IMarEST's 'Marine Professional' magazine

[Varley]

Whose for readers starting a thread to comment on the contents? Let me try sparking it off:

Anyone have comments on the article on issue 2/2021 page 60?

[Engine Serang]

As with Catholicism I'm a lapsed member.
Perhaps you could cut and paste the offending article, I'll read it if it has engineering content but any oul s h i t e about microbes or bio-diversity and its for the "Rosie".

[Varley]

E-S, I regret I do not have it electronically. It would be good if you could read it on //www.imarest.org/themarineprofessional - but not sure if it is public or not.

Not pseudomonas (are there realomonas too?) or the failure of our race to follow good eugenic principles. I will not try and skew your opinion until you have had a chance to form your own.

(Watt Institute, having an hundred plumbers, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?)

[John Gowers]

I also stopped paying the fees when I retired 5 years ago. Another thing I stopped paying was extortionate insurance renewal premiums, so now every year I shop around and go for the cheapest premiums I can get, sorry if this has gone off the subject.

[Engine Serang]

Hold on, where did the Good Shepherd go to?

[Makko]

David,
You have to be a member to read it. I winced at the fees! I pay 90 squid a year as a member of CILA.
Rgds.
Dave

[Engine Serang]

You started this Mr Varley so bloody well finish it.

Scan the article and attach it to one of your midnight posts where we can all read it. Do not worry about copyright as there is no fraud laws in Islas de Mona.
I'll parse the article but I don't hold out much hope for Mr Mako who is a member of the Chartered Institute of bad singers from Scotty Road and is thus deaf.

[Varley]

You are right. I have tried 'incognito' and is members only. I think copying verbatim in this case might bring chastisement as the article is written by a fellow and I am a mere associate member.

However, I am sure I can precis the report and its conclusion:

The episode reported develops over some unspecified period of time (although the onset of particular parameters is marked), we are led to understand days.

Starting with the conclusion - Poor communications is blamed.

A piston is replaced in the slow speed crosshead engine during a port call (we are not told by whom).

A sleeve in the piston cooling circuit was omitted. This caused the engine to leak unmanageable quantities of lub oil (collected in drums and put to renovation) and, once the piston crown had burned away, exhaust gas. The latter to the point that engine-room was only tenable wearing paint masks due to the exhaust gas and oil mist. The oil-mist detector and fire alarms are 'continuous' and are ignored, as is the piston cooling temperature differential.

The oil mist in the wider engine room eventually ignited and amongst the expected mayhem there were two fatalities. The vessel is disabled and she is towed in. The initial assumption is of a crankcase explosion but is discounted on more forensic examination.

Here the precis ends and my opinion takes over.

Politically correct bollocks.

In the name of Newcomen what intracompany communications could be blamed for every man-jack onboard, let alone the senior officers, to not know of the situation and that the ship was in peril because of it?

The only form of catalytic communications that I could swallow would be ones encouraging the ships staff to maintain charter speed with a less than candid reporting of the situation.

Is that enough to go on?

[Engine Serang]

It would never happen on any ship I was on. Even the 5/E would have said, "Hold on here chaps something isn't quite right with the piston cooling". Tickets not required for that one.
I agree that many crews could be terrorised into maintaining charter speed with less than candid reporting but it's easier explaining why you went off-hire for a few hours than facing Flag, Class and H&M Surveyors for an interview without coffee. Having the death of two colleagues on your conscience would be very difficult to live with.

As with Agony Columns and Horoscopes in newspapers where the last out of the office has to make up tomorrows copy so, I believe, similar happens even in Learn'd Publications.

[Tim Gibbs]

As I said elsewhere, that such a thing can happen makes a complete nonsense of international training, qualifications and management regulations.
Absorbing sufficient experience and knowledge requires the correct mindset. Unfortunately no one has yet come up with a way to measure and regulate mindset

[Makko]

What was the registry of the vessel? Where were the crew from?

From the precis, it runs against EVERYTHING I ever learnt, from a pimply faced novice to an experienced, ticketed and confident engineer!

Why, oh why, didn't they just "hang" and dead leg the offending piston? They could have blamed "bad weather". Where did the flocking sleeve go? Black humour I admit, but you can imagine a Junior arguing and losing withe the C/E or 2/E,"Where does this bit go? It must go somewhere!".
"Ah!, just throw it in the scrap bin in the workshop, it's not important!"

We had separate spanners and tools for ME/Crankcase work, all by numbers to check nothing went missing. The engine manual and drawings were on hand also to ensure, even though we had done it many times, that we followed the assembly/disassembly as if it were the first time.

My gast is thoroughly flabbered with this woeful and tragic tale.

Thx for sharing!

Rgds.
Dave

[Varley]

Dave, those clues were not given. That, of course, prompts us to suspect the inadequacies of STCW and Managements of convenience. Let us hope so, proper sailors can recognise those risks at a distance so that Mrs. V can keep her little boy safely away from such nasties. Anything else would be even more dire. David V.

[Makko]

Hmmm.........Buy one Chief's ticket, get one free!

My gast is still flabbered!

Rgds.
Dave

[Engine Serang]

Engine Serang can never see a Bandwagon but he wants to jump onboard.
Here goes.......

Hands up all those who think STCW has raised the standard of, "Anything" in the shipping world.

My Certificate of Competency as a "First Class Engineer" is now a "Class 1" and is the "Equivalent" of a Nicaraguan or Egyptian Ticket. It makes you want to vomit.

[Tim Gibbs]

Originally Posted by Engine Serang

Engine Serang can never see a Bandwagon but he wants to jump onboard.
Here goes.......

Hands up all those who think STCW has raised the standard of, "Anything" in the shipping world.

My Certificate of Competency as a "First Class Engineer" is now a "Class 1" and is the "Equivalent" of a Nicaraguan or Egyptian Ticket. It makes you want to vomit.

STCW = Dumbing down

[Chillytoes]

I can't believe this story is genuine. When I was a member of that organisation some years ago, I don't recall a 'Believe It Or Not' section or a jokes corner.

[Engine Serang]

When J Stuart Robinson handed over to Jolyon Slogget the marine engineering sector was in serious decline and Jolyon had to be creative in widening the membership base. He and his successors managed to keep the ship off the rocks but things will never be the same. As a purist I am unhappy but as a realist I accept the changes, I am no longer a member so mild criticism is all I can offer.

[Tim Gibbs]

Originally Posted by Engine Serang

When J Stuart Robinson handed over to Jolyon Slogget the marine engineering sector was in serious decline and Jolyon had to be creative in widening the membership base. He and his successors managed to keep the ship off the rocks but things will never be the same. As a purist I am unhappy but as a realist I accept the changes, I am no longer a member so mild criticism is all I can offer.

I am still a member and have decided to try to do my bit to stop such ridiculous articles appearing there by submitting some of my own. Had one in Issue 2, 2021 and had have another ( A short History of the Doxford Engine ) accepted for Issue 3, 2021

[Varley]

I have just re-read yours in Issue 2. A pity it didn't run long enough to exclude the article in topic!

I cannot wholly agree with yours WRT to monitoring equipment. That the nose and ears of the watchkeeper have not been bettered, generally, by CMS I cannot argue but equally the cognisance of a local thermometer or pressure gauge can only be 'updated' by a watchkeeper very occasionally when compared to even the earliest of discreet or scanning CMS.

WRT emergency generators however I am fully behind you. One of my later successful ,lobbies was for the Saturday start/stop to be replaced/augmented by run at a load representative of that in a worst case emergency until all temperatures and pressures had reached stable and acceptable values.

(Good to know we are not just relying on a minority of regulars led by Mr.Grey to keep the magazine sanely on topic).

[Makko]

David,

A ship that I just inspected, entered service in 2013, had a full suite of EG monitoring instrumentation to ensure "full on-load" availability at all times.

Rgds.
Dave

[Varley]

GM Dave, I am not sure what monitoring can provide such assurances.

I have two other hang ups. Special test features and automatic reverting to MSB supply. Of the failures that have reached the investigation stage only one I remember was due to hidden failures attributed to inadequate endurance at load testing. The others have been down to the unnecessary showing-off of the designers. Why do we want the emergency set to shut down and the ESB to revert to MSB simply on re-establishment of MSB supply? That supply might be unstable and wouldn't it be a good idea for an engineer to give the emergency set the once-over when on proper duty?

The automation required adds components and therefore is less reliable. The failure modes are more extensive too. One of these was responsible for a grounding in the St Lawrence which a simple auto start and connect would have likely avoided. A failure which was discovered during testing (a Maersk Chartered box boat) was down to the 'test' selector switch being defective. They should be tested simply by kicking out the MSB feeder, no other test is fully valid. The one that I remember that pointed to cold corrosion caused by inadequate test running condition meant a casualty in the Far East could only use the satcom for 10 minutes every hour or so while the set cooled down. A hole was found in one piston crown most likely caused, I understand, by pooling of acidic condensate.

We have been approached by suppliers of dummy loads to test at MCR. Too much control gubbins for that to be a one-act solution. I would have an ESB which powered a number of ancillary as well as the emergency loads. The ancillary MCBs would have no-volt trips so that they cleared on any blackout but could be manually restored once the emergency bus was live (when fed from either the MSB or its generator).

That was going to be on the next ship that I didn't get to 'do'!

(My first drawing approvals, which included the above grounding, I was more interested in being able to follow the interesting showings-off of the yard's designers. The standby start circuitry had a vast number of relay controlled logic. Very little of it necessary. The emergency switchboard similar. The warm glow of being able to follow and know like the back of one's hand is useful when showing off but evaporates over time being replaced with the realisation that one is stupid and so simplicity is better. Those unnecessary features of starters are now standard. They are tolerable - perhaps? - as they are executed on a PCB or computer. That doesn't make them any more necessary only impossible to repair onboard).

[Makko]

Originally Posted by Varley

(My first drawing approvals, which included the above grounding, I was more interested in being able to follow the interesting showings-off of the yard's designers. The standby start circuitry had a vast number of relay controlled logic. Very little of it necessary. The emergency switchboard similar. The warm glow of being able to follow and know like the back of one's hand is useful when showing off but evaporates over time being replaced with the realisation that one is stupid and so simplicity is better. Those unnecessary features of starters are now standard. They are tolerable - perhaps? - as they are executed on a PCB or computer. That doesn't make them any more necessary only impossible to repair onboard).

Varley,

I agree - When cad drawings came into general use, the baby got thrown out with the bath water!

Skilled, experienced, real engineers were replaced by "technicians", proficient in the programmes, but lacking in "nouse"! Another massive fault, in my mind and experience, was the implementation of touch screens.

I once investigated the complete meltdown of a 340MW steam generator flue gas recirculation system. The initiator was a stuck/broken diverter flap. Following much reluctance on the part of plant personnel, I got a copy of the logs. The high temp was not alarmed, only monitored by operators in the "star trek" bridge style control room. Review of the logs revealed that the problem had occurred eight hours previous to "discovery". The duct, white hot in places and completely melted in others was discovered by a cleaner! My only comments were that they should change the seats to more uncomfortable ones and remove all "gentlemen's reading material"! Another was on a project that I was lead engineer (field) on. The whizz-bang computer controlled coal unloader arrived to site. QC gave me a call, and I went over to the Cayacal Island. When we got to the dock, Bionda pointed and asked me,"how do we put that together?!". The support structure had been sliced in four, like an orange, in order to make it "fit" the freighter's hold! The only solution was a lot of load bearing scaffolding, a 1200T crane on hire for three months and a pair of 120T mobile cranes for slewing/positioning. A bloody nightmare, thanks to some CAD expert!

Rgds.
Dave

[Makko]

OH, forgot to mention, I saw it all, working on CAD from 1986 to 2006!
Rgds.
Dave

[Varley]

Employ more cleaners!

I have never worked and CAD/CAM simply the resultant drawings sent for approval. One thing that perhaps some cut down version might do is also what employers of the PLC could do but I have not seen in the marine environment. Simulation. Both as an designers/approvers aid (I assume lots but not all errors are excluded by the design software) and for the operating technicians. If one has the logic existing as software rather than electromagnetic relays it is only a small (cheap) step to copy that so one can 'fault' it for comparison. For fun (no director can read this and weep now) I recreated the logic of a switchboard (the same as in the St.Lawrence grounding 'above') in an HP85 and Basic using statements along the lines of [RLA1= (RLA10 and not RLA20) or not RLA23 etc. straight off the circuit diagram and running it in a loop until no changes were detected, replacing the real element with 0 or 1 to simulate the failure mode]. This 'discovered an interesting mode whereby the low frequency trip relay failure could cause a chain of blackout, auto start&connect of standby repeating. I got to try this out on a ship visit but the chief chickened out after the second blackout.

Clients in better served industries (for instance nuclear, oil and gas, public transport etc.) expect the automation of their new installations to have been and fully tested against a virtual plant. The specialist contractors serving those industries serve us as well and know the SP. We are short changed.

[Makko]

Originally Posted by Varley

Employ more cleaners!

Clients in better served industries (for instance nuclear, oil and gas, public transport etc.) expect the automation of their new installations to have been and fully tested against a virtual plant. The specialist contractors serving those industries serve us as well and know the SP. We are short changed.

Hi, "Tocayo" (David),

On Barber Priam (still afloat as Cape Henry), No.5 Genny (Yanmar straight 6) was the auto start up for a blackout.

After finishing the last log with No.5 running (mid Pacific) and handing over the watch, after 10 minutes, EVERYTHING went out! Genny, ME etc. The real Emergency Genny cut in to provide the "romantic" light (read,"filme noire"!) to at least move around. It was just a case of safety boots back on and leg it to the MCR. The C/E arrived. The auxy had thrown a piston!

The system was trying to restart N0.5 and had dumped the ME cooling tank due to the cyl. blk. "anomaly"!

I got the drawings out and confirmed. One of the prerequisites was CW on the engine. What to do? The 56K Ro Ro was now rolling, beam on to the waves, alarmingly. (Full load, USA West Coast and Middle East.)

The solution, that worked, was to "trick" the system into thinking another genny was the "emergency", having previously blanked off the 24" CW auto valve (i.e. Press. "good"), using lengths of welding cables between "boards".

The Auxy started and synchronized. All OK!

FW pumped up to the ME CW HDR ( using fire pumps for expediency) and the ME restarted. Rolling had, at this time got to 40 Degs. Port and Stbd!

Underway, 1.25 hours after the event.

As they used to say in "Streets of San Francisco" (Karl Malden/Michael Douglas) Epilogue.........:

Telex to head office, C/E B. Priam:
"Require urgent spares!"
Reply:
"What spares and why?"
C/E:
"One Yanmar auxy engine! URGENT!"
Reply:
"Repeat your reuirement?"

Rgds.
Dave