BLOG 30 - A (very) CLOSE BRUSH WITH DEATH, WAIKIKI AT 2am AND A SIGN OFF (Finally)

MARINE MUSINGS 4

Except for the human element part, I suspect that the contents of this Blog will put my non-seafaring readers 'at sea'. But I cannot do justice to a narrative of a breakdown without going into technical details. Please bear with me.

Chapter 16 - Lives in Jeopardy due to breakdown in a Storm – I see Waikiki Beach at 2 in the Morning

ENGINE BREAKS DOWN AMIDST THE BREWING OF A SEVERE STORM

The voyage from Vancouver to India was estimated as a 32 day voyage.

It took us all of 62 days to complete. By the time we reached the Indian Port of Tuticorin, we were battered and bruised but not beaten - more like Muhammad Ali after 15 rounds against Joe Frazier.

It all started with the decision to take the ‘Great Circle’ route to minimise on distance travelled. All went well for a few days. But weather reports indicated a storm of severe intensity headed our way.

Some of these storms originate south of the Equator in the South Pacific Ocean, starting off as a mild depression. It starts travelling up north, mostly in a curvaceous route, picks up speed, intensifies and hits any or many of the East Asian nations. Sometimes it veers and hits the Philippines and countries north of the Philippines and loses momentum after crossing into land. Some hit the Chinese coast and veer away in a north easterly direction. These storms bring strong winds and heavy rains to coastal areas and are, often, categorised as cyclones as they pick up speed and momentum.

100 knot winds (about 185 km/hr) have been recorded. On coastal areas, it brings heavy destruction, flooding, loss of life. At sea, if the ship gets caught in a storm, it can mean sinking of the ship and death to all, depending on the severity of the storm. The skies darken, the wind picks up, the seas become choppier, the waves start to become larger and higher, the ship starts to roll or pitch or both, depending on the heading of the storm.

Once such weather warnings are received, on board preparations include checking hatches are battened down, ventilator openings are closed and canvas sheets tied around the more vulnerable ones. All loose items are properly secured, the most vulnerable being the 200 litre Lubricating Oil drums and heavy engine spares.

Many a time, I have gone down to the Engine Room for my watch, during which the storm has struck, only to go up at the end of the watch and find my cabin in chaos, with books strewn on the floor, glasses broken. Soon after the first such storm, you learn quickly and tie up or wedge all items capable of moving and falling.

In later years, on a brand new ship, I was subjected to a noise of something like a large marble ball rolling from end to end. Each roll sent it from one end of the cabin to the other. A thorough search was initiated to locate the cause. It was, finally, found to come from the 10 mm or so space between the outside bulkhead of the cabin and the inside insulation. These were all modular insulation due to which it took us a while to remove the insulation without damaging it and remove the offending steel ball left by a careless shipyard worker. It was annoying, to say the least, and kept me awake for a few days, when I should have been sleeping.

Some of these cyclones skirt the eastern seaboard of the Japanese Islands and head up in a north easterly direction across the Northern Pacific. These usually take a long time to dissipate, sometimes retaining their high winds, with consequent high swell, large waves, chaotic seas.

In the 1970s, weather forecasts were sketchy, to say the least, with weather reports coming in at long intervals, through Morse code on the Radio. The projected path of a storm was anybody’s guess. But, quite a number of the Captains of ships of those days were good sailors and had an intuitive understanding of the cause of weather changes – darkening skies, change in wind and sea direction, slow increase of wind speeds, height of waves increasing, directional change in waves, sea water temperature etc. With this they could predict what was going to happen and when, and take evasive action by changing course to avoid the worst of the storm. The careless and gung-ho Captains found themselves in the middle of a storm with nowhere to run.

Along with the weather reports, the only instruments on board that were useful in determining some details of the storm were the aneroid barometer and barograph. Dropping atmospheric pressures were indicated by these instruments, the rate of decrease being the main factor.

Marine Weather Aneroid Barometer

Marine Weather Barograph

Nowadays, the barometer and barograph have become anachronistic and mere museum pieces and have been supplanted by digitalised and electronic ones. But, in their heyday, the barometer and barograph were heavily relied upon by seafarers.

Weather forecasts started improving in the 1990s, with several weather satellites being put into orbit. At first, it was the United States that sent up weather and communication satellites, nearly monopolising the information feeds that were garnered and financially benefiting from the sale of such information. Other nations followed suit and sent up their own satellites. At that time, there were only 3 agencies that had the capability of sending satellites into space – the Russians, NASA and European Space Agency. Presently (2021) there are 14 nations with launch capability, with India in the near forefront.

Side by side with the increase of meteorological information across the world, has come advanced developments in meteorological sciences, with a good success rate in forecasts, using dedicated super computers. For example, a depression forming in any part of the earth or its oceans is immediately spotted and tracked. The development of stormy conditions is monitored and its path predicted, with all details like barometric pressure, wind speeds, expected wave heights etc., made known to clients. Six hourly updates are then given, more often if it is required. Forecasts as to the likely path of the cyclone / storm / hurricane are made for the next three to 7 days.

From around the turn of the century, ships benefited from the forecasts and could take evasive action by navigating away from the storm well in advance. By International Maritime Organisation (IMO) regulations, all ship owners are mandated to be part of an approved Weather Forecasting Company.

In the 1970s no such luxury was available to the seafarer. Ship’s Captains plotted the details of the sparse weather reports on to Navigational Charts and kept track of the likely ones which may affect the ship. Using the sporadic reports, experience, intuition and other factors the Captain would try to keep the ship safe by skirting the severe storms. The more foolhardy ones would take no evasive action and, hence, would put the ship in jeopardy. Sometimes the ship had no space to run - like in South China Sea - and could take no evasive action, due to the presence of land on either side, and so, would have to ride out the storm.

To continue the running narrative, we had an engine breakdown, similar to what we had a few months before, a cracked piston crown. Due to our previous experience, we detected this in a few hours. We stopped engines to replace the piston.

We removed the damaged piston and started lowering the overhauled spare. One must remember that the total weight of the piston is about 2 Tons and, when lowering, the clamp that is used to hold the full weight of the piston is hung on the hook of a crane.

In the midst of lowering the piston, the storm struck.

So, here we were, in the North Pacific, having to replace a piston in the midst of heavy rolling and pitching. Quite a number of the other crew members had worn life jackets and were inside the accommodation, in close proximity to the lifeboats, as a precaution.

The situation was dire. The odds were against us, Mother Nature was against us. The chances of survival were very slim.

I have always had the attitude of ‘Do whatever you need to do to the best of your ability and leave the rest to Fate”’. So I suppose you can call me a ‘Fatalist’. I resigned myself to the vagaries of ‘Fate’ and put in even more energy in completing the work on the Main Engine, so that the Main Engine can be started. With the engine running, we could at least give ourselves very slightly better odds of survival or go down fighting.

Personally, I had nothing much to lose, except a life; my family would, likely, be affected financially for a while - that was all. But others had families and were the sole breadwinners. How the death of one man would affect several generations in a family flashed through my mind, as we were thrown about by the fury of a relentless storm.

I, briefly, wondered how the Chief Engineer’s wife was faring, all alone in her cabin, as her husband was down in the Engine Room working with the other Engine staff.

I knew about the personal lives of the Motormen who were with me, as they would confide in me about their problems. As in many Indian families, several generations - grandparents, parents, husband and wife, children and, in one case, grandchildren - most of whom were dependent on this seafarer’s income, were living together. That would definitely have been the case with the Gujarati crew also, knowing their culture of looking after their elderly.

The only thing I could do for them, at that time, was to be part of restoring engine power as quickly as possible, to give us slightly better chances of survival. I saw the look of panic in most, the resigned look in a few and a look of determination in only one other.

We could not have been closer to the tentacles of death.

The ship, having no momentum, was being tossed around. The effect in the Engine Room was far worse, as we were risking our lives to prevent the overhead crane from running away. It had become well nigh impossible to align the 2 ton piston - now hanging in midair from a crane hook - with the cylinder concerned, as the piston was swinging wildly to and fro, due to heavy rolls of the ship. We managed to quickly use chain blocks to block the running away of the overhead crane and a few more chain blocks to arrest the swing of the piston. Inch by inch we managed to align and lower the piston into the cylinder. We quickly lowered the cylinder head in a similar manner and, about less than 2 hours later, were able to start the engine.

Those 3 hours’ was my first brush with Death. I have had a couple of others, but those are for later.

Once the propeller started turning, helm could be restored and minimise the roll. But the storm was severe. We could not get up to full speed as the engine rpm was fluctuating severely due to the heavy pitching.

Lifeboats, in those days and on our SISCO ships, were more an apology for life saving than a confidence giving piece of equipment. Both were open, one with a small engine, the other with ‘Fleming’ gear, some oars, with provisions and water as per the SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea) regulations of the day. Using a canvas, it could be covered, but would not withstand the high winds. But to trust yourself to be in that type of a lifeboat, in a storm, in high winds, with 10 to 15 metre high waves, was just sheer madness. I always was of the opinion that the ship itself was the safer place - unless it was sinking or on fire - and the lifeboat the last resort. In later years, analysing my fear of survival on life boats, when against the elements, I surmised that part of the fear stems from a lack of training and exposure on lifeboats. I was lucky that, in a sailing career spanning 38 years, I did not have to resort to abandoning ship and evacuation in a lifeboat.

So, here we were, in the midst of the Pacific, with nowhere to run, surrounded by gale force winds, battered by heavy seas, rolling and pitching or a combination of both – called corkscrewing – and with engine rpm adjusted so that ‘racing’ was as little as possible.

The next five or six days we were being pushed in reverse mode, losing as many as 100 nautical miles a day. Getting a ‘fix’ (position of ship) was also difficult, as the sun or stars were not visible. But the ‘Perumai’ battled on and did not let us down. It took around 10 days for the storm to cease, the winds to ease and the seas to decrease. (My poetic sense coming to the fore?)

We started making headway into the direction we wanted to go.

But the battered Main Engine, battered by the ‘racing’ and, possibly, damaged by the heat stresses caused due to the engine being suddenly stopped and reversed by a person who saw the emergence of an island in the middle of the Pacific, finally started giving up.

4 Piston Crowns cracked one after the other over the next week or so. We stopped and changed one more from the last of our spares. We had to resort to ‘cutting out’ cylinders by removing the damaged pistons, cutting out the fuel and cylinder lubrication, blanking the air starting line, blanking the ports and stuffing box spaces. We suddenly found ourselves operating a 9 cylindered engine on 6 cylinders. This meant different and altering torsional stresses on rotating parts. To minimise this, we had to run at lower and lower rpms, as there was no way to calculate these stresses.

Running the Main Engine at lower rpms brought their own set of problems.

One of the severe drawbacks of the MAN engines of those days was the method of scavenging. ‘Scavenging’ is the action by which clean air from the turbocharger enters the cylinder, drives away the exhaust gas of the previous combustion cycle and fills the cylinder with fresh air, rich in oxygen, for the next combustion cycle. This happens on a continuous basis, with every revolution.

These engines had what was known as ‘Loop scavenging’, which was probably the most inefficient method of utilising the turbocharger air.

Copied from Mecholic

At lower rpms, the kinetic energy of the exhaust gases leaving the engine was not sufficient enough to give the necessary rotary speed to the turbochargers, so not enough air was being pumped into the engine. Also, ‘cutting out’ of several units meant that the engine rpm would reduce for a few seconds, increase again and reduce again. This led to ‘surging’* of the turbocharger, a phenomenon in which the rpm of the turbocharger fluctuates and makes for a noisy turbocharger.

Incomplete combustion was one of the problems at lower rpms. The consequences were after burning, higher exhaust temperatures, more residue left over in the cylinder which, combined with the cylinder lubricating oil and formed a kind of paste, this again going into the piston ring grooves and reducing the efficiency of the rings or breaking them.

Broken or inefficient rings meant. on the one hand, lower compression pressures which gave rise to incomplete combustion and, on the other hand, allowed the gases to escape past the rings, causing a ‘blowpast’.

A severe ‘blowpast’ would eventually cause a ‘scavenge fire’ in the under piston and scavenge spaces which, if not dealt with promptly, can prove to be disastrous. This entire cycle was self perpetuating.

Another consequence of this poor combustion and the left-behind residues was the residue found its way into the scavenge ports, becoming a hard deposit and reducing or completely choking the ports. This meant even less air entering the cylinders, worsening an already bad situation. We partly overcame this by stopping engines every 2nd or 3rd day and manually removing the deposits which choked the ports using large chisels, hammers and scrapers.

These deposits also found their way into the scavenge valves, preventing them from operating properly. So, we had to replace them with sets of overhauled ones during the stoppages. The removed ones were then overhauled and kept ready for the next exchange.

Fuel injectors were ‘trumpeting’, with hardened deposits at the nozzle tips, so the injectors needed to be exchanged with overhauled ones, with the removed being kept ready for next exchange.

Due to the incessant ‘surging’ of the turbochargers, the air coolers would get choked, so they had to be removed and replaced with a clean air cooler. The removed cooler needed to be cleaned and kept ready for the next exchange.

Another factor that was detrimental to the ship’s performance was the steam production. Steam is needed to heat up various systems to keep the engine in service. In port, steam is produced in an Auxiliary Boiler run on Diesel oil, this being used as little as possible to save on costly Diesel Oil. Out at sea, once the engine comes to full sea speed rpm, the waste heat from the exhaust gases of the engine is used to heat water and raise steam in the Exhaust Gas Economiser or Exhaust Gas Boiler. On reduced rpm, the heat from exhaust gas is much lesser, so steam production from the Economiser is sharply reduced. But steam is needed for the various systems to operate. So, the Auxiliary Boiler had to be fired many a time, to augment steam pressure. This meant using up precious Diesel Oil.

On later ships, the Auxiliary Boiler could be kept on “Auto”, using Fuel Oil and not Diesel Oil, thereby saving costs. It meant a more complex arrangement and more boiler maintenance, but was worth it. This would shore up any steam pressure loss due to reduced rpms.

This engine was built for using Fuel Oil at sea, on full speed, and Diesel Oil on reduced speed and for manoeuvring. We were now running at reduced speed, but did not have sufficient quantity of Diesel Oil for running the Main Engine at sea. So we had to, perforce, run the Main Engine on Fuel Oil. With lower rpms and lesser compression pressures in the cylinders, higher ignition temperatures were not obtainable for proper combustion of this Fuel Oil, so incomplete combustion would result, further exasperating an already bad situation.

It was the perfect Catch-22 situation.

From the time we had our first breakdown, followed by the other breakdowns, we had been working 16 hour days for more than a fortnight. This was definitely not sustainable.

We were about 2000 nautical miles from Japan, which was more or less in the direction we wanted to go. We could put into a Japanese port, get new piston crowns and other essential spares air freighted to that port, complete repairs and sail to India.

But this was the season of storms and bad weather around Japan. We decided not to put ourselves at any more risks.

The other nearest land was Hawaii, about 1500 nautical miles away, but would mean quite a diversion from our intended course to India. But we would not be subject to the vagaries of the weather.

So, we set course for Hawaii. It proved to be a sane choice. Had we not done so and had opted for Japan, we would have been in serious trouble. We plotted a hypothetical course and kept a track of the weather reports around Japan. The hypothetical course and the weather reports of later days showed that we would have been slaughtered.

The Head Office had suggested we head for Japan for ease of logistics in transporting heavy spares from Germany. But they acquiesced with us and respected our reasoning in opting for Hawaii.

That was the good thing about SISCO. They always supported the vessel’s decisions on any matter, due to which sailing staff were very loyal to the Company. The only exception was the parsimonious way in which spares and stores were supplied to the vessel.

A few days later, we limped into Hawaii with 3 out of 9 units cut out. To get back to full speed, we had to do a tremendous amount of work. The Company’s parsimony also extended into the area of not opting for any shore workshop to assist us. Once the spares were received on board, we estimated about 4 days of continuous work in order to resume our passage. We expected a 3 to 4 day wait in Hawaii before the spares arrived.

To our chagrin, we found all the spares waiting for us at the pier, when we came into port and tied up alongside.

We spent the next 100 or so hours in a fever of activity. We divided ourselves into 2 groups, the main and the supplementary group. The main group would take care of the essential work of dismantling, assembling and calibrating. The supplementary group would take care of the cleaning and preparing the parts for assembly. We were working 16 to 18 hours at a stretch, with both groups overlapping most of the time. I was in the main group and it was a huge learning curve.

The three pistons that we had removed had already been dismantled and all parts, other than the damaged crown, cleaned and kept ready. As soon as the new spare crowns were lifted off the dock and lowered into the Engine Room, assembly of the pistons were started. The three units’ liners and ports were cleaned, under piston spaces cleaned, liners calibrated, cylinder lubrication checked, stuffing boxes overhauled, newly assembled pistons, with new rings, lowered and palm nuts tightened on to the cross head, piston cooling pipes installed, all crankcases cleaned and inspected.

All 3 cylinder heads were put back and tightened. All unit fuel injectors were overhauled. All units’ scavenge ports were cleaned thoroughly. Scavenge spaces were cleaned. Scavenge valves were overhauled.

All 3 turbochargers were overhauled. Cleaning the hardened deposits on turbine blades is difficult and is usually done by ash blasting in a workshop. But, during preparing for my exams, I had come across a small reference in a book ‘Principles and Practice of Marine Engineering’ by CC Pounder about the release of kinetic energy and the cavitation caused by a bursting air bubble. After consulting with the Chief and Second Engineers, who gave me the ‘go ahead’, I lowered the turbine 3/4th way into a drum of water with cleaning chemicals added and introduced compressed air through a welded-on valve at the bottom of the drum. The air bubbles thus caused, burst when contacting each turbine blade. The energy dissipated then chips away a small piece of the hardened deposit from the blade. 6 hours later, the turbine blades were clean. Since that time, I have used this method of cleaning on various parts and found it to be very effective.

Exhaust Gas Economiser was cleaned and kept ready.

The Main Engine was tried out after nearly 120 hours of work, around 2100H. The Port Authority were informed that the vessel was ready to sail and a request was submitted for Pilot and tugs. The Port came back with the reply that Pilot and tugs will be available only at 0600H the next morning. So, everybody was asked to rest.

I knew that my chances of again visiting Hawaii was infinitesimal. So, in spite of being bone tired, three of us took a cab to Waikiki Beach, sat on the sands, had a couple of beers and some food and returned to the ship at 0400H, 2 hours before we were due to sail. It was idyllic.

In retrospect, I feel that the wrong decision was made when the first piston cracked, before the storm hit us. We should have just cut out that unit, steer away from the storm or, worst case scenario, ride out the storm and then carry out repairs. Maybe a lack of communication between the top two? I don’t know.

By the time we left Hawaii, a month had passed (taking departure from Vancouver as the base. Meanwhile, I had requested for leave from the first Indian port. It was termed ‘examination leave’, otherwise, knowing SISCO, they would have persuaded me to sail for some more time. To their credit, they took the acquisition of a higher certificate of prime importance and supported all who go for their examinations by not only sanctioning their leave, but also assisting them financially, if the need arose.

My study routine had been thrown helter-skelter by the breakdown events, which I returned to after departure Hawaii. This was the last chance to convert on board experience into notes for my 2nd Class Part ‘B’ examinations. I kept watch, I studied, I took down notes. I was using the marine books extensively in the well stocked library of the vessel, with the key in possession of the Chief Engineer.

Two of the marine books that fascinated me were CC Pounder’s ‘Principles and Practice’ and John Lamb’s ‘Questions and Answers’. While taking copious notes from these books, I noticed a chapter on piston crown cracks and their causes. Not surprisingly, it included one cause – of thermal stresses due to sudden drops in rpm – which we had suspected. But, it also provided another more blatant cause, that of dripping fuel injectors.

When fuel injectors drip, the fuel drops fall on to the piston crown. During the next combustion cycle, this drop of fuel burns, causing a local hot spot in the centre of the dished crown. (MAN engines of those days had one fuel injector only, which was placed in the middle of the cylinder head.) Over time, the local hot spot erodes the centre of the piston crown and, finally, causes a hole, with star shaped cracks emanating from the centre of the dished crown.

Our shipboard practice was, when overhauling fuel injectors, to lap the nozzles, needle valves and guides, using the finest of grinding pastes, including ‘Brasso’ which is meant for shining brass objects. I also learnt that these nozzles, needle valves and guides had a certain service life and needed to be thrown away after having been in service for around 12,000 hours. And here we have been using them for much longer than 12,000 hours, more from a lack of supply of spare parts than anything else. A clear cause of the breakdowns was established. These breakdowns and the experience gained from them, played a very big part in my Orals held during my examinations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqZtyzBvKgo

Working : Diesel fuel Injector and Nozzle spray

We spent the next 32 days at sea, with a short stopover for bunkers and provisions at Singapore, where I bought a few suitcases to pack my stuff, which had accumulated over time with many a purchase made at various ports.

The purchases included an 165 litre Philips ‘fridge from Augusta Italy, a small sized gondola as a souvenir, also from Augusta, a Seiko wall clock from Japan, sarees, shirts from Singapore and a Remington portable typewriter from the US. Small presents were bought for my close relatives and, of course, chocolates. My notes, notebooks and books of fiction filled 2 entire suitcases.

I signed off the Articles of the ship on 6th Dec 1972, as per my CDC (Seaman’s Book), at Tuticorin. Discounting the short break of 15 days the previous year, I had been on board the ‘Chennai Perumai’ for exactly 25 months. In modern times this is considered phenomenal and also crazy. Compared to sailing ship’ days, this was nothing.

The ship being at anchor, I had to take a launch and, accompanied by the Ship’s Agent, passed through Indian Immigration and Customs. He saw me off at the Tuticorin Railway Station, where I boarded the train to Madras. I got off at Tambaram Station and, because of the amount of luggage, took a taxi to Chromepet, which was close to Tambaram.

Thus ended the first 2 years of my sea going career.

Rangan

===== My next Blog 31 will conclude my 'Chennai Perumai' days with a small Post Script =====