Digital mooring system improves safety

Developed over the past three years, Wilhelmsen’s Smart Ropes system will be used by Synergy Ocean, Viking Cruises, Berge Bulk and Finnlines.

Magnus Dickens, venture lead in Wilhelmsen Marine Products’ Open Innovation function, said: “We have spent years developing a completely new technology, which brings accuracy, transparency and consistency to a task which is currently haphazard and fraught with risk. We are thrilled to partner up with these four, forward-learning companies who share our vision of safer, more effective, data-driven mooring operations.”

Comprising a patent-pending measuring unit, embedded within the mooring rope, the ‘smart’ unit transmits key tension, time, temperature data in addition to a combination of parameters that make up the proprietary system design.

Using the latest wireless communication, the data is sent to a command module located on the bridge, designed to work even under the most challenging mooring conditions typically experienced in poor weather. This data is processed and transferred to a live feed, running on a tablet, or computer on the ship’s bridge, backed-up in the cloud.

Helping to ensure mooring ropes have the right tension, in the right place, at the right time, all the time, Wilhelmsen’s system has been specifically developed in order to relegate over tensioned lines, premature wear of ropes and in the worst-case scenario unexpected rope failures, to history.

The first installations of the system will begin in Q3 2020, with four vessels using SmartRopes onboard.