot not ordering slow ahead or half ahead to cant the stern around and putting that extra strain on your spring which caused a few clenching moments. Whilst at sea never had a spring break on me, (have a few scars from worn fraying wires) but on my first job for my own company (1986) had a chain break whilst loading a 3.5 tonne grab, the grab hit me and it was 22 months before I got rid of the last bit of the plaster, had a few broken bones but it could have been worse, every day after that has been a bonus, well for me anyway, but perhaps not for others!!

[John Arton]

Leratty, the maddest tug men I ever saw were in Ijmuiden. Came out of there on an empty cape sized bulker over the Christmas period. Sure they were all drunk. Weather was pretty crap but they were charging around taking up the slack of tow lines at speeds that would shame Lewis Hamilton.
John S.
Splicing of multiplait ropes is still taught to the cadets and trainee deck ratings at the college in South Shields.
I did a fill in spell down at the seamanship centre and suddenly after around 30 years after last splicing wires, ropes etc and rigging stages and bosuns chairs, found myself having to teach these young lads (and lasses) how to do it.
Took about 10 minutes of study and it all came back to me.
Nowadays health and safety rules ban the use of a number of types of splicing and vetting inspectors will give a comment on there report if mooring lines are found to be spliced after breaking. The trick was to put a new eye splice in on the remaining good length of line and have a shortened mooring line (150 mtrs instead of 200 mtrs for example)
Polypropylene mooring lines are very rare these days and the synthetic lines these days are a mixture of synthetic fibres such as polyethylene etc.
They still sing and part though but the whip back effect, although not eliminated, is less than the pure propylene. All mooring stations these days will be marked with the danger areas where a whip back could occur so hopefully, so long as the mooring gang keep their eyes open, no one should be in the danger zone should a rope part under excessive strain.
Had quite a few lines part during my time at sea but fortunately never had any serious injury caused to anyone. My pal had one of his sailors seriously injured on his ship though by a parting mooring rope. The guy lost part of his leg when they were tying up in Belfast and the CPP went its up and suddenly they were going full ahead just as they forward guys were making up the forward spring.
Only wire I ever saw go was a tug tow wire in Holland (again) and boy were the tug crew lucky. The thing flew around like a whirling dervish causing havoc and destroying all sorts of gear on the towing deck of the tug. This was when we were berthing on a fully laden Cape sized bulker in a gale of wind.
rgds
JA

[Gulliver]

I know these things and worse happen,yet in all my twenty years at mooring stations I never had an accident happen to any of my deck mooring crew.I suppose I was a bit paranoid about safety especially where wires and tugs were concerned-there were no safety zones marked in those days,but common sense ensured me and my 'gang' were nowhere near any tugs wire or mooring rope under tension- I made certain of that ;that included those first trip galley boys who occasionally innocently wandered down aft during docking stations to empty the galley rosie into the poop bins!
I suppose I was a bit of a pain safety-wise,especially when appointed Safety Officer ! Examples included everyone on deck wearing 'bone domes' -(that included the Old Man's missus when she was having a 'shufti' on deck in port,even the bunkering engineers(heh heh!,) and checking personally that all my individual lifeboat's crews lifejackets were properly donned and securely tied-surprising how many weren't... ..
But,I'm here to tell the tale,and I feel sure all the crews I sailed with appreciate it now!

The Code of Safe Working Practices for Merchant Seamen was never far from my side when I was at sea.

My sympathies to any seafarer who has witnessed and had to deal with those horrendous accidents,and their aftermath...I've read some sobering reports about mooring accidents on the MCA site

Gulliver

[Keith Tindell]

I can remember on the baltic boats, although not very big, and on the Medi run, we frequently had to spring her out of the berth, let go all aft, secure the spring, and motor forward. You had to stand clear from the spring while the weight was on, but as soon as she started to go astern, you had to be pretty snappy taking the turns off so the shore gang could take the eye off the mooring bitts, always semed to work well KT

[j.sabourn]

Ref. the rigger who lost digits. After sending to hospital his boss came down to ship and wanted me to say that he was intoxicated when the accident occurred, no doubt they had come from the pub but that was not my business. My reply to him was what do the Doctors at the hospital say, to which his reply was that they would not say yay or nay. My reply to him was in that case what makes you think I have more medical knowledge than a qualified doctor. The poor bloke minus his fingers was no doubt going to have a hard .time claiming anything, I only hope his mates stuck by him. I suppose in cases like this one finds out who their friends are. John Sabourn