Vessel arrival and docking SOP (ship-repair yard)
A vessel arrival and docking SOP for a ship-repair yard: pre-arrival berth checks, pilot and tug booking, the weather and tidal go or hold decision, pilotage, mooring, and a signed handover to the project team.
How it works
Replace the lanes with your actual arrival roles
This chart uses Planning, Dock Master, Berth and crane ops, Vessel/customer, and Project team. If FAYARD splits pilotage booking from berth rigging, or if a separate harbour authority handles the channel transit, give that role its own lane rather than folding it into Dock Master — the handoff is usually where a step gets assumed done by someone who assumed someone else did it.
Put your own berth-fit tolerances on the decision
"Vessel fits assigned berth?" needs a stated margin against draft, beam, length and, for a dry dock, sill height and gate clearance — not just "checked against the plan". Write the actual numbers into the row's comment field so the person verifying it isn't relying on memory of what the berth can take.
Name who has the authority to call Hold
The weather and tidal decision is the one branch in this chart with real safety consequences if it's skipped. Attach a named role, not just a title, to "Weather and tidal window acceptable?" so there's no ambiguity at 2am about who can send a vessel to anchorage instead of into the channel.
Set People and Workload on every row before you rely on the BI panel
The workload panel can only total hours for rows that carry them. Fill in People and Workload for each step as you adapt the chart, using realistic effort hours rather than elapsed time, so a busy arrival week actually shows up as a busy week for the right person.
Decide what counts as a loggable discrepancy
"Arrival discrepancy noted?" is only useful if the dock master and the master agree in advance on what triggers the Yes branch — fender contact, a draft variance past a stated margin, an undeclared cargo. List examples directly in "Log discrepancy and notify project manager" so the checklist isn't interpreted differently by whoever happens to be on duty.
Frequently asked questions
What triggers the start of the vessel arrival and docking process?
The process starts at "Vessel ETA and particulars received": the customer or agent sends the expected time of arrival along with draft, beam, length and any known defects. Everything downstream, the berth-fit check, the services booked, the checklist used at arrival, keys off this record, so a wrong figure at intake is what turns into a berth that doesn't fit later in the process.
What happens if the vessel doesn't fit the assigned berth?
The "Vessel fits assigned berth?" decision routes a mismatch to "Reassign to an alternate berth or dry dock" before pilot, tug and linesman bookings are made. Catching this at the planning desk, against the particulars received at intake, is deliberately earlier than catching it at the quay, where reassigning a berth means unwinding bookings that are already in motion.
Who decides to hold a vessel at anchorage instead of bringing it in?
That's the "Weather and tidal window acceptable?" decision, and in this chart it sits with the dock master role. A Hold routes the vessel to "Hold vessel at anchorage, monitor window", which loops back to re-check the window rather than forcing a single go/no-go call — conditions at a ship-repair yard change tide to tide, and the process should let a Hold become a Go without restarting the whole arrival sequence.
Why does the checklist branch on a discrepancy instead of just noting it and moving on?
"Master and dock master sign arrival checklist" closes the dock master's part of the process, but a discrepancy — fender damage, a draft reading that didn't match the booking, an undeclared hazardous cargo — is exactly the kind of thing the project team needs to know before they start work, not discover during their own first inspection. Routing it through "Log discrepancy and notify project manager" before the handover meeting means it's on the record and on the agenda, not buried in a checklist box nobody reads again.
Can this SOP be used for yards with only repair berths and no dry dock?
Yes — the berth-fit and weather/tidal decisions apply the same way to a repair berth as to a dry dock; only the reassignment target in "Reassign to an alternate berth or dry dock" changes. Drop "dry dock" from that row's label if your yard docks vessels exclusively alongside repair berths.