3. Thruster-Assisted Mooring

Thrusters may be used to assist the mooring system by reducing the mean environmental forces, controlling the floating unit’s heading, or a combination of the two. Thruster-assisted mooring (TAM) systems can be broadly categorised into manual and automatic thruster-assisted mooring systems (TAMs), depending on the type of thrust assist (TA) system fitted on the unit. This chapter applies to mobile offshore units (MOUs), mobile offshore drilling units (MODUs) and floating production installations (FPIs) operating with TAM systems for the optional notations of: TAM (Automatic thruster control system), TAM-R (Automatic thruster control system with redundancy), and TAM (Manual) (Manual thruster control system). At the request of the Owners, the TAM system may be verified for compliance with the provisions outlined in this chapter with the appropriate class notation assigned.