How do they service ships at sea

[DryDock]

i reckon he was winding you up

maybe they couldnt afford these guys...

http://www.all-sea.com/

 

[penfold]

Hmm, some slightly tall tales hereabouts! The biggest I'm aware of is the B&W 108 which is a 1.08m bore and 2.6m stroke. Then there's some superlongstroke ones the biggest of which is 0.9m bore and 3.2m stroke. As has already been stated the lube oil is continuously filtered with fine wirewound filters and bypass filtered using centrifuges. The sump tank of the main engine on my last boat(65000dwt, 280metres, 56,000bhp) usually held 20 tonnes of oil. There are 2 filter sets with pressure loss controlled autochangeover, these can be cleaned any time. The other service type job would be swapping the airfilters which can also be done on the go. In the event of a cylinder going bad the injector pump can be hooked up, or if it's a bad one the piston rod itself is uncoupled and the whole lot wedged up out of the way. More involved stuff like piston/head/liner swaps are usually done alongside, but have been done at sea in emergency situations(not by me).

 

[penfold]

Got a mate who is a 4th Engineer, in-line filters and pumps that can be by-passed I think.

The bit that amazed me is that run on stuff called 'bunker fuel' which is so bad it has th consistancy of sandy gravel to start with, so they are forever changing filters and pumps.

Only when the company bean counters have been on at the agents to get the cheapest; only it never is because it generates loads more sludge and it can cause accelerated wear in the engine, all of which costs money!

Don't remember much other servicing, but technology was pretty basic back then. Nothing digital and we didn't trust any analogue gauges so would take daily tank soundings by dropping a line into them and seeing where the wet bit got to...

We still do that today, for the same reasons!

 

[kesh]

They carry a team of service engineers with them.

or this guy

 

[Bilgediver]

or this guy

Just look at those historic diesels!!!!! They live on today but are a bit sleeker and more powerful having evolved beyond recognition from their new home in France. The Yanks and russians wern t interested in anything so mundane after the war.

 

[jmmt]

Dingbats

No he wasn't! Although I always sailed on the starboard side of the ship I witnessed the blokes who lived on the port side having to deal with the most amazing emergencies down in the engine room - no sea start in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

Amazing what you can do with a six foot stilson and several cases of Tennants Lager!

 

[Bilgediver]

Amazing what you can do with a six foot stilson and several cases of Tennants Lager!

We had one chiefy who only indented for string and sellotape

We used to dress up the sharp edges on piston rings and re use them only fitting a new firing ring.