# Viking Sky



## sternchallis

Was it a fuel(water in the fuel), cooling or an electrical problem that blacked her out.

Being multi engined it would have to be a common fault and most systems there is redundancy, particularly on a cruise ship.

The copter pilots did sterling service in those conditions.

Did anybody see the video in the piano lounge, nothing screwed to the deck but the piano, though I wonder about that despite the sockets its feet were in.
One passenger nearly got decapitated with deckhead steel panels dropping down.
Why  did they not evacuate that space. 
Not many lifeboats these days ( back to Titanic ) on cruise ships, just life rafts, that work ok on a millpond, but not in seas like that, just because everybody wants a balcony without a restricted view. Perhaps they would change there minds if they had to have abandoned ship. 
And whose idea was it to replace lifeboats with liferafts? The shareholders eventually because they can charge more for those cabins, so more profit. Titanic again. And what's Class and the Regultory Bodies doing about it? It's going to need another Titanic disaster for a change of rules. Don't they ever learn.
A New Zealand organisation worked out there are roughly 2 cruise ships lost ( sunk or fire) each year.

You are better carrying a cargo of frozen mutton than human cargo.


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## skilly57

All very strange really. 

In 2010 new regulations (called the Safe return to Port Regs = SRtP) were invoked stating all pax vessels over 120 metres had to have built-in redundancy such that any engine failure could only last for 1 hour maximum. This is why many passenger ships are now multi-engine, and with segregated engine rooms so if one gets flooded, propulsion & generator power would still be available from the other engine room. QE2 was designed like this when she was re-engined, with each E.R. supposedly being totally independent from the other. So, why, with a ship built in only 2017, did this vessel not find itself able to fulfil the regulation requirements? A lot of questions are going to be asked.

Cheers,

Skilly


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## Ian860B

Yes strange, I never was on board a ship that was forced to stop at sea until I sailed on a "modern" ship, old steamers just seemed to keep going despite wear and no automation. How much do modern electronics cause engine shut downs?
Jock(Smoke)


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## Barrie Youde

#3 

Well do I remember my Dad (who retired aged 65 in 1975) saying, "Ah, yes, the old steam up-and-downers - they just kept going."


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## skilly57

Jock,

You are correct. Having been at sea from 1969 until 2017, I have seen the insidious, never-ending creep of so-called 'Enhanced electronics' into ship's machinery spaces & cargo pump rooms more & more. The greater the 'Enhanced electronics' in the ship, the more stoppages we would have.

One vessel I was on had a total main engine shutdown in rough weather, and a relay failure prevented the aux gen'r from doing an auto-start and jumping on the board. The failure of the main engines was due to a wire dropping out of a terminal rail on the main propulsion gearbox. During the build, an electrician had (probably by good luck rather than good management) managed to insert the 19 wires into the correct position on the terminal rail, but then had omitted to tighten the screws to retain the wires. Rough weather eventually caused the weight of the bundled wiring loom to pull the first wire out. Just so happened this was the wire to the man engine shutdown panels - it's job was to initiate the shutdown sequence if the propulsion gearbox oil pressure dropped below 2 Bar. One way of doing a function test I guess, but the situation & location wasn't good when it happened. And there was absolutely nothing wrong with either main engine or the propulsion gearbox!

For complexity, & frustrating shutdowns, a so-called modern diesel-electric anchor handler (built 2013 from memory) was the worst I had to deal with. It generated power in AC from 3 x DGs. For the propulsion system & thrusters, the AC power was converted to DC (for 6 propulsion motors on 3 shafts, plus 2 thrusters, and 2 x Fifi pump motors) using silicone controlled rectifiers. So the AC was converted to DC using solely electronics, and the SCR cabinets got very warm, so needed continual cooling air flow to maintain operation. Then, if it rained (as it does frequently in the tropics!), the cooling air flow moisture detectors would promptly shut the propulsion down! After numerous dangerous situations, I finally convinced the owners that I needed to cut the detector wires! Every time we had a shutdown, the machinery was actually Ok - it was always the electronics causing the problems.

Give me a simple twin-screw direct drive installation any day.

Skilly


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## sternchallis

Also in our day you had real Engineers that knew what they were doing , not push button and mouse experts with Bamboo Tickets ( or worse).

We kept a proper watch, listen, touch , smell , look continuously. Not relying on some computer programmer to flash some light or alarm to tell you something was wrong. And then a spurious alarm comes up with a silly temperature on and you don't know how to check to see if it is correct, as i experienced with one 3rd Engineer with his 2nds on a UMS ER, not quite as fancy as they are today.

You cannot beat a good pressure gauge that you can give a tap with your shifter , to make sure its not stuck, never mind all these graphical things they have now that you have to reboot.

The electrical propulsion systems, generating at 6.6kv and other fancy gear they have is well beyond your average Engineer and perhaps some Chief Leckies I have sailed with, a couple of which would cure an alarm with a pair of side cutters. Snip, Snip. " That alarm won't go off again", they said.


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## Varley

I admit we have a problem with smell, sight and hearing but not monitoring any other parameter for which a sensor is included. The ancient GEC Logger at Saudi Shield, Decca crIsis, Hokushin and Siemens (Datazent) could all monitor the entire field of sensors in the time it takes for the duty man to fill the kettle. Analogue system and later digital system were as near as damnit continuously monitoring every sensor. 

Sometimes it is necessary to defeat a single sensor of channel but the usual stance of a failed Leckie is to first say "there is nothing wrong with it". It is less work. I hate to think what would happen to a 'modern' (which may very well be a damning description) should one of that ilk be loose with or without snippers.


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## sternchallis

Just been talking to a couple we know socialy that had just flown back from Norway and the Viking Sky and that eventfull cruise.
They said they'd had a good cruise and seen several Aurora Borialis until the weather turned. The Captain had taken them on the inland passage to avoid the worst of the storm, but then they had the power failure. 
Emergency Gen came on and they were able to drop the anchors , then they got one of the main engines running , using that to prevent any drifting, being close to a lee shore with a North Westerly blowing.
This couple were fortunate to be winched away. They could not praise the captain enough and the staff , keeping them informed of what was going on.
The emergency services such as the helicopters and Red Cross that met them ashore at a sports hall, were there with blankets , hot drinks and food. When the ship got alongside the bussed them back to the ship to pack then they chartered flights to repatriate them. The owner of the company managed to arrive before they left to address them apologising, but will refund the whole cruise and they are allowed a free cruise at another time. Obviously the next cruise was cancelled until they can find the cause of the failure and repair it , also put the ship back to rights as most cabins were damaged with furniture flying about the place. 
I did ask if the saloon chairs were screwed to the deck? No they weren't.
It was fortunate they were close enough to land for helicopter service, but what happens when they have to abandon ship in heavy weather say due to a fire, into liferafts. It doesn't bare thinking about, especially with these 5000 passenger ships, plus crew.


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## Wallace Slough

I couldn't agree more with your last sentence regarding abandoning ship in heavy weather with 5,000 passengers. It's a tragedy waiting to happen. Had the Costa Concordia not drifted back ashore and she'd capsized offshore the death loss would have been enormous. 
During my long piloting career on many different ships of various ages, I found that the two most dangerous times in a ship's life are when they're brand new and when they're at the end of their lives and everything is worn out. With the advancement of automation aboard ships, I would think that it's become even worse on new buildings.


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## Stephen J. Card

My worst fear is fire. I'm not worried about firefighting on board. That is fine. What I see is a major fire caused by collision as with a tanker. We say what happened with the ship last year in the China Sea. Collision between a passenger ship and a tanker and we have another ROYSTON GRANGE.


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## Basil

sternchallis said:


> . . . . . . . .
> Chief Leckies I have sailed with, a couple of which would cure an alarm with a pair of side cutters. Snip, Snip. " That alarm won't go off again", they said.


It appears that the two B737 Max aircraft which were recently lost was probably due to a false indication of excessive pitch angle (alpha) causing the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) to apply nose-down trim.


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## skilly57

Well, I have to commend the investigation results - they haven't tried to hide the cause. Low Oil Pressure!

With the heavy rolling, and the engine oil tanks apparently not containing enough oil, the engines shut down on low oil pressure protection when the oil pumps sucked air! 

I guess when you have cruise ships that always attempt to avoid rough weather for the benefit of the walking cargo, it also means when you do finally get exposed to a bit of 'Ruffers', you are going to learn something new about your ship's systems!

On every vessel I have ever worked on, there was always the possibility of getting into rough weather, so all oil sumps/sump tanks were always maintained at the FULL or max level for this very reason. It always meant you had a bit of leeway in the event of a purifier failure or cooler leakage problem.

Skilly


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## Hugh Wilson

As an ex-RO/ETO, and someone who is still very heavily involved in shipbuilding, I have to agree with David Varley. It would appear that in this instance, the problem was caused by 'operator error, in that the LO service tank levels were too low and the automation did exactly what it was designed to do - shut the engines down to prevent permanent damage.


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## Brian Dobbie

Every engine has a sump low level alarm that activates well before any engine shut down.
It does not matter if the sump is wet or dry there is still an alarm either in the sump or in the holding tank.
Prudent Chiefs run just above this alarm so that if loss does happen then staff are alerted before too much oil is lost.
There is then an engine slow down in the event of low oil pressure before an engine shut down.
It seems astonishing that all four engine lost oil pressure due to insufficient levels of lubricating oil and then it took an incredible amount of time to diagnose this and run some oil into the sump, prior to restarting the engines.
I think there is more to this than they are saying.


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## sternchallis

Skilly,

Good info .
The passengers I talked to last night said that all the Viking Ships ( perhaps of that class) suffered from engine problems, so that would account for it.
So if its a class problem and the engineers kept the sumps at the full mark, then its a design problem , not ships staff.
Don't designers realise ships get into storms and rough weather and can heel over to 30 -45 °, military ships do it normally on wet grass, yet their equipment is tested for that.
Here we are talking large generators not 2 strokes. I remember when we used to take heavy rolls on two strokes, the LO alarm used to go off but the delay was such that it never got to the point of the shut down stage, the ship would right itself and normal oil oressure would be resumed until the next time. There would have been a greater surface area in a DB sump than in a generator sump. I was on one ship that had a Main Engine the same as they re-engined the QE2 with, MAN 45/78L if memory serves and even on that in heavy rolls the delay was such the engine did not shut down. And cargo ships don't have stabilisers only bilge keels. 

So these cruise ships with a large sail area of the accomodation could soon be pushed over with the wind abaft the beam , being shallow drafted as compared to a Cruise Liner, ie the Queens.

Perhaps dry sumps are the answer with header tank and sump scavenge pump. 
Even the "Posiedon Adventure " could not have happened technically in real life. 
No doubt the rolls would be even worse once the power went off to the stabilisers unless they acted in a passive mode.


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## Stephen J. Card

sternchallis said:


> Skilly,
> 
> Adventure " could not have happened technically in real life.
> No doubt the rolls would be even worse once the power went off to the stabilisers unless they acted in a passive mode.



Stabilizer will not be put out until you have enough keel clearance to reply. Might be those few minutes between getting out of the way the rocks and getting enough clearance. Some years ago one of the HAL ships was arriving for Melbourne. The ship was rolling and the master decided to retract the stabilizers in calmer water. As te ship swept into the channel she rolled and the stabilizer smacked the bottom. Write off.


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## sternchallis

More good points Brian, though an engine slow down on a DA would knock it off the board. I am assuming all new cruise ships are diesel electric, otherwise in a conventional set up they might still have had lights but no propulsive power, but believe it was just emergency lighting.

So yes there is more to this problem. Perhaps too technical to give to the press and perhaps there is a claim against the designers/ engine manufacturers. Would it not be called ' _sub judice_ ' so they cannot give out tòo much information and allow the press to become judge and jury before it goes to court.
Viking treated the passengers correctly, now they have to fight the shipyard. Also a case of _force majeure_ which they are insured against.


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## sternchallis

Seems like its not a Viking problem, but a cruise ship problem, see article below.

https://www.cruiselawnews.com/2016/.../viking-sea-temporarily-loses-power-in-malta/

I see she was Italian built and Italian cars were always a bit tempermental.

Is it a case of systems that are so complicated these days that ships staff are not trained to handle it. But sump and tank levels are basic engineering. But I see they are correcting that on all their fleet.
So for the sake of a few gallons of oil they could have lost the ship. 
I noticed she was almost beached from one image.

But put a computer into any mix and you can expect problems.

Rebooting was when you changed your footware to or from flip flops in the ER 
changing room.
Logged off and blacked out.

My friends said last night they are not going on any more cruises after that. And Viking is one of the better companies, so imagine if it had been one of the iffy outfits.


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## Varley

Hugh, I am not sure I was damning anyone, certainly not the ship's staff. I doubt a modern vessel is subject to the sort of unofficial operating techniques as overfilling sump or sump tanks. SOLAS requires safe operation of essential machinery while rolling 22.5 degrees and pitching 7.5 degrees. Presumably she wasn't doing this until after she lost way.

It would be virtually impossible to divorce the effect of rolling from two otherwise independent systems on the same platform. Equally testing such a requirement at several different frequencies, rather than amplitudes, of roll would seem difficult and perhaps pointless without the frequency being taken into account. But that still requires the ship moving in 'sympathy' with sloshings about to have been present before the propulsion was lost.

Determination of the effect of any particular failure mode is easy but complication (which some miscall sophistication) makes the number of possible modes difficult to recognise and so may never be tested/analysed.

Such faults, fatal or otherwise, may never surface the cir***stances causing them being so rare. Others are discovered early in the vessels life and so resolved early. If the passengers (#15) reported that a similar event, perhaps in calmer seas and so less newsworthy, had occurred I wonder if it/they had been properly analysed. It is easy not to ("Oh, that's it, all's well now" and it wasn't and it isn't. It is also easy to assess a fault as so unlikely to repeat that nothing is done to prevent it. 

Anyway, all glorious arm chair speculation at the moment. I do hope we get to see if any of us got it right.


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## skilly57

Brian (post #14 ),

In NZ, W.A., & Tasman sea operations I have been involved in, if you run your oil levels just above the low level alarm, you are very soon going to get tired of answering the callouts when the ship gets to rolling 30 - 45 degrees in rough weather when in ballast condition or not steadied up by a heavy tow. Most ships I have been on, even when rolling heavily, the low level alarm is still above the oil level where an engine shutdown will be experienced from low oil pressure. I cannot figure out why, once (or, IF) the low level alarms went off, these guys didn't have enough time to bring up the oil tank levels before engine shutdown occurred?

Most tanks have an indicator showing the minimum oil level (where the alarm will go off), and the maximum operating oil level, at which we would normally maintain the oil level in order to avoid alarms in very rough weather. Only on one ship in about 17 have I found tank level indicators showing the low level only - we soon worked out where we needed the operating levels to be marked, added the extra oil, and she's had no problems since.

Cheers,
Skilly


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## Duncan112

I am wondering if oil levels were being kept low because of a contamination problem necessitating frequent changes (Blow past or fuel contamination, particularly if MGO was being used for SO2 minimisation) to reduce costs. 

As Skilly states, this would cause frequent alarms so maybe the alarms were inhibited or had an excessive delay (Worse still, they may have been looped in, so the inhibition would not show on the data logger print out.

Low oil and violent motion might cause foaming in the sump and the pump to gas up?

I am puzzled by all 4 engines failing together, and the time taken to run oil down to the sump (although if it was cold that could account for that?) if it were a simple low level problem.

As many have said, there are a lot of questions and I am unsure if we will ever know the unvarnished truth.


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## OilJiver

Brian Dobbie said:


> ...It seems astonishing that all four engine lost oil pressure due to insufficient levels of lubricating oil and then it took an incredible amount of time to diagnose this and run some oil into the sump, prior to restarting the engines.
> I think there is more to this than they are saying.


Totally agreed Brian. Others have also commented since your observation here. But it just seems inconceivable that pre-sailing checks (for any weather conditions) would not include ME LO drain tank levels. (_As logged every watch, or duty period_).


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## skilly57

Just spent some time studying the MAN online photos of these engines. They cannot be wet sump - the sump volume is too small. 
QE2 was re-engined with 9 x 9L58/64 engines (227 tons each inc the flywheel), but Vikings 9Ls are much smaller (51 tons each), and are a recent development.
I still find it hard to fathom why they would run all 4 oil tank levels so low, but one item I have read stated they had now rectified the problems on the other ships as well in light of this recent incident. So, were all there ships running low oil levels? On instructions from the office maybe??

Skilly


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## jmcg

sternchallis said:


> Also in our day you had real Engineers that knew what they were doing , not push button and mouse experts with Bamboo Tickets ( or worse).
> 
> We kept a proper watch, listen, touch , smell , look continuously. Not relying on some computer programmer to flash some light or alarm to tell you something was wrong. And then a spurious alarm comes up with a silly temperature on and you don't know how to check to see if it is correct, as i experienced with one 3rd Engineer  with his 2nds on a UMS ER, not quite as fancy as they are today.
> 
> You cannot beat a good pressure gauge that you can give a tap with your shifter , to make sure its not stuck, never mind all these graphical things they have now that you have to reboot.
> 
> The electrical propulsion systems, generating at 6.6kv and other fancy gear they have is well beyond your average Engineer and perhaps some Chief Leckies I have sailed with, a couple of which would cure an alarm with a pair of side cutters. Snip, Snip. " That alarm won't go off again", they said.


Excellent post.

BW

J(Gleam)(Gleam)


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## sternchallis

skilly57 said:


> I still find it hard to fathom why they would run all 4 oil tank levels so low, but one item I have read stated they had now rectified the problems on the other ships as well in light of this recent incident. So, were all there ships running low oil levels? On instructions from the office maybe??
> 
> Skilly



So to change that so quickly they must have just topped up the sump from min to max, the max being the normal level in my book.
Never been on a ship that generators ran at anything below the top mark. Its much easier to log the amount of oil used if you have a mark to work to rather than between two marks. I don't see any advantage of running on minimum, it only become contaminated faster.

Well lessons were certainly learnt on that. No doubt there will be an Engineer Super (Cloud)looking for a job now with Cruise ship and MAN experience (some good & some bad).


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## Engine Serang

No doubt there will be an Engineer Super looking for a job now with Cruise ship and MAN experience

And the bean counter gets promoted. Sometimes shipping just makes you sick.


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## Engine Serang

# 21

It is human nature, and maritime tradition, to try to cover up minor embarrassment's at sea but I'm afraid Viking Sky is probably too big a mess.
Things like Norwegian Owner, Norwegian Flag, Norwegian Class and Norwegian Coast will not make a pins difference to the inquiry but a good look at the VDR could be helpful. 
a lot depends on how many channels input there was on the VDR and whether the Master/OOW saved the data, we await the report.


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## skilly57

Engineer Super probably now in line for managing director's job! Most places I have been, if someone makes a major stuff-up (if they admit it was them), then instant promotion is normally in order!

Skilly


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## stein

The police are investigating both the engine failure of Viking Sky and that of Hagland Captain. The bay where both ships lost power, btw., is very popular with surfers due to the heavy ground-swells.


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## skilly57

Should have looked up my book earlier - I was running 4 x MAN 32/40s on a seismic ship back in early 2014. The Viking Sky engines (MAN 32/44) were developed from the 32/40s. 
We didn't have any rough weather oil level troubles as we always kept the tank levels up to the marks, and, with a huge towed array out the back, it stopped a lot of wild ship movement.

Skilly


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## Stephen J. Card

stein said:


> The police are investigating both the engine failure of Viking Sky and that of Hagland Captain. The bay where both ships lost power, btw., is very popular with surfers due to the heavy ground-swells.


Pilot was also on board. 


The young and fit passengers can abandon ship in their own personal 'wind surf board'.


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## Engine Serang

If all the surfers and wind surfers in the world pooled their savings only three of them could buy a ticket for an Inside Cabin on the Viking Sky.


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## Stephen J. Card

Engine Serang said:


> If all the surfers and wind surfers in the world pooled their savings only three of them could buy a ticket for an Inside Cabin on the Viking Sky.



Probably yes on NCL or RCI!


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## Barrie Youde

#31 

As to any liability of those on the bridge, I recall that even as long as thirty years ago that any ship proposing to enter the Mersey was required to make a positive report of "no defects" or otherwise to declare any relevant defects before attempting to enter. Check-lists, cross-checks and double checks (as on an aircraft flight deck) are surely even more intense today aboard any cruise liner?

It is difficult to see (or believe) that anybody on the bridge of Viking Sky would have made the decision to proceed in the conditions prevailing if he had been given the slightest idea that the main engines might be even a little faulty.


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## Varley

Well, there is always Schettino but that aside I would agree, Barrie. There is however a difference between having the slightest idea and should have had the slightest idea where be the stuff of negligence.


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## Barrie Youde

#35 

It seems that any reference to Schettino can be ruled out - but otherwise I agree with you entirely. The words "knew or ought to have known" would seem to apply. Is there any indication that people knew or ought to have known that the main engines were dodgy? If so, who knew?


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## Varley

None that I can see so fare Barrie but I am sure that is one reason we all eagerly await the end to our armchair (perhaps that should be pilot or captain's chair) speculation by getting to the administration report. I still have my money on ill-executed/analysed redundancy

Following the El Faro I would view all such with spectacles that detect missing witness from the main third party players.


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## Engine Serang

It would be illuminating to know if the Viking Sea, Sky, Star, Sun, Orion and Jupiter have been bunkering large quantities of Main Engine Lub Oil over the past week.


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## Varley

E-S. Does you interest come from the possibility the design levels are subject to the sort of improvised adjustment (maladjustment) suggested elsewhere on this thread? I don't remember such things being done (I would have thought I was nosey enough to know despite it not my business) if you did this sort of thing what else was there? Boilers?

I do remember adjusting delay timers to allow for a roll but the level itself was by float or capacitor probe. True I cannot remember a high level alarm but equally I would not have had that experience if the practice was to overfill?

The Gotaverken concept was to pump from sump to tank and then from tank to engine. Presumably the sump to tank might loose suction (fairly serious, scrolls if I remember) but the concept would seem to be proof against the failure mode envisaged here?


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## Duncan112

Varley said:


> E-S. Does you interest come from the possibility the design levels are subject to the sort of improvised adjustment (maladjustment) suggested elsewhere on this thread? I don't remember such things being done (I would have thought I was nosey enough to know despite it not my business) if you did this sort of thing what else was there? Boilers?
> 
> I do remember adjusting delay timers to allow for a roll but the level itself was by float or capacitor probe. True I cannot remember a high level alarm but equally I would not have had that experience if the practice was to overfill?
> 
> The Gotaverken concept was to pump from sump to tank and then from tank to engine. Presumably the sump to tank might loose suction (fairly serious, scrolls if I remember) but the concept would seem to be proof against the failure mode envisaged here?


Indeed David, a proper "Dry Sump" system, there still appear a lot of unanswered (or even unaddressed) questions. 

It would be interesting to see the makers recommendations for delay timings and those programmed into the system, both at building and at the time of incident. Casting my mind back here, but I've a feeling that on a Norcontrol system, if you altered timings on the keyboard it showed on the datalogger BUT if you had the key and altered the outstation no record was printed (I found this out after a near miss following tinkering by one watchkeeper and then removed all the keys that lived in the outstations).

I have little confidence in the investigation finding the root cause and even less of it being properly shared.


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## Varley

Duncan, I think you are illustrating complication disguised as sophistication. I only had a brief introduction to the Kongsberg IAS (Umm Bab trials) but if I remember correctly changes to the local PLC outstations was synchronised centrally (perhaps with some cycle delay - pity the vapenfabrikk don't join these threads).

However wouldn't that be either difficult to do as the rolling period changes with loading condition as well as the external excitation.

Perhaps we should not air our unprofessional ignorance too much or some software expert will try and integrate the loading and sea states into the programme to make it 'fool proof'.


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## Duncan112

Varley said:


> Duncan, I think you are illustrating complication disguised as sophistication. I only had a brief introduction to the Kongsberg IAS (Umm Bab trials) but if I remember correctly changes to the local PLC outstations was synchronised centrally (perhaps with some cycle delay - pity the vapenfabrikk don't join these threads).
> 
> However wouldn't that be either difficult to do as the rolling period changes with loading condition as well as the external excitation.
> 
> Perhaps we should not air out unprofessional ignorance too much or some software expert will try and integrate the loading and sea states into the programme to make it 'fool proof'.


Thank you David, a very astute observation "complication disguised as sophistication" much evident in mobile phones of today, abetted by continual revisions of MS products that are especially designed not to be forwards compatible, ensuring a continued market!!

I can't remember who's system was fitted on a ferry I was on, but it retired to the pavilion, bat under arm one evening and refused to display anything other than MS solitaire on the screen - played a mean game but not much use on helping monitor the plant.


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## Varley

Manufacturers cannot economically provide a GUI that is not Windows based. Although a few years ago now an LR presentations on what was wrong with the implementation of IAS (and there was a great deal) included that our (merchant) industry does not present to MS as a large enough customer to share the technical details of their products much beyond that they consider appropriate to hand out to game player customers. Hardly a recipe for escaping systems failures or, indeed, testing for them.

I was very interested to see the explanation of a Visionmaster systems failure (very promptly and reputable dealt with by Sperry at the time). When AIS is interfaced with the display the data from the remote stations was processed without any/enough gatekeeping. A date string passed by a faulty AIS shore station included an invalid date derived from its (ie the remote) GPS input. Something like a February 29th in a year which should not have had one. The operating system either detected this as an error or simply could not handle it and crashed. Without disconnecting the AIS input the system could never have been restarted while the erroneous station was in range. A clear example of how data, not intended to be malicious, may disable a system from off one's own ship.


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## sternchallis

Despite all the software, sensors , roll delays etc, there is no excuse for running an engine on minimum sump capacity, be it wet or dry sump. Ships roll, some to a greater or lesser extent and shipbuilders and savvy owners would know this. Plus these things can be calculated.,
Unless things have changed in engine and and system design in the last 25 years then running the sump at the max mark, should not be a problem, or you have a poor design of engine then the sump level should not rise 
(unlike many auto diesels ) but drop (but good old fashioned watchkeeping would prevent a shortage of oil), so this problem should not have happened. As was found by the Norwegian ( BOT), hence the levels were quickly rectified on the rest of the the fleet.
So in effect it was the bean counters policy that caused this, not even the Supers', but he he would carry the can , if one needed carrying.

Like most industries , as soon as bean counters or shareholders poke their nose in, then things go awry. 
You hear horror stories on this forum of how ships were run by the owners and normally any owner scrimping did not run successfull ships and make good profits as they often broke down, so loosing revenue, but a line that looked after its staff , supplied spares and were good feeders and a happy staff do a good job for the company. 
This may not have applied to Viking as it was a private company and Norwegians are good seaman like Britain was, but some accountant was perhaps trying to maximise profits.


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## Tony Foot

*LO sump/service tank levels*

Before my retirement I was working as C/E for the worst company I had experienced in over 41 years at sea. They ran offshore support vessels.
That Co. had a policy of keeping L/O tank levels as low as practical.
Much cheaper you see, less oil in use and less oil in storage.
And yes I had two engine failures. One when the ship rolled or pitched and the pump sucked air the engine shut down. Another when the rough seas stirred up the debris in the tank and that destroyed the L/O pump followed shortly after by the engine itself.


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## spongebob

This Viking incident reminds me of what we used to do with the lube oil on the little MV Navua with a five cylinder trunk piston Shulzer engine of 1500 HP.
The golden treacle colour of new lube does not take long to discolour and degrade once in service but our house proud second engineer, Peter Hewer, was determined to maintain the ship's main engine lube in the cleanest possible condition .
In port and at sea in flat calm conditions much of the sump tank oil was pumped up to a large holding tank situated on the forward engine room bulkhead that walled the twin P&S deep tanks and was directly above fuel and lube oil purifiers . The tank had a high wattage outflow heater
The routine was to fill the header tank from the sump then continually circulate the well heated oil through the purifier until it regained some of its golden glow. If the weather roughed up while at sea the oil was quickly lowered down to maintain a high sump level and conversely in port the header tank was filled to its max and the purifier ran unattended through the night even when on shore power in order to continually batch clean the lube.
It was surprising how clean the oil became with this treatment regime and it was a relative pleasure to climb into the crankcase that still showed its yellow coloured build paint treatment through the film of gold!
Other ships did not follow Peter's 'housekeeping ' ideas that resulted in an engine room that resembled an ice cream parlour.

Bob
￼


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## mcglash

Engine Serang said:


> If all the surfers and wind surfers in the world pooled their savings only three of them could buy a ticket for an Inside Cabin on the Viking Sky.


With all due respect you obviously know little about Surfing because it can be very lucrative! A champion Surfer such as Kelly Slater for example has a net worth in excess of $20 Million.


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## Lao Pan

sternchallis said:


> Unless things have changed in engine and and system design in the last 25 years then running the sump at the max mark, should not be a problem,...
> 
> ...Like most industries , as soon as bean counters or shareholders poke their nose in, then things go awry.


One thing that has changed is the cost per ltr of Lube Oil - I am not familiar with the Sump capacities on these machines, but say you could reduce the level from 14 tonnes to 10 tonnes per machine - times 4 at about £2.50 per ltr - that would be a saving of £40,000 on oil in service.

Colour of oil is going away from that golden treacle colour - the Premium Turbine oils and Hydraulic oils that I now deal with are water white (Gas to Oil)


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## Stephen J. Card

Hmmmmm £40,000 for lub oils or £2 million drydock and repairs and other costs for a 2 day event. The oil is cheaper.


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## Engine Serang

mcglash said:


> With all due respect you obviously know little about Surfing because it can be very lucrative! A champion Surfer such as Kelly Slater for example has a net worth in excess of $20 Million.


Ha mcGlash you think I know fcuk nothing about surfing but you're wrong, I know fcuk all.
I do know those surfing in Lahinch have a surfboard, a VW Camper and a bit of totty. I'd nearly settle for that.


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## sternchallis

Engine Serang said:


> Ha mcGlash you think I know fcuk nothing about surfing but you're wrong, I know fcuk all.
> I do know those surfing in Lahinch have a surfboard, a VW Camper and a bit of totty. I'd nearly settle for that.


Forget the surfboard and the VW Camper, a bit of totty would do me, but don't tell the wife.(LOL)


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## sternchallis

Stephen J. Card said:


> Hmmmmm £40,000 for lub oils or £2 million drydock and repairs and other costs for a 2 day event. The oil is cheaper.


Plus loss of service and revenue, cancelling bookings, the PR disaster, loss of life and the list goes on.

The battle was lost for the sake of a nail in the Generals shoe. 

£40k is just 3 cabins revenue and she holds 930 pax in 465 cabins, the cheapest possibly £6K per cabin each person for 13 days in the Penthouse Veranda cabin which is middle of the range.


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## spongebob

Lao Pan said:


> One thing that has changed is the cost per ltr of Lube Oil - I am not familiar with the Sump capacities on these machines, but say you could reduce the level from 14 tonnes to 10 tonnes per machine - times 4 at about £2.50 per ltr - that would be a saving of £40,000 on oil in service.
> 
> Colour of oil is going away from that golden treacle colour - the Premium Turbine oils and Hydraulic oils that I now deal with are water white (Gas to Oil)


The oil is there for lubrication ,not fuel although some works its way into the combustion zones. A high or low level sump or holding tank should have no bearing on this , in fact in this case high lube oil levels would have been like Money in the bank.

Bob


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## Lao Pan

Stephen J. Card said:


> Hmmmmm £40,000 for lub oils or £2 million drydock and repairs and other costs for a 2 day event. The oil is cheaper.


Yes - But Accountants are trained to look at the minutiae not the big picture. - they saved £40,000 - Drydocking is another budget.

I was at a Nuclear Power Station 20+ years ago where they skipped £3 million pounds worth of spares because it cost £4 thousand pounds a year to keep it on the shelf  Most of the spares were for plant that was 30 years old and the manufacturers didn't even exist any more. They had a bill for not far short of a million for a job that would have cost a couple of thousand using the spares that they had had on the shelf previous to the cost cutting exercise (Jester)


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## Ron Stringer

Lao Pan, that was a failure of management, not the accountants who are only responsible for the collection of figures for the management to consider. Making difficult decisions whether or not to act on one particular set of data, rather than one of the alternatives, is what the managers are paid for.

In the early 1990s at Marconi Marine we scrapped spare parts and materials from our stores valued on the books at over £1M. Things like spares for Oceanspan transmitters, Vigilant auto-alarm receivers, Seagraph echo-sounders, Radiolocator Mark IV radars, Lodestone direction-finders and the like, all long out of production. The space occupied by the central stores was reduced by over 80%, staff reduced from 7 to one man. Some of the stuff scrapped was over 40 years old, still in 'as manufactured' condition and original packaging.

The negative effect on the business was almost zero, since the annual turnover value of items issued from that stock was a fraction of the cost of housing and administering it.

Of course the elephant in the room was the accountants' valuation of all that unwanted material at over £1M, not its retention.


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## Lao Pan

Ron Stringer said:


> Lao Pan, that was a failure of management, not the accountants who are only responsible for the collection of figures for the management to consider. Making difficult decisions whether or not to act on one particular set of data, rather than one of the alternatives, is what the managers are paid for.


Unfortunately now a days, most organizations are run by accountants (except in Germany where they are mostly run by engineers - that might tell us something) and they just don't look at the big picture - but they spend a fortune paying other accountants to audit every penny spent and question it.


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