BLOG 49 - 'Marine Musings 12' - MV Tarantel - My Sea Career's Worst Ship

Prologue:

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Marine Musings 12 – MV Tarantel – The Worst Ship of my Career – Tenure From 13th Aug 1978 to 14th Dec 1978

Chapter 1 – 4 Months of Trouble, Trouble – Nothing but Trouble – I Join the Tarantel on 13th Aug 1978 at Yokohama

I write this chapter of my narrative with a looming sense of dread, even though more than 40 years have passed, as I do not want the memories of this ship to be opened, as it will open the flood gates to very unpleasant episodes and a near-death experience. But write it, I must.

Before joining the MV Tarantel, a sense of foreboding engulfed me for a particular reason. I had, as always, been my Mother’s escort to our family astrologer – I do not remember why she wanted to go. The old, gout ridden gentleman was as humble and jovial as ever. At that time, I remember thinking that if I were to grow old with such grace and be as happy in near poverty, in spite of his obvious suffering, I would have achieved something in life. He and Mother had their discussions, after which my Mother went into the house to talk to his wife.

As asked a few years before, he said ‘do you want to ask me anything?’ Suddenly, selfishly, I asked him “When will I get my promotion?” He took out my horoscope, studied it, calculated and told me “Do not go to the ship for another 6 months. Stay at home. Your next six months are very bad and there are chances you may lose your life if you go to sea. You seem to be surrounded by death. It is unlikely to happen on land. About your promotion, it may happen in December 1980, but for some reason that I am unable to understand, it may get postponed by another 6 months”. I was aghast, saying I had to go, otherwise, I will lose my non-residency status. He told me “If you have to go, be very careful of all around you. Be firm and take bold decisions.”

Luckily, my Mother was not around at that time or she would have stopped me from going.

With this ominous warning, I was not at ease when I went to Mumbai for my medicals and contract signing. But I had to go or else I would not have even started obtaining my Non-Resident status. 84 days after I landed in India from the ‘Trianon’, I was again flying out to Yokohama, Japan to join the MV Tarantel.

For the last two days, I find myself very reluctant to even start writing about my experiences on the Tarantel, because the memories of most of my tenure on this ship are very painful, to say the least. I will not be mentioning any names. I am honestly not trying to make myself a hero nor a victim by narrating what truly transpired on this ship, practically from day one.

At Mumbai, I had been hurried into finishing my Medicals, returning to the office, signing my contract, picking up my ticket, returning to my brother’s apartment, doing last minute packing and catching the night flight to Narita Airport, Tokyo. I spent a few hours in Singapore’s Changi Airport in transit, before I caught a Japan Airlines flight to Tokyo. During the initial years of flying, I had been unable to sleep on flights. The JAL flight made it worse, as the seats were smaller in width; the flight was full and cramped. I was taken straight from the airport to the ship.

The ship had come into port a few hours before I boarded her at around 2200H, alongside at Yokohama.

Chapter 2 – Fools Rush In Where Angels Fear to Tread

I was welcomed on board by the Chief Officer, my bags taken up and I was given a spare cabin. He told me the ship was expected to sail the next late night, around midnight. None of the Engineers were around. (It is customary for the person who is being relieved to wait up for his reliever, unless it is well into the night). I went to sleep.

Some instinct, some divine power, made me start writing a record of everyday events in a diary. This was apart from my pocket note book which contained a ‘to-do’ list.

I woke up very early next morning, as is my habit and, changing into a boiler suit, went down to the Engine Room. The duty Greaser and 'keeping nights' 5th Engineer were there. I took a careful inspection round with the 5th Engineer assisting me, made some notes on what I have to ask the outgoing 2nd Engineer, went up, had breakfast and waited for him.

He met me at 0830H, apologised for being unavailable and told me that he and his wife were going ashore to do some last minute shopping and he would be back before lunch, after which we can hand over and take over. I asked him if he had prepared any ‘handing over notes’, to which his reply was that the Chief Engineer was aware of everything, so he had not prepared any notes. I let it go at that. In retrospect, this should have rung alarm bells in me.

He went ashore. I met the Chief Engineer and went down to familiarise myself with the staff and the machinery. I spent the whole day and the evening in the Engine Room. The ship was to sail around 2300H so, along with the other staff, we kept the plant ready.

The 2nd Engineer, who had gone ashore, came back to the ship at 2100H, 2 hours before she was due to sail. When he came down to the Engine Room, he was very apologetic but I was furious. I curtly told him to get out, clear his cabin and leave as I needed to sleep near a telephone when I left the Engine Room, for any emergency calls. There was no ‘hand over’.

We left on schedule at 2300H and dropped pilot at around 0130H. After reaching full speed, I went up, slept for a couple of hours and took over my watch around 0430H. Then I had a long day till I finished my evening watch and went to sleep. Everything looked fine till then.

We were on a run known as ‘Barber Blue Sea’ run, which was a world wide liner service. Japan, across the Pacific into US West Coast ports, cross the Panama Canal, then into US Gulf ports, US East Coast ports, across the Atlantic into European ports, come down south, cross Gibraltar, visit some Mediterranean ports, cross the Suez, then Singapore, Hong Kong and back to Japan. The schedule was tight and we did not expect to have much time in port, maximum expected stay in most ports was 1 day, with some scheduled for a 2 to 3 day stay.

In the US, we were scheduled for 17 ports in 35 days, including the Panama Canal transit.

Our maximum speed was 22 knots.

Chapter 3 – Fresh Water, Fresh water Everywhere

The third morning of my coming on board, during my watch, I was having coffee when the Chief Officer rang down. After exchanging pleasantries, he asked me if I knew about the fresh water consumption on the ship. I told him there had been no handing over done at all, so I do not know.

I was flabbergasted to know that the daily consumption, which the Chief Officer is supposed to monitor as part of his job, was around 60 Tons per day. Normal consumption for a ship using fresh water for all purposes, including toilets, is about 15 tons maximum per day. The Fresh Water Generator produces between 20 to 25 tons per day, with it being operated only when well away from land, in the deep sea.

Fresh water is consumed on board for the following purposes: Domestic, for cabins, showers, toilets, galley. Engine Room, for Main and Auxiliary Engines, Purifiers, Auxiliary Boiler and Exhaust Boiler. On deck, for washing decks. This ship’s toilets used sea water for flushing. The Chief Officer had told me that, to conserve water, they had stopped washing decks long ago. I asked him to check for any leaks in the accommodation. He said he had already checked at least 10 times every month for the last 5 months, but would do so again. I checked the Engine Room fresh water lines leading to the accommodation, all fine.

He also told me that water rationing had been in vogue for months before he joined the ship, which was 5 months ago and being continued presently.

After breakfast, as usual, I gave the Chief Engineer an update and also mentioned that, as the fresh water consumption was very high, I had started my checks with ER piping for the accommodation and had found no leaks, with more checks to follow. He immediately reacted to my statement and called the Chief Officer then and there and told him “How many times do I need to tell you that there is no leakage in the Engine Room? See, even the new 2nd Engineer has checked and found no leaks”.

I, forthwith, understood that there was a war on and that I was being sucked into it. I then went down to the Ship’s Office, where the Chief Officer and Captain were sitting and frankly told them “It seems that there is a lot of bad blood between Engine and Deck departments, which I could make out from the tone with which the Chief Engineer spoke to the Mate. I will not be a party to any battles between any of you. The Mate has said that the FW consumption is high and that is enough for me. I will check and let you know in a few hours, give me some time. But I would like to know why this can go along for such a long time (6 months or more) and why no action has been taken so far.”

They replied, with bitterness, that they were first timers in the Company and had been shrugged off by both, the Chief and the Second who had been in the Company for 3 years and who were very friendly with the Superintendents ashore. The Chief and 2nd were using this friendship to do whatever they wanted. I told them I wanted to do the best possible job by cooperating with all concerned. This happened in the morning, after watch.

During the evening watch, I noticed something strange. The Greaser would disappear for about 10 to 12 minutes, come down and disappear again after about 20 minutes. When this happened the third time, I followed him. He was going up to the Main Engine and Auxiliary Engines’ Fresh Water Expansion Tank, which was located 2 decks above the main entry deck to the Engine Room and each time filling the tank with fresh water.

When I asked him what he was doing and why he replied “Last 2nd tell me check water level many time and level in sight glass come down to this (indicating a low level), I fill water another mark (Indicating a high level).” Normally, this tank’s water level is supposed to be checked once a watch, that is every four hours. Normally, the losses from this tank should not exceed 20 to 30 litres per day. If the Greaser makes 10 trips in 4 hours to fill water from here to here, he would be filling about 5 tons or 5000 litres of fresh water every four hours, which worked out to approximately 30 tons a day.

I shivered. It meant the Main Engine or Generators were consuming 30 tons a day. The Generators were quickly eliminated. I was worried if there were cracks in the Main Engine Liners, or Cylinder Heads or Exhaust Valves.

(Unlike the MAN engines in SISCO which had water cooled pistons, this ship had B&W Engines and, like all B&W Engines the pistons, were oil cooled).

But there were no indications of cracks on the engine. Then I saw the Greaser continuously running the Bilge Pump. He was pumping water that had accumulated in the Engine Room Bilges overboard. He had no idea where the water was coming from. I went down into the bilges, filled a glass with what was very clear water and tasted it. It tasted like fresh water.

Both of us, the 5th Engineer and myself, took torches, wore gum boots and went down into the bilges, forward and aft. Within 10 minutes, he found an open drain pipe in the bilges from which a steady downpour of fresh water was issuing. On tracing backwards, we found this was an outlet from the Main Drain Pipe running the full length of the Main Engine, serving to drain the jacket of each cylinder for maintenance through a drain valve. All the drain valves were shut tight.

The same drain pipe also served as a drain for the outside and open space between the cylinder block and the under piston space.

This entablature space was open to the Engine Room and was above eye height on the platform from which the under piston space doors were located. When we put a small ladder and climbed up, we could see water gushing out of the gland for the liner. A 25 mm coaming around this space for each unit kept the water from spilling over on to the under piston and crankcase doors, with each space having a smaller drain pipe connected to the Main Drain which led to the bilges.

All 9 liner glands (packings) were leaking. This was one of the few old B&W engine designs which had a gland with packings around the liner, the gland and packing serving to keep the fresh water inside the jacket spaces of the cylinder block. Later ones had rubber rings around the liner to seal off the cooling water spaces of the jacket.

I was furious. This water leakage had been going on for 6 months and nobody had bothered. The ship had water rationing on a daily basis for at least the last 6 months and nobody had done anything about it.

I was furious enough to call the Chief Engineer down at 2100H and show him. He had been on the ship for the last 6 months, while the previous 2nd Engineer had been on board for 10 months. The Chief just looked at the leakages and went away, without saying anything. I called the crew down to work.

I called the 3rd Engineer down and showed him. I also showed my displeasure by telling him “What kind of an engineer are you that you can’t take care of these leakages”. His reply was straight forward and without rancour. He told me “2nd Saab, why should I work when the previous 2nd Engineer used to go out every day in every port from morning till night, while the rest of us never stepped ashore at all. I have been on board for 4 months and I have never seen even one port. At sea I never saw the 2nd Engineer in the Engine Room as he used to come down about 0800H for about 2 hours in the morning. The rest of the day he and his wife would spend their entire time in the Chief Engineer’s cabin. I am an Engineer, not a slave. If he was not working, why should I?” He cited numerous instances. I calmed down and told him “I am not that type. If you put in 8 hours of work, I will match that with 12. If you put in 12 I will put in 16.” Seeing my sincerity, he immediately changed course and started working hard, as he was basically a decent person, intelligent and hard working.

We could not renew or supplement packings for the liner glands without stopping engines and draining the entire jacket of water. But we could tighten the nuts on the gland that was circumferential to the liner. The space was small to work in. Only a small built person could fit under the exhaust trunking on the starboard side of the engine, where he could work for only a few minutes because of the trunking heat. So he had to be spelled. I was one of three who could fit in.

We had to fabricate long bars and weld ratchets to reach the nuts, using socket spanners. After 4 to 5 hours of everybody working, it brought immediate results, with more than 95% of the leakage having stopped. The Expansion tank consumption came down to 2 tons per day from a high of 30 tons per day. Still high, but more tolerable. All it took was 5 hours of work. It bugged me that nobody had even bothered about it for 6 months and more.

I could not trust the Chief Engineer as he was equally culpable in this matter. I foresaw a conflict with him at some stage, so I started maintaining a detailed diary of events. He used to boast that he had been sent by the Company on to various vessels to solve problems. I saw his prowess, or lack thereof, at first hand.

Meanwhile, I noticed that the Greaser was taking water regularly into the Cascade Tank which is meant as a return tank for steam condensate and the supply of water to the Exhaust Gas Economiser. I surmised we had some leaky smoke tubes, for which nothing could be done until we stopped and wait for the Economiser to cool, enter inside, pressure test, locate the leaking tubes and plug them. This was definitely another source of water consumption. I needed to measure the volume of the Cascade tank and fabricate a scale to measure water levels to find this out. The losses from this tank came to about 12 to 15 tons per day.

Chapter 4 – A Fishing Expedition Goes Astray

80 hours into the voyage across the Pacific, the Turbochargers of the Main Engine started surging. This Main Engine was an old type B&W, I think a 9 VT 2BF, built 1960, with 3 Brown Boveri Turbochargers. These turbochargers are very sensitive to power imbalance, back pressure, turbine blade damage and the like. With one turbocharger surging, the other two also ‘sympathetically’ surge to a lesser degree.

"Turbocharger surging may be defined as a high pitch vibration of audible level coming from the blower end or compressor end of the turbocharger." - Google quote

Courtesy marineinsight.com

I had gone for breakfast when the surging started. By the time I went down, the engine had been stopped by the Chief and they had already started removing the fuel injectors of one of the units. They were replaced with overhauled ones.

I tested the removed ones on the test bench and found them to be good. Anyway, we restarted the engine and the surging resumed when we increased rpm. The Chief once again decided to stop the engine and change the fuel injectors of another unit. Once again, I tested the removed ones on the test bench and found them to be good.

I kept telling the Chief that the injectors are not the problem to which he replied “Second, I know what I am doing”. The next stop was for changing an exhaust valve, after which the surging resumed and also made me aware that the Chief was not being logical and was on a ‘hit-and-miss’ mission. By the end of my evening watch, the Chief had decided to run on reduced rpm for the night, with the idea to start the same hit-and-miss routine next morning.

I could barely sleep. My mind was running through all the causes by which a turbocharger would surge. By 0100H, I decided to go down and do my own investigations.

Imbalance of power is one of the main causes for surging. With the Third Engineer helping me, I took indicator cards, checked and found a reasonable parity between units.

Damaged or heavy deposits on turbine blades will show on pyrometers before and after turbocharger. None of the pyrometers were working. Along with the 3rd Engineer, I checked with new pyrometers. All normal.

My next check was on the air coolers. Their differential pressure manometers were all broken. Their air ‘inlet’ and ‘outlet’ thermometers were not working. Cooling Sea water thermometers were not working. I was appalled at the neglect of the former 2nd Engineer. The unforgivable part was that all these readings, from missing pyrometers and thermometers, broken differential pressure manometers, were all recorded with various figures as if everything was normal. All false. All were meant for fraudulent filling of the Monthly Abstract to the Office.

First things first. We made wooden strips to clamp small plastic clear hoses and wooden strips as a measuring scale with each centimetre marked off. We had to clean the choked passages of the cocks meant for fitting the differential gauges. Attaching them on to the air coolers’ air inlet and outlet fittings, we immediately got the differential pressures.

The more the differential, the more the choking of the cooler, which means air is entering the air cooler but cannot pass through freely and properly across the cooler, as the passage is restricted because of choked fins. As suspected, the heavily surging turbocharger’s attached air cooler was the one causing the problem. It was heavily choked. The differential pressure on the manometer of this air cooler was above 400mm, whereas the other two were below 200mm.

In this instance, the pressurised, hot, air from the compressor of the turbocharger was reaching the inlet side of the air cooler, but was restricted from easily flowing across the cooler because the cooling fins were very dirty and had not been cleaned as per scheduled maintenance. Being pressurised air, in the region of 1.5 to 2 bar at full speed, and being restricted in its forward flow, it created a turbulence and flowed back to the compressor, which would emit a giant "sneeze" or "woof" like sound, called "surging". One could actually feel the hot air coming out of the turbocharger filter when it 'surged'.

By then it was past 0600H and I sent the 3rd Engineer up to get some sleep.

Along with the 5th Engineer and Greaser, I made arrangements, as much as I could, to get ready for removing the air cooler. I called the Chief at 0630H, went to his cabin and told him my findings. His reply was typical of what I had been thinking of his prowess and ability to listen to others. He said “Second, don’t give me all this crap about air coolers and differential pressures. I know where the fault lies. We have to change one fuel pump and one exhaust valve to stop the surging. I will come down at 0800H and we can start work on this”. Some foul and abusive language was also used, at which I told him "It won't take me a minute to use the same foul and abusive language - I know the lingo. If you want to say something, cut out the foul words otherwise I am leaving".

I then realised that, if he had his way, we would be on a wild goose chase for the next several days. The only way was to show him. I went down to the Engine Room, rang the Bridge, reduced speed and, after a while, stopped the engine. After ten minutes of cooling down, I got the scavenge space doors opened and ventilated. On the air inlet side of the coolers were 500 mm circular covers for washing and inspection. I got them opened and cargo cluster lamps fitted in place.

These were the fin type coolers. By looking from inside the scavenge spaces, one can see the powerful light passing through if the fins were not choked. Light was passing through on 2 of the coolers. One was choked.

Courtesy Researchgate.net

Courtesy Marine Insight

A Simplified Layout

When the Chief came down, I asked him to make the same inspection so that he could be satisfied. Stubborn and egoistic person that he was, he refused, saying "I know more than you. You are just a 'bacha' and the last Second was better than you. We had no problems when he was here". He ordered me to do what he thought must be right.

I asked him again and again “Just have a look”. He was adamant that he was right.

I lost my temper and told him “The reason why things are happening now is because all three of you, you, the Second Engineer and his wife were all gallivanting and having parties. You allowed him to go ashore in every port, in spite of so much of work that needed to be done.

Just take the example of water consumption. A Greaser goes up, finds the Expansion Tank level below 1/3 its capacity, fills water to 90% of the Expansion Tank capacity, because the Second had told him so. He comes down, finds water in the Engine Room Bilges and pumps it out, because the Second Engineer has told him to keep the Bilges dry, which he is not able to and the Second or you are not bothered to investigate. May as well have pumped out water directly from the Domestic Fresh Water Tank to the sea, instead of this idiotic round about route of Domestic Fresh Water Tank to Expansion Tank to Bilges to Sea.

Since you are not listening to my advice, I am going up and putting in my resignation, as of now, to the Captain. The resignation letter will also state that you allowed the last 2nd Engineer, for your own personal reasons, to neglect his work and his duties, because of which he went ashore all the working days in every port with his wife. Because of all this, nobody worked and maintenance has gone to the dogs. All this and much more will be in my letter”. And I went up and started writing the letter.

I don’t know what transpired in the Engine Room but after about half an hour, the Chief came to my cabin and said “Second, it looks like one air cooler is choked. We will clean it”. Then and there, I should have resigned. But, like an idiot, I took his statement to be an apology of sorts and went back to work and replaced the air cooler with a spare clean one.

4 hours later we were up to full speed without any surging taking place.

During the stoppages on those 2 days, the Economiser was checked by the Third Engineer for water leaks, 3 tubes were found holed. They were sealed with plugs which were on the ends of a chain. Poor guy worked in that hot space and never complained. There were a lot of spare chain plugs, which alerted me to the possibility of regular exhaust boiler tube leakages.

The Fresh Water consumption had now come down to an acceptable 16 tons a day. The Fresh Water Generator was producing close to 22 tons.

The rationing was lifted.

===== Blog 50 Continues =====