Blog 102 = "Rubin Power" - Sea Chests - Pipes Choked with Mussels - Yeosu, South Korea

Heartfelt Greetings to All for Christmas and New Year 2023.

Marine Musings 32 “Rubin Power”

30th Mar 1999 (Sodegaura, Japan) to

14th Oct 1999 (Yeosu, S.Korea)

IMO number : 9124902

Name of ship : RUBIN POWER

Call Sign : 3FNG6

MMSI : 356808000

Gross tonnage : 37846

DWT : 72326

Type of ship : Bulk Carrier

Year of build : 1996

Flag : Panama

Frankly, I remember very little of my 6 ½ months on the “Rubin Power.” An ex ‘K’ Line ship, she was under Navix, Singapore - if memory serves me right.

My work on the Brilliant River, having been hugely appreciated by Navix, made Navix ask for me when the Chief Engineer’s post was becoming vacant. I was called back to join the “Rubin Power” within 2 months of my “Brilliant River” tenure.

The “Rubin Power” had almost the same run as my previous ship carrying bulk coal or ore, mostly coal, from Australia to Japan (mostly) or South Korea to feed the hungry energy sector of their respective countries.

There was no talk of ‘emissions’ or ‘carbon footprints’ for those developed countries, unlike now, where the developing nations are being subjected to ‘sanctions’ in various modes for not complying with unreasonable norms of emissions applied by, mainly, European nations.

In the ‘developed’ world, fingers are pointed at the ‘developing’ nations as the villains in all aspects of climate change. They conveniently forget that, starting from the Industrial Revolution in the mid 1800s, they have been the cause of polluting technologies, which quickly spread to other ‘free’ nations.

The ‘colonised’ countries under the European yolk were being stripped of their wealth in various ways, leading to starvation and famine of the local populace. They continued remaining poor.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, slowly the colonisers relinquished their hold on many countries, due to calls for independence within the country, some violent, some non-violent. They left all their former colonies impoverished, making them struggle to find a foothold in the world.

A 2020 estimate found that the British, colonisers of a previously vibrant India, looted the country systematically, and with malice aforethought, for 200 years carrying away about 45 Trillion Dollars worth to England. The edifice of the grandeur that is England, was built on the blood of Indians and the remains of a few million corpses. But nobody calls this a genocide.

The pre colonised India’s GDP was close to 24% of world GDP. When they left, the GDP was hovering at the negative.

Very few of the former colonies opted for, and continued to remain, a democracy.

Most of the African countries were dictatorships, with the dictators being propped up by their former colonisers, mostly private corporations. Some were autocracies, police states, with sham democracies.

After 40, 50, 60, 70 odd years of being independent, they were still struggling to maintain a foothold in a world dominated by US and European technology. It is not surprising, then, that the ‘developing’ nations rejected many of the articles of various protocols relating to emissions, clean energy, global warming, climate change etc as being too economically unrealistic for their lean budgets.

WORKWISE

This ship was much better maintained than the ‘Brilliant River’.

Nevertheless, as per the norms I had set for myself, I looked into all nooks and corners that are regularly ignored by others, outlined and prepared a plan and stuck to it for the 6 ½ months that I was on board.

Engine Room Bilges were always a phobia of mine. After cleaning the bilges and all the pipelines, a thorough inspection was made prior painting. Some pipes had pinhole leaks, some were weak. As soon as we could, we renewed all these lines, some needing a full black out, with the Emergency Generator starting up.

One of the more scary aspects of this inspection was the condition of the stub pipes - distance pieces - that are welded on to the sea water suction chests that are provided on port and starboard sides. These distance pieces are welded directly on to the sea suction chests with shut off valves located only after these distance pieces and, were they to give way, could flood the Engine Room in a very short while.

Both sides, port and starboard suctions’ stub pipes, were badly rusted and corroded.

On every ship that I had worked on, I had always insisted on these two distance pieces being renewed by the Shipyard whenever the vessel went into a Dry Dock, irrespective of the condition. After this renewal, I used to ensure that it is kept clean, inspected regularly and well painted.

Here I was in a fix, as the dry dock had been just completed about 8 months ago. By my reckoning, these distance pieces will not last till the next dry dock.

I informed the Navix Office of the situation. Some thought that I was crying ‘Wolf’ and some took it seriously and asked for my suggestion.

Being a below-waterline job, it required a Classification Society Surveyor’s inspection and approval, both before and after the job was done.

I suggested the use of a workshop and a diver’s boat in Japan to renew the pieces. Following the impressions gained and the results I had produced on the last ship, the ‘Brilliant River’, they immediately acted on my advice and renewed the distance pieces in Japan.

A diver sealed off the inlet grating of the sea chest.

Sea Water Inlet Grating of a Ship

Nowadays - starting from around 2000 - this is hinged.

Choked Sea Chest Inlets’

Stub Piece Between Valve and Sea Chest

Courtesy Quora

Then the workshop carried out an ultra sound check to determine the thickness of the metal. It was just half of what it should have been and, likely, would have given way sooner rather than later.

Both pieces were renewed, the welds checked, certified by Class.

Mussels

A rather simple problem came to my attention, which could easily have been resolved with just a bit of thought and a bit of work.

There was a Sea Water cooling pump specifically for generators, small in capacity. It was not in use, the general premise being it was too small a pump for the purpose it was intended for. But a much larger capacity General Service Pump had been running continuously for months together to supply water to the generators through a bypass line, the higher pressure being lowered sufficiently for generator use, by opening the anchor wash valves on deck.

This small capacity generator cooling sea water pump had been overhauled, but , for some reason, water was not reaching the generators through its dedicated line.

I asked the Second Engineer to open several elbow (curved) sections of pipelines leading from the bottom platform to the generator platform, as elbows are prone to getting choked - all were clear.

On opening the straight sections of pipe on the discharge side immediately after the pump, it was completely choked with mussels, a form of bivalve molluscs. 4 sections of the straight pipe lines were choked with mussels, only stopping before the first elbow on the pipeline.

It was so thick and hard, we had to discard these pipes, fabricate new ones.

Hatches

The side rolling hatches on this ship had a different open / close arrangement. No chains, no sprocket wheeled hydraulic motors.

Instead, a toothed gear wheel, operated by an electric motor, running on a toothed gear rail on the inside of the hatch cover was what operated the hatch. Good system, practically fool proof, as long as the hatch hydraulic jacks are kept in good order.

Three things had to be constantly checked and looked after.

The first was the hydraulic jacks mentioned above.

The second was the insulation checks of the motors, as they were on deck and exposed to the weather. Canvas covers were stitched and used to cover the motors when at sea.

The third was the gear wheel that played on the toothed gear rail. Checks needed to be made that the bearings were not damaged.

Yeosu

Yeosu, South Korea was where I signed off, after 6 ½ months aboard.

The 1½ days that we spent there remains in my memory for 2 reasons.

The first was because of a Port State Control Inspection. Everything was fine but for entries in the Oil Record Book that were objected to by the Port Inspector, for which we were fined $10,000 US.

This was on the voyage immediately after AMSA - Australian Maritime Safety Authority - had given us a clean chit, no non-conformities. It was an unwritten and accepted practice that, if a ship had been inspected in the past six months by another country’s PSC, other countries would accept that inspection on faith. But they had the right to inspect any ship anytime, as per the Paris Memorandum of Understanding, applied in 1982.

After the Amoco Cadiz sank that year, it was decided to also audit safety and pollution practices. To this end, in 1982 fourteen European countries agreed on the Paris Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control (Paris MoU) to establish port state control.

The ship’s agent was not surprised, as these same inspectors were fining all ships at least $5,000, citing the flimsiest of inaccuracies. There seemed to be a financial design behind it, not one to do with inspections.

I objected to their interpretation of the Oil Record Book Instructions.

The vessel was supposed to record - in the Oil Record Book - the soundings of all tanks listed in the IOPP (International Oil Pollution Prevention) Certificate.

This was being done diligently, with no errors, as per the instructions in the Oil Record Book, exactly once a week.

The Yeosu Port State Control Inspector had interpreted the instructions of “Not less than once a week” to mean at least once in five days or six days - not 7 days. In spite of my arguing, he was adamant. I realised his knowledge of English was scratchy at best.

So we called the local Class Surveyor to intervene and interpret the instructions for the PSC. Before the ship sailed, the $10,000 fine was annulled.

A ring of high prized fishing farms surround Yeosu shores, which caused the Yeosu Port Authorities to inflict some ridiculous water pollution prevention methods on every ship.

Despite having a legitimate, certified, working Sewage Disposal system, we were not allowed to use this in port.

We had a large capacity Sewage Holding Tank - we were not allowed to use this also.

We were forced to use 4 portable toilets kept aft.

Enough to make stomachs turn.

I left the ship the next morning to fly back home.

===== "Marine Musings 33", Blog 103, Continues =====