News 03 Jul, 2018 Fixed and Floating Object Incidents whilst under Pilotage Introduction For many years the number of Fixed and Floating Object (FFO) claims notified to the Club remained fairly constant, as did the resulting claims, however, in the past couple of years, although the total number of claims has not appreciably changed, the number of high value claims has risen alarmingly. The Club has seen a succession of extremely costly FFO claims occurring whilst vessels are in harbours or rivers and proceeding under pilotage. Incidents seen in the recent past have included: Vessels underway and making way striking vessels secured alongside berths. Vessel underway and making way, and those attempting to come alongside to make fast, making hard contact with berths, dolphins and walkways causing significant damage to the structures. Vessels attempting to come alongside to moor making contact with container gantry cranes. Often these FFO claims cause significant damage to third party vessels or take a facility and / or infrastructure out of commission, with large loss of use claims levelled against the vessel, alongside the costs of making good the often-substantial damage and associated survey and legal fees. Incident Causation Examination of the circumstances surrounding the claims has identified, as is usually the case with a major incident, a litany of errors and / or failings in the build up to the occurrence, the sum total of which have led to the incident. One overriding issue, however, has been identified as being prevalent in the majority of the large FFO claims occurring under pilotage in recent years; the lack of action on the part of the vessel’s bridge team to intervene in the navigation and manoeuvring of the vessel whilst the pilot has control of the steering and propulsion, until the situation has deteriorated such that an incident is imminent, and intervention by bridge team, if any, is largely ineffective. The importance of a pilot, as a source of ex