Types of mooring bollards: ship double bollards, cross bollards, dock bollards and cleats

Every mooring line ends on a fitting, and the fitting has to hold whatever the line puts into it — in a gust, a passing ship's wash or a falling tide. Bollards come in a handful of shapes, and the shape follows from where the line comes from: along a deck, up from a quay, or at a steep angle from a high-sided ship.

/01Ship bollards.

A double bollard is two hollow posts on a common base plate welded to the deck; a mooring line is belayed around both in figure-eights, so friction rather than a knot holds it. Cross bollards have a single post with a horizontal bar, which keeps the line from riding up and suits smaller lines and vessels. The pattern standard fixes the dimensions and the plate thicknesses, and the rating comes with the pattern and size — the CB/T 3845 cross bollards on our listings run from 50 kN WLL at 100 mm to 650 kN at 400 mm.

/02Dock bollards.

Dock bollards are cast in steel or iron and anchored into the quay structure. Their heads are shaped so that a line led up at a steep angle from a high-sided ship, or around the bollard from several directions, stays on: the T-head's cross arm and the horns of stag horn and twin horn bollards do that job. They are rated by working load limit in tonnes, and the anchor bolts and the quay itself must carry the same load — a 200 t bollard on a quay edge that was designed for 50 t is a 50 t bollard.

/03Cleats, fairleads and chocks.

Small craft and workboats use smaller fittings. Our stainless cleats — boat cleats, rope cleats and blue water cleats, AISI 316 on most — take lines belayed by hand; Skene-type fairleads and straight chocks lead a line cleanly off the deck edge without chafe; and bow rollers carry an anchor rode over the stem. They are sized to the line and the boat rather than given a WLL on our listings, so treat them as boat hardware, not as rated lifting or towing points.

/04Choosing and ordering.

Shipboard fittings follow the vessel's mooring arrangement and its class requirements, so give the pattern standard, type and size from the drawing. For a quay, give the bollard type, the required WLL, the quay construction and the fixing method. Fenders for the same berth are covered in types of marine fenders, and the lines themselves in fibre rope materials compared.