TSB Releases John1 Report

[JK]

No surprise that the ships engineers were not familar with operating a plant in ice covered waters. The seabays iced up, the plant started overheating and from there things went down hill quickly leading to the ship grounding. They dropped the anchor and found an underwater cable.

http://tsb.gc.ca/eng/medias-media/commu ... 150609.asp

It is good reading.

[Merlyn]

Something about sea suction and valve chests over there, one of our ships had to be piggybacked to UK in about 2008 owing to seawater ingress via a crew cockup job in the ice. Nearly sank. Looks like a scrapper. HMS Endurance. What a cockup!

[JK]

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... urance.pdf

We almost lost a ship due to a cock up on seavalves and an open strainer. They were swinging out of the lifeboat prepatory. The off duty engineer got out of bed and went to the engineroom instead of the boat and shut everything down.

[Merlyn]

Interesting report, human error again then. Couldn't see anywhere in the report the old mattress trick like we did on the old paddler article I wrote. Certainly slowed the flow down a lot. I remember when doing my time we lost a diver who went over the side on his own to attempt to plug a sea suction valve situation similar to this. Already low on air he was drawn by the suction and pinned against the ships side and drowned. And only in about 18 feet of water. Tragic.

[JK]

I personally have not had a black out because of overheating in ice. I've come close enough, however, that I was dumping all non essentials, the boiler returns was pumping steam and the diesels were thinking about tripping. If you have central cooling, you can boil the refrigerant in the condensers, blowing the safety, the boiler returns are steaming off and the returns tank is smashing and banging, alarms going off.
With a lot of scurrying and swearing we got her back. That's not to say I haven't done the finger faux pas on the board and bang, down she goes. If you are lucky you might get 25 seconds to call the bridge and warn them.
Frozen vents are usually the culprit. They are pumping slush and if they aren't kept clear, they freeze close then your seabay fills with air, the pumps lose suction and you're in trouble. You have to keep the seabay 20-25*C to keep the slush melted.

I prefered a peaceful Watch, strolling around the diesels, singing at the top of your lungs because no one can hear, admiring the main engines exhaust glowing white and the test cock on the main sea strainer draining drips of water not blowing jets of air.
Let the bridge worry because they're in close quarters, I can't see it!

[Merlyn]

And there is me over here thinking you are control room bound, bored out of your brain , sounds a bit like a reminisce job strolling around as in the old days when your pinkies were the ships engine sensors ( but not for exhaust manifolds ) and pinkies on unsheathed injector pipes measuring the pulse width.

[JK]

Once the plant is set up it is usually self adjusting but you have to be very aware of air in the sea bay and strainers. You set up all your valves and recircs before entering the ice. The John 1 had no idea what their seabay valves were set to or where the water was returning to. They might as well tripped off the generator right off the bat and saved themselves all the energy running around, they were going to black out eventually.