Sinking ships. From the Guardian.

[Kukri]

Thats a good point. I've just done an image search for other capsized ships and they all have clean hulls. Whats their secret? Speed? Are commercial ships allowed the good stuff still?

This was still a problem when I started in the business as some ships took ages in port.

Today, ships spend most of their time under way. Less fun for the crew; much less fouling. A tanker is designed to load in 24 hours and discharge in 48, a container ship may spend less than a day in most places.

If you get stuck in one place for long enough, fouling will grow and it’s wise to book a scrub with a robot before setting out again in order to keep the fuel bill within limits. It’s wise to pay particular attention to the seachests.

This one was on station as a silo transfer ship at the mouth of a tropical river for fourteen years. She grew a beard:

 

[Adios]

book a scrub with a robot

I had to check youtube for that. Seems like before robots took the fun out of it this was an interesting answer to "so what do you do for a living?"

 

[Kukri]

Good video. Shows the external gratings of the seachests.

In the days of sail a sea chest was where a seaman stowed his clothes and other possessions. A midshipman’s chest proverbiallly had “everything on top and nothing to hand”.

These days a seachest (one word) is where all the seawater intakes are grouped and there are high (for use when laden) and low (for use in ballast) sea chests. In modern ships a watertight steel blank can be bolted over the seachests by divers in order to seal them off so that the valves can be opened up for inspection and maintenance with the ship afloat. BP and the RN have managed to get this wrong in the past…?