BLOG 57 - "Marine Musings 15" - Problems Caused by an Overweight Container - A Dry Dock

A Rejoinder to a Comment :

A very close batch mate of mine asked if I was writing all these narratives from a diary of events or from memory. I did not realise that so much was stored in my memory till I started writing. I found that the Seaman's Book (CDC), with its recorded dates for each ship, triggered a flood of memories and, subsequently, events good or bad.

Surprisingly, I seem to remember more from the range of about 5 years of age to about 42 years of age - and much less thereafter. It is a paradox.

The bored reader can, then, take heart that my narrative will change from a flood to a trickle soon.

Also, I would like to share with you all a rather strange phenomenon that has taken place since the publication of my last Blog, 56. Lately, an average of about 25 people read my Blogs, up from a low of 6 in the initial months.

But Blog 56 has had 208 views in the last 48 hours. Probable cause? The Headlines of Blog 56 must have triggered various search engines due to use of a word that encompasses a device used during wars. I know for a fact that I cannot ever imagine a readership even of 50, let alone 200.

It seems like George Orwell's '1984' all over again, where 'Big Brother is Watching'.

It is frightening to imagine how intrusive technologies have become and have entered our lives in various degrees.

Privacy has gone public in more ways than one. Social media sites often takes us into the private lives of people who opt to bare their privacy. Others are groups of people, either security based, government based, religion based who are monitoring the ether waves, using software that automatically reacts to some trigger words. 'Scruples' and 'ethics' are doomed words, anachronistic and belonging to the past.

BURNING OUT OF CRANE CONVERTER DUE TO WRONGLY DECLARED WEIGHT OF CONTAINER

The ship had been ‘jumboised’ a few years before, wherein she had been cut in half and 2 container section cellular holds had been added. 2 x 25 MT cranes were also added to the structure, exclusively for the container section, although they could plumb the hatch forward or hatch aft of it.

In Dubai, the last container which had to come aboard was listed as 24 tons. The recorded weight was, later, found to be fabricated. The actual weight was 28 MT. The 25 ton forward crane could not pick it up and, in the process of trying, the AC to DC Main converter burnt. This converter was supplying power to a DC Hoisting and DC Slewing motor, the Luffing motor being an AC motor. A 'Note of Protest' was lodged.

We had plenty of containers to be discharged with this forward crane at the other ports. The only solution was to use the Converter of the Aft crane to run the Forward Crane motors. We needed several heavy duty cables in order to connect one to the other. Nobody was available in the Hong Kong Office - as there were a series of holidays in Hong Kong - to sanction the purchase of cables on an emergency basis. The ship left Dubai for Abu Dhabi. At Abu Dhabi, I could not wait any longer and took it upon myself to purchase the cables locally. The ship’s chandler, Electrical Officer and myself went ashore and purchased cables worth nearly $15,000 for immediate delivery.

The EO, Chief Mate, me and a few staff worked through the night to run the heavy cables from one crane to the other. The cables ran from a height of about 10 metres to the ground, stretched across the deck covering the two container sections and up another ten metres to the second crane, with enough slack for the rotation of the crane.

The aft crane would be used to discharge a specified number of the containers, then the forward crane would be connected to discharge a certain number of containers from the forward section, disconnect cables once again, run the aft crane and back again. The repeated operations were done in order to maintain stability and stresses within limits. We managed to do this - connect, disconnect - in every Persian Gulf port and were practically living on deck only, the EO bearing the brunt of it. The last port was Bahrain after nearly 10 days of the connection and disconnection operation.

After completion of cargo at Bahrain, we removed all motors on the Forward Crane and sent them onwards to Japan for rewinding / overhaul. We received them on arrival Japan, fitted and tested them and were back to normal.

DRYDOCKING

One of the very important aspects that I was deeply involved in was dry docking of the vessel in either Singapore or Japan, I forget which. Because of the high standards of maintenance over the last couple of years that I had been on board, there were not many machinery items for overhaul in dry dock.

Somewhere along their careers, a number of Engineers have had a fallacy embrained into their intelligence that the dry docking of a ship involves too much of work, sometimes work that he knows nothing about.

As soon as word of the impending dry dock spread, 3 of the engineers, including the Second Engineer, put in their leave application, asking to be relieved. I allowed the Second to go (as he was far from efficient), but convinced the others to stay by describing to them the wealth of knowledge that they would gain by staying.

By this time of my sea career, I had already ‘done’ six dockings, four of them as Second Engineer.

As far as the ship is concerned, preparations for a docking start at least six months prior to the docking, if not more. Since I had been Second Engineer on this very vessel for a year, my “Handing Over Notes” (as Second Engineer) had included a section titled “For Next Docking”, with many items that could not be done except in a dry dock. In fact, I was always of the opinion that the next ‘dry dock work list’ starts the day after you leave the previous dry dock.

As far as the Owner is concerned, he wants minimum downtime in the Dry Dock.

Most of the work to be done are foreseeable, quantifiable in terms of time and money.

There are a few that are not foreseeable, but are deducible from past records.

Two of them are the Tailshaft and Rudder.

As soon as the water is pumped out of the dry dock and, with the ship sitting firmly on the blocks, the yard staff immediately erect staging for checking ‘propeller drop’ and ‘rudder pintle clearances’, both of which, if above the tolerances stated, can delay the vessel by several weeks. More details on this in a separate narrative.

Courtesy 'Questions'

Note the "Removable Wear Down Gauge", aka "Poker Gauge", mostly kept in Chief Engineer's Cabin

Courtesy Sailorstaan

"Jumping Clearance"

In ‘Sisco’, as a Fourth Engineer, I was sent to represent the ship in taking the ‘propeller drop’ and the rudder clearances. Preparing and reading about it in comparison to actually doing the job was an eye opener, the experience of which I passed to all my juniors.

Different kinds of challenges get thrown up during a docking.More stringent regulations have come into vogue in the recent past that have made it harder for Owners to hide deficiencies and brush them under the carpet.

Since the scope of operations that I have witnessed in a dry dock is vast, I intend to write a Blog, at a later date, exclusively on this subject.

Other likely exclusive Blogs may be on Fire Fighting then and now, LifeBoats then and now, Engine Control Rooms then and now and many more.

Chapter 3 – Work of Significance

FIRE FIGHTING

As Chief Engineer, I was in charge of Fire Fighting, aka ‘Fire Chief’. It was my responsibility to train the staff, ensure maintenance of all fire fighting equipment - along with the Chief Officer - conduct drills and prepare for surveys by Class and inspections by Port State Controls. This aspect of my responsibility encompasses a rather large field.

After nearly losing my life in a massive fire on the MV Tarantel (when I was 2nd Engineer), due to the stupidity of others, I had resolved to take the responsibility of a Fire Chief very seriously and dissect each aspect into its component parts and improve each bit.

First comes the Muster List, which is a standard list issued by the Company to all ships, stating responsibilities by rank and designation for both, ‘Abandon Ship’ duties and ‘Fire Fighting’ duties. The flaw in this is, it is unable to take into consideration the psychology of a person of that rank and what he is likely to do in a more or less terrifying scenario.

That is where the man on the spot, the leader, becomes invaluable. He has to evaluate the person who will be involved in the riskier operations, like the persons who don the SCBA (Self Contained Breathing Apparatus) and fire suits and are the ones who are supposed to get closest to the fire, evaluate what is required and fight the fire. Also, it is their duty to rescue anybody who has been caught out by the fire or is lying unconscious in the proximity of the fire. The fire suit gives them a certain degree of protection, the visor gives them vision without getting scorched and the Self Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) gives them oxygen in a smoke filled environment. It also takes a lot of will power not to panic under those conditions. I would estimate that at least 40% of the staff may panic under those circumstances. It, then, becomes the duty of the Fire Chief to quickly assess who will keep their cool.

Conducting a full dress rehearsal and a mock drill gives an insight into the mental strength of a person. I have seen persons who get claustrophobic and panic on wearing the SCBA mask and are unable to breathe in the oxygen supplied.

It is the Chief Engineer’s responsibility to evaluate conditions. He may need to, initially, get close to the fire, find out what is burning, what type of fire it is – oil fire or electrical fire or other substances on fire – and establish the mode of fighting the fire. Quite a number of times, water jets from hoses may not be the answer. Foam may not be the answer. It may call for use of a particular type of extinguisher. This will, basically, be a risk-assessment exercise, so that people do not get hurt or lose their lives in the process. In all conscience, I cannot send people into places I will not myself go.

In training during the weekly drills, I made it a point to simulate scenarios that replicates actual situations. The training starts with how to connect a hose to a fire line, how to start an Emergency Fire Pump, how to connect several hoses together without ‘kinking’, in order to reach remote areas, how to shut off ventilation, how to prepare for entry into a fire zone, how to ensure your own safety in the vicinity of the fire, how to escape if the fire goes out of control and so forth.

In a period of three months, mock drills were carried out at various sites. A briefing would take place during the Muster and, after the drill is complete, a post mortem would be done with all involved. Any difficulties or dangers found would be addressed then and there. Each week, more than one hour would be spent on this.

During the rest of my sea career following the severe fire on the 'Tarantel', I was witness to, and involved in, a small electrical fire of a heavy duty cable on a container ship - more on that in a later narrative. Apart from that one small fire, I am relieved to say that I went through the rest of my sea career without any other mishaps.

One possible reason could have been the number of mock drills carried out, my insistence on some basic precautions, ensuring that all on board are familiar with all the fire fighting equipment and their uses, emergency reciprocity and a disciplined, calculated approach to any emergency.

This kind of training paid huge dividends and benefited the ship in other ways.

As the years went by, Port State Control Inspections had become more and more rigourous, stringent, with many ships falling foul of Port Authorities, the US Coast Guard and Australian Maritime Safety Authority being the progenitors. Good and expansive mock drills made these inspections a breeze.

===== Blog 58 Continues =====