Mooring bollard

The term is probably related to bole, meaning a tree trunk.^[2][3][4] The earliest citation given by the Oxford English Dictionary (referring to a maritime bollard) dates from 1844,^[2] although an account describing bollards as "huge posts" in a shipyard is also known from 1817.^[5]

In maritime contexts, a bollard is either a wooden or iron post found as a deck-fitting on a ship or boat, and used to secure ropes for towing, mooring and other purposes; or its counterpart on land, a short wooden, iron, or stone post on a quayside to which craft can be moored. The Sailor's Word-Book of 1867 defines a bollard in a more specific context as "a thick piece of wood on the head of a whale-boat, round which the harpooner gives the line a turn, in order to veer it steadily, and check the animal's velocity".^[2][6] Bollards on ships, when arranged in pairs, may also be referred to as "bitts".^[7][8] Bollards made from old cannon were called niggerheads.^[9][10]

A conventional measure of the pulling or towing power of a watercraft, defined as the force exerted on a shore-mounted bollard^[11] through a tow-line by a vessel under full power, is known as bollard pull.

• Different bollards
• 
  Old cannon used as a mooring bollard on the Merwede-Canal, Utrecht, Netherlands
• 
  Old cannon used as a mooring bollard, near the entrance of the Grand Harbour, Malta
• 
  Mooring bollard, Lyme Regis
• 
  Mooring bollards at Lepe Beach, Hampshire, England, installed in 1944 for the use of craft destined to take part in the D-Day landings

• Anchor
• Berth (moorings)