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.
What the vessel arrival and docking SOP (ship-repair yard) process is
A ship-repair yard the size of FAYARD has a fixed number of dry docks, cranes and repair berths, and every one of them is booked against a schedule that was fixed weeks earlier from particulars the customer supplied by email or agent's fax. The arrival process is where that paper schedule meets the real vessel. If the draft, beam or length on the booking sheet is off by even a small margin, or the tide window that was assumed when the slot was booked does not hold, the mismatch does not stay contained to one vessel: a dry dock that was flooded and prepared for a hull that does not fit, a crane crew and a repair berth staffed for a docking that has to be pushed a tide, is downtime the whole yard absorbs, not just the incoming ship. That is why the chart puts "Verify draft, beam and length against berth plan" and the "Vessel fits assigned berth?" decision before a single mooring line is booked, rather than treating the fit as something the dock master notices on arrival.
The two decision points in this chart exist because a ship-repair yard cannot afford to discover either failure mode by watching it happen at the quay. "Vessel fits assigned berth?" is a planning-desk decision: if the answer is no, the vessel goes to "Reassign to an alternate berth or dry dock" before pilots, tugs and linesmen are ever booked against a slot that cannot take the ship. "Weather and tidal window acceptable?" is a go/hold call made after the vessel is already committed and often already at the pilot boarding ground, and it has to be a real branch with a real fallback, not an informal delay, because the alternative to "Hold vessel at anchorage, monitor window" is a pilot bringing a vessel through a channel or onto a berth in conditions nobody signed off on.
The last lane is where custody changes hands, and it is drawn as deliberately as the arrival itself. "Master and dock master sign arrival checklist" closes out the dock master's responsibility for the vessel as delivered; "Arrival discrepancy noted?" is what stops fender damage, a wrong draft reading or an undeclared hazardous cargo from becoming something the project team finds on their own during the first inspection instead of something they were told about at "Hold handover meeting with project team". Every row also carries a named owner and an hours figure through the built-in People and Workload columns, so the workload BI panel can show, for a week with two arrivals booked a tide apart, whether the dock master's hours and the berth crew's hours actually fit the calendar instead of only the berth plan fitting it.
What this flowchart covers
In this template
- Pre-arrival intake and berth fit, from "Vessel ETA and particulars received" through "Verify draft, beam and length against berth plan" to the "Vessel fits assigned berth?" decision, which branches to "Reassign to an alternate berth or dry dock" when the numbers don't clear
- Berth preparation across the "Dock Master" and "Berth and crane ops" lanes: "Book pilot, tugs and linesmen", "Rig fenders, bollards, gangway and shore power", and "Brief pilot and tug crew on berth plan and hazards" before the vessel is anywhere near the quay
- The weather and tidal go/hold gate: "Weather and tidal window acceptable?" either sends the vessel forward or into "Hold vessel at anchorage, monitor window", re-checked until conditions clear
- Pilotage and entry: "Vessel enters channel under pilotage" and "Tugs assist vessel alongside berth", the two rows carried by the pilot and the tug crew before the vessel is fixed to the quay
- Securing and handover: "Vessel made fast, gangway rigged", "Master and dock master sign arrival checklist", and the "Arrival discrepancy noted?" decision that routes any issue through "Log discrepancy and notify project manager" before "Hold handover meeting with project team" transfers custody to the crew who will run the repair
- Named owners and hours on every row via the People and Workload columns, so the workload BI panel can show that, for example, Liam Doyle's mooring hours cluster in "Berth preparation" while James Whitfield's dock master hours run the full width of the chart from intake to handover
When to use this template
- You're standardising how FAYARD's dock master office handles an incoming vessel and want the handoffs between planning, the dock master, berth and crane ops, the vessel's own crew, and the project team fixed on one chart instead of living in one planner's head
- Two vessels are booked into dry docks a tide apart and you need to see, row by row, whether the same dock master and berth crew are double-booked across both arrivals
- A vessel has arrived with fender damage or a draft reading that didn't match the booking sheet, and there was no consistent place to log it before the project team took over the job
- You're onboarding a new dock master or duty officer and need a reference for exactly which checks happen before pilotage is booked and which happen after the vessel is alongside
- An arrival was delayed or held at anchorage for weather, and you want a record of who made that call and on what basis, rather than an informal radio conversation nobody wrote down
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.
Where this process fits
In most operations this process hands off to Dry docking and undocking SOP: block plan to refloat.
It is one step in Ship repair.
Step 1: Vessel arrival and docking SOP (ship-repair yard) You are here
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.
Step 2: Dry docking and undocking SOP: block plan to refloat
A shipyard SOP for dry docking and undocking a vessel: block plan verification, controlled dewatering, a stability check, dry-period repair work, and refloat, with an owner and workload hours on every step.
Step 3: Ship repair project kickoff SOP: specification to work packages
Step 4: Shipyard subcontractor onboarding SOP: induction to checkout
Step 6: Vessel repair handover SOP: completion review to departure