Bollard

A bollard is among the most familiar fittings in any port: the sturdy post, usually of cast steel or iron and often shaped with a swelling head, set along the edge of a quay, wharf or jetty, to which a ship's mooring lines are secured. When a vessel comes alongside, its mooring lines are passed ashore and their eyes are dropped over the bollards, or the lines are turned up on them, so that the winches aboard can heave the ship in and hold it firmly against the berth despite wind, tide and the wash of passing traffic. The strength of a bollard must be considerable, because a large ship's lines can carry very heavy loads.

Aboard the ship, the corresponding strong points to which lines are made fast are generally called bitts (paired vertical posts, often joined, mounted on the deck) though the word bollard is sometimes used loosely for these as well. Lines are secured to bitts with a series of figure-of-eight turns. Other deck fittings work together with them in the mooring system: fairleads and rollers guide the lines to the right direction, and the winches and drums provide the power to heave them in.

Bollards are central to safe mooring, and their use is bound up with the serious hazards of mooring operations. A mooring line under tension stores great energy, and if it parts it can whip back through a snap-back zone with lethal force, so crew must handle lines around bitts and bollards with care and stand clear of danger areas. The number, position and strength of mooring bollards on a berth, and their arrangement relative to the ship's own fittings, determine how a vessel can be moored safely. Simple though it looks, the bollard is a critical link in holding thousands of tonnes of ship safely against a berth.