# Handovers



## mikeg (Aug 24, 2006)

No names, no packdrill. Did you ever have a quick handover that you thought was slightly less than honest?

A bit of a dilemma here, if you discover equipment that doesn't work after the handover, has it just failed then on switch on or.........???

Luckily I haven't experienced such a handover but have heard some lurid tales. Have you been 'unlucky'?


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## Billieboy (May 18, 2009)

Never bothered me, when I joined a ship and one of the boilers wasn't shut down for urgent repairs, I used to ask what was wrong! usually a stroll around the engine room gave me a list of what was needed, then after FAOP the second and I used to get our heads together for the next shutdown planning session; this usually took half a case, then we'd crash. When handing over to my relief, I used to say, "The job's a doddle, don't break it; or else" !


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

Joined a 12-passenger ship in Avonmouth where the regular R/O had been taken sick and was having a trip off. Was told that all was fine as the guy had been on the ship for several years. R/Os tended to stick to such vessels - she was doing 6/8-week trips from the UK around the Western Med and he had a regular relief arranged so that he could take leave while she was discharging/reloading around the UK coast.

We were sailing on the tide that evening and I arrived early in the afternoon having travelled down by train from Manchester. Once I had stowed my kit I started checking out the radio room and quickly found that there was no 24V dc emergency radio supply. So I wandered out on deck and, just aft of my cabin, found a metal door with 'Battery Room' above it. It was locked.

Having searched the radio room, I eventually found a big, rusty, iron key in a tin of old screws and nuts at the bottom of a locker. I tried it in the door but it would only turn part of the way around. Went back for the 3-in-1 and applied it liberally without too much success. Found the Chippy and asked if he would help. Eventually, with the help of a Stilson he got the key to turn without breaking it off.

But the door wouldn't move. He pried with a big screwdriver and then with a small wrecking bar. Eventually, using a 2lb hammer and a cold chisel he removed the hinges and the door fell away.

I had already begun to doubt the accuracy of the Part B log readings that showed every cell of the two banks of batteries to have SG of either 1250 or 1255.

With the door removed, you could see the sides of the batteries arranged on two steel shelves, one above the other. The upper shelf appeared to have been left out in a severe blizzard with what seemed to be 12-15 inches of snow on the battery. The gap between the top of the lower battery and the bottom of the shelf above resembled a domestic freezer when you have forgotten to close the door properly. It was a solid mass of white crystals. If there had been any life in that battery, it would surely have been shorted to deck by the crystalline deposits.

I rang Marconi's and requested a new set of batteries be sent down poste haste, asked the Chippy to make some new trays/liners for the shelves and then set to removing the old batteries and fittings, flushing out all the crystals and drying everything off, ready to take the new batteries.

I can't imagine how long it had taken for that degree of corrosion to ac***ulate but you can be sure that everything else on the station was checked to the nth degree before we sailed that night.


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## CAPTAIN JEREMY (Mar 9, 2010)

mikeg said:


> No names, no packdrill. Did you ever have a quick handover that you thought was slightly less than honest?
> 
> A bit of a dilemma here, if you discover equipment that doesn't work after the handover, has it just failed then on switch on or.........???
> 
> Luckily I haven't experienced such a handover but have heard some lurid tales. Have you been 'unlucky'?


I had a very fast handover as 2nd Mate with the ship at anchor in Tor Bay. The guy I was relieving was a "professional" 2nd mate with the company, and was leaving for urgent family reasons. It was a case of "everything is up to date"and off he hopped into the Pilot boat which had taken me out to the ship. I was less than pleased when I discovered shortly afterwards 16 weeks of chart corrections still in their envelopes in a locker beneath the chart table. I am sure it was just coincidence that he left the company immediately after that.


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## mikeg (Aug 24, 2006)

Ron,

I wonder how long the batteries had been neglected for - it looks like years rather than months. Did that R/O got his regular ship back again? Were the radio company or shipowners informed about the situation because the R/O had compromised the ships safety as well as allegedly flogging Part B of the Emergency Battery log. Its a difficult situation because no one likes blowing the whistle but I hope he got at least a severe dressing down by the Captain. If not he would soon be free to neglect your replacement batteries.

Mike


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## mikeg (Aug 24, 2006)

Captain Jeremy, Ouch! Thats a huge backlog of chart corrections to catch up with, just as well that he left the country. Come to think back I did once find a pile of ALRS corrections left in a drawer after joining but caught up with them during the quiet watch times. Its a bit annoying to correct a correction that deletes that updated correction on the same day all that work for now't (Cloud)


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

CAPTAIN JEREMY said:


> ... I discovered shortly afterwards 16 weeks of chart corrections still in their envelopes in a locker beneath the chart table.


Contained in the Notices to Mariners were Notices to Ships Wireless Stations which gave all the changes to radio station operating frequencies and watchkeeping times. These had to be entered into the various volumes of the Admiralty List of Radio Stations, the 'bible' that allowed the R/O to choose the right time and frequency on which to communicate with the world outside the ship. They also contained corrections to list of other radio aids such as DF beacon locations, operating frequencies and callsigns.

Leaving aside the (lack of) enthusiasm of 2nd Mates, shipping companies were not always appreciative of the importance of providing the ship with up to date information and corrections. So we were nearly put aground when, homeward bound from Cape Town, we ran into dense fog off Dakar, Senegal. There were no maritime radiobeacons there but the airport had an aerobeacon about a mile or so inland from the coast. So we were navigating past on DF bearings, hoping to pass about 10 miles off while trying to pick up the low-lying, sandy, coastline on the radar. Eventually a trace appeared only a few miles ahead, that appeared to run across our heading from one side of the screen to the other.

Frantic activity, rapid change of course to the West and much cursing of ''that bloody Sparks and his infernal machine.'' I was both embarrassed and somewhat resentful since the bearings I had taken were all dead solid and previous use had shown the DF calibration to be spot on.

When we arrived at Tilbury, amongst the mail that came aboard was a package containing chart corrections and the radio corrections. Some of them were 3 months old. I was coasting until we got to Liverpool, when I intended taking a couple of weeks' leave prior to rejoining for the next FG trip. So I started doing the corrections. When I got round to correcting the volume with the DF stations, I found that several months earlier, the Dakar aerobeacon had been relocated some 15 miles further inland!

Had the trusty Radiolocator IV not picked up the coastline we would have run aground while trying to cut across the Western extremity of Africa. No doubt the Old Man and the mates (possibly me too) would have been censured and penalised at the enquiry into the grounding. The idle or money-saving b*gger who decided not to send out the various corrections (since we were going to Tilbury just down the River from the office) would not have been mentioned.


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

mikeg said:


> Did that R/O got his regular ship back again? Were the radio company or shipowners informed about the situation


Mike,

Of course the Chippy involved the newly-promoted Mate but I don't know if it ever went any further. The OM and the R/O were big buddies, having sailed on the ship together for many years. This was my first day aboard my first ship as solo R/O, having just completed my supervised 6 months. So I wasn't too confident about throwing my weight around. As an aside, the R/O was known to others on board as ''Drunken Duncan''.

I was replaced on that ship before the end of the trip and rushed home when my father suffered a heart attack and was in hospital. So I neither had a debrief nor heard of the ship (or Duncan) again. My attention was elsewhere - my father made a slow but good recovery and lived a further 20 years. Once he was out of danger I went back to sea and made bloody sure that the batteries on my ships were always spot on, before, during and immediately after the time that I sailed on them.


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## mikeg (Aug 24, 2006)

Ron,

Divine justice would have 'Drunken Duncan' as yet another statistic. Explosion in ER, no electrical power, hull ruptured. R/O instructed to send distress.. R/O last seen winding handles furiously on the LB transmitter as the water rose. Ship lost without trace. Trouble is life hardly ever works out that way, would make a good book though.

Mike


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## sandy steel (Jun 3, 2008)

I joined a Shell 'H' boat in Stanlow at the beginning of 1964. After checking all the Radio Room equipment to be satisfactory, I was on my way ashore to post the handover form back to Marconi when I thought better go down aft and have a look at the Lifeboat set. Took the sleaves off the 'Salvita' and couldn't turn the handles - bearings were solid with corrosion !


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## makko (Jul 20, 2006)

Not radio room, but would like to participate.....On one ship as 4th, the outgoing fourth showed me the engine room door, took me down in the lift and back up to cabin, told me he was "leaving me some good boiler suits" and was off! Thanks for this chance to make public my appreciation to him after all these years!!
Rgds.
Dave


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## sparks69 (Dec 18, 2005)

I had a beaut once - joined a ship in Swansea ready to go onto the Nigerian coast. Batteries totally knackered, Atlanta was wired into the 13 amp socket on the wall as well as the mains soldered onto the secondary of the mains transformer and not even screwed down to the desk. There was a jack plug arrangement which connected to a L/s in the bar. I could go on forever - main & emergency Tx both u/s. I called Marconi down and they condemed the lot. Owners contacted Master who said the previous R/O was a very economical one who sent all traffic via the agents each port and he had no reason to question her capabilities! I treatened to get the Radio Surveyor down when my integrity was in question. Result I got a free hand to buy all that was necessary and I had the most enjoyable four months fixing everything. I even gave up smoking too on that trip.


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

mikeg said:


> Ron,
> 
> Divine justice would have 'Drunken Duncan' as yet another statistic. Explosion in ER, no electrical power, hull ruptured. R/O instructed to send distress.. R/O last seen winding handles furiously on the LB transmitter as the water rose. Ship lost without trace. Trouble is life hardly ever works out that way, would make a good book though.
> 
> Mike



How the hell would the ship have passed its annual safety radio survey!?

The batts and locker couldn't have got in that state in 12 months....

Hmmm......


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## mikeg (Aug 24, 2006)

I've had the occasional radio surveys where the battery locker wasn't visually checked by the surveyor. It could be that the same happened and there may have been just enough in the batteries to get 'Drunken Duncan's' through the radio survey if the batteries had been given a charge boost just prior to the survey. 
Just a thought, if after a distress situation it was found that the emergency batteries had been neglected who would be liable in law, the R/O or the Master, as he countersigns the radio logs - or would the liability be shared?


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

Troppo said:


> How the hell would the ship have passed its annual safety radio survey!


Can't say how long it took to get like that. Never mind the radio survey, the ship involved spent 2 or 3 weeks visiting 7 or 8 Irish/UK West Coast ports every couple of months, each time it returned from the Med trip. You would have thought that someone might have picked it up. I suppose it was something to do with the R/O being permanently on the same vessel and never asking MIMCo to send any technicians on board to deal with anything other than the radar.

Have to confess that I have never thought much about it until now.


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

While on the subject of handovers, I am reminded of a story I posted elsewhere on the site, some years ago. 

I once handed over a ship in Avonmouth to a gentleman of advanced years who no longer went deep sea, as Marconi's had put him into an unofficial pool of 'relieving R/Os' that just took ships around the coast whilst the deep sea guys took leave. I took him through all the gear in the radio room, showed him all the spares and tools and made sure that he was happy with everything.

Then I asked to come with me onto the Bridge so that I could show him the Master's pride and joy, a tiny Marconi 'Quo Vadis' radar. When he decined, I told him that the OM was very keen on it being kept up to scratch and although, prior to my joining, the Radar log was full of fault reports and service visits at almost every port, while I had been there all had gone well. 

He was unimpressed and said that he wouldn't be bothering with it; if it went wrong so be it, the Master would have to get by without it. 

''I don't do radar,'' he said. ''When I first got my ticket and went to sea, they hadn't even invented the triode valve, so they can't expect me to know about radar.''


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## Nova Scotian (Jul 2, 2006)

CAPTAIN JEREMY said:


> I had a very fast handover as 2nd Mate with the ship at anchor in Tor Bay. The guy I was relieving was a "professional" 2nd mate with the company, and was leaving for urgent family reasons. It was a case of "everything is up to date"and off he hopped into the Pilot boat which had taken me out to the ship. I was less than pleased when I discovered shortly afterwards 16 weeks of chart corrections still in their envelopes in a locker beneath the chart table. I am sure it was just coincidence that he left the company immediately after that.


I had a similar experience when joining a bulk carrier in Vancouver as 2/O. I inherited a world-wide folio of charts and about four months of NTMs and transparencies. The local charts were all up to date though.


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## mikeg (Aug 24, 2006)

Ron,

That got me wondering as I'd got my radar qualification before I went to sea. How did R/O's without this qualification fare? I can just imagine some of the Masters reactions if "I don't do radar," was said.
I guess it'd be just like any other equipment you hadn't seen before, get the manuals out and hope that experience, logic and spares will see you through.


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## price (Feb 2, 2006)

I was captain of a small tanker drydocked in Hull, one evening I had a message that sadly, the father of a captain of another of the companies tankers had suddenly died and the captain wished to be relieved the next day on arrival at Cardiff. The agent arranged an early taxi and rail travel for the following morning, unfortunatey the train broke down near Rotherham and I missed my connection at York. Arriving in a taxi, late afternoon, I found the captain on the quay with his cases, we hardly had time to say hello, as he sped off in my taxi and I jumped on to the wing of the bridge, the crew already on stations and moorings singled up, I was swinging the ship off the berth on a rapidly falling tide before his taxi was out of sight. The reason for the panic was, that we used to discharge clean oils at the Texaco Berth outside the locks, and had to suspend discharge, disconnect and leave the berth every time a large ship transitited the locks, this often meant not reberthing until half tide on the next flood. Bruce.


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

mikeg said:


> I've had the occasional radio surveys where the battery locker wasn't visually checked by the surveyor. It could be that the same happened and there may have been just enough in the batteries to get 'Drunken Duncan's' through the radio survey if the batteries had been given a charge boost just prior to the survey.
> Just a thought, if after a distress situation it was found that the emergency batteries had been neglected who would be liable in law, the R/O or the Master, as he countersigns the radio logs - or would the liability be shared?



If the surveyor didn't physically inspect the batt locker, he was negligent.

He is the one that signs the declaration on the survey form - which is used as the basis to issue the Cargo (or Passenger) ship safety radio certificate.

If the batteries failed, it would be the surveyor's **** on the line.

Amazing......just amazing....the kind of thing I would expect from a class society survey in some 3rd world dump, not a UK BOT surveyor (as they were then).

(and, yes, I'm an ex-surveyor).


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## Bob Murdoch (Dec 11, 2004)

Troppo said:


> If the surveyor didn't physically inspect the batt locker, he was negligent.
> 
> He is the one that signs the declaration on the survey form - which is used as the basis to issue the Cargo (or Passenger) ship safety radio certificate.
> 
> ...


I quite agree. The thought of a surveyor or Radio Inspector, as we were called in New Zealand in the sixties, signing of on such a set up makes me shiver in my shoes. 
Definitely a case where someone should have been hung out to dry.
Cheers Bob


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## Naytikos (Oct 20, 2008)

It must be something related to Avonmouth as I had a very similar experience with the Montreal City. R/O had been there for years as had everyone else; just my luck that he wanted a trip off and I happened to be on the Avonmouth books. My last UK-flag ship, as it happened!


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## Baulkham Hills (Jul 11, 2008)

The best handover I came across was between two gentlemen who had been working back to back. It consisted of 
"everything is the same as before, only worse".


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## david.hopcroft (Jun 29, 2005)

I had a surveyor come down early one morning, had a quick look around, switched on the Emergency Tx and said, 'I'll be back in six hours'. I was always conscientious about the batteries, and yes, the Tx was still running when he arrived !!

David
+


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## Graham P Powell (Jun 2, 2007)

I heard that Radio Surveyors could be very meticulous but to find that batteries in that condition is amazing. I had ships with old batteries that needed replacing but the battery lockers and logbooks were clean and up to date. I'm particularly surprised if UK surveyors were involved.
rgds
Graham Powell


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## JoK (Nov 12, 2006)

I was 3rd engineer on a bulker heading up Belleisle Strait off of the East Coast of Canada. It is just after 0400, I am doing my first set of rounds, when the engine slows right down, I head for the MCR double quick to see what is going on. I arrive in the MCR in time to see the telegraph go from slow to full astern with the engine screaming. 
Holy crap, I thought, are we hitting land or another ship? and I hang on for the crash. After a bit, the telegraphs go back to full ahead and the phone rings.
The mate says, I suppose you are wondering.....
It turns out, he has relieved the watch, the other mate says all is fine and bales out. The mate realizes minutes later there is a FV cutting across our bow, he slows down, goes astern, hits the horn and looses sight of the FV. He was sure we had hit it. At the last instant the FV had turned down the ships side (they must have woke up) and comes back into view.
I was shaken, waiting in the MCR for events to unfold and being positive we were going to be in a collision!


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## Baulkham Hills (Jul 11, 2008)

A handover that sticks in my mind was when I joined a tanker in the Gulf as Electrician, I arrived at about 3am and tried to get some sleep which was not easy as the cabin I was in was crawling with roaches. At 6am the departing Electrician called me and we went to the engine room. The condition of the ship in daylight was even worse than the night before. Anyway the lecky assured that while the ship was a disaster mechanically, electrically it was perfect. I noted the earth meter was reading beautifully at infinity which was surprising considering the ship's age and condition, according to the lecky this was the way it always was. After about an hour he paid off. The ship sailed in the afternoon and almost immediately the fire alarms went off in the accommodation. After checking, confirmed it was a false alarm, reset it and about an hour later same thing happened. Started taking down some bulkheads and found a short circuit in the wiring. Everybody told me they never had a fire alarm before. According to the records they were tested weekly. I checked out the whole system and found that the smoke alarms in the pump rooms were totally defective. I am pretty sure the fire alarm system had been off previously to avoid false alarms. 
The earth meter was reading perfectly because it was disconnected and when I wired it up, it was a dead short on one phase to earth. There were plenty of nice suprises for instance the High pressure trip on the boiler was shorted with a jumper so the safeties were the first and last defence against a boiler explosion. Fuses were shorted out to stop them blowing. The outgoing lecky was regular on this ship but asked for relief just before the ship went into drydock (a wise move). A week later we went into drydock which was exciting to say the least. Anyway I survived it and I worked on that ship until it was scrapped about two years later.


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## eldersuk (Oct 24, 2005)

Joined a ship as 2/E in Bordeaux in 1965 and was assured everything was fine. The ER crowd were cleaning the scavenge of the B&W Opposed Piston only to discover a water leak in one of the (tri-partite) liners. We had a fun 48 hours or so dealing with a problem someone else had left for us.

Another time I joined a ship in Milford Haven to relieve the regular Chief who was regarded as the star turn of the company. Sailed that night into a force 8 and the M.E. governor drive shaft sheared. Naturally the engine raced away and had to be controlled with a shifter on the fuel rack control. CP pitch shedding gear was found to be inoperative. We eventually gtot alongside and found a couple of main bearings run. In addition there were innumerable examples of bad practice in the ER including the main lub oil filters wrongly assembled. My predecessor was rapidly demoted from 'star turn' status!
All that on one of Ruston's V8s, the one with the underslung crankshaft and master/ slave conn rods. I forget the designation, must be a nervous reaction!!

Derek


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## Radiomariner (Nov 7, 2008)

On the subject of Radio Batteries I have a possible explination why a Radio Surveyor may have missed the problem. I had a quick handover, the old fashioned volt and ammeters seemed to be reading OK. The outgoing R/O showed me the battery locker which was in pristine condition. He told me that they have never needed to be topped. Sure enough when I looked a couple of days later they were as he said, all OK I even checked the SG on a few cells. 
It all checked out with a well maintained battery log. The Radio Survey had been carried out about two months earlier.
However, the emergency transmitter which I liked to use a lot for local M/F cw seemed to be running low after only about 30 minutes. (Remember those noisy rotary converters?) On about my fourth day the 2nd Mate caught me coming out of the locker. He demanded to know what I was doing in his battery locker!! It turned out that my predecessor had been checking out the Gyro batteries thinking they were radio batteries of course they were in good condition the 2/O inspected and topped up as necessary every Saturday, the R/O checked them on Sundays!! We then had to hunt for the radio batteries which were nobody knew where. I found them on the "monkey island" in a big rusty steel box with would you believe a small brass plack saying "Gyro Batteries". The electrolyte was a long way below the plates and it took four gallons of distilled water to top them up. Both banks had to be replaced. As for the battery volt meter, it was one of those great big old fashioned style with the round dial about 8 inches diameter mounter on a wooden board with a matching ammeter, (remember the type?) a dead fly had somehow got in and trapped between the glass and the hidden part of the needle. The needle could not go lower than 23 volts, and with the massive parallax error could be read to be 24.5!
The previous R/O had been there for nine months, I understand his mistake but I always felt that in that time he could have at least have noticed that things were not quite right and investigated as did I. The surveyor I can forgive.


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## dab (Jun 7, 2007)

Joined a ship in Singapore in the mid 60s and the lecky I was relieving had already left! The 2nd lecky said that that everything was in good working order. After looking at the planned maintenance log I noticed that a couple of main E/R motors had not been switched over as per schedule. The 2nd lecky did not know why. As we were in dry dock and had time for a thorough look around I found that the dashpots on the port main circ pump motor had a heavy engine type oil in them instead of the silocine type! On inspection this motor had burned out before when the overloads should have prevented this.


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## 7woodlane (Apr 20, 2009)

Big container ship in Southampton. During survey asked why no mention of weekly lifeboat tests in the radio log at all. " Well, if I actually test it, it will cause it to break down, so I just don't test it". This from senior R/O in the company. So that's ok then. (Was it the Southern Cross whose radio room was completely wiped out by lightning strike off the Australian coast ? The lifeboat radio saved the day by enabling the ship to eventually make contact with a coast station).
Other instances elsewhere with radio batteries particularly NIFE cells. The Specific Gravity never changes during charge/discharge, common knowledge, or so I thought. Why fiddle the readings in the battery log to mimic lead-acid charge/discharge readings. " The previous R/O did it so I copied him. " said he. I forget the name of the ship. just as well.
To put these comments into proper perspective. They are individual cases and in no way reflect on the good conscientious R/Os out there who greatly outnumber the Heidelburgers amongst us.


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## YORKYSPARX (Mar 31, 2006)

Called to a Greek vessel at Harwich, told she had Radio Battery trouble. Boarded the ship RO ashore, the 2nd mate said we were coming up the channel when we saw flames reflected in the bridge windows, we looked out to see which poor ship was on fire, found it was us. The battery locker had burst into flames, they managed to put it out. Cost them 2 banks of batteries, a battery locker, and technicians pay for two days.
Suspected that the batteries had never been topped up.


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## mikeg (Aug 24, 2006)

What was it with these battery lockers? Didn't those RO's want to get their hands dirty or was it a case of the locker being 'out of sight, out of mind'
It doesn't take long to check the batteries, top up and a bit of a clean. Didn't mind the job.


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

Yes, I always enjoyed looking after the batts....

Given the fact that the batts could save your life, I just can't fathom why some blokes ignored them....even if you were a lazy bastard, surely your own survival would be of interest....


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## 7woodlane (Apr 20, 2009)

Mikeg makes fair comment about battery lockers, access to, and all that bother (to some of us), but the Master has some responsibility to ensure all is well on his ship. Anyone else agree ? I thought all this was about Safety of Life at Sea, and not a matter of take it or leave it.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

The Master has ultimate responsibility for everything but surely he is entitled to assume that everyone is doing their job. We were supposed to be responsible officers. I wouldn't have been very impressed if the Old Man had started checking on my battery locker (assuming he knew where it was).

John T.


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## harry pennington (Aug 10, 2010)

7woodlane said:


> Mikeg makes fair comment about battery lockers, access to, and all that bother (to some of us), but the Master has some responsibility to ensure all is well on his ship. Anyone else agree ? I thought all this was about Safety of Life at Sea, and not a matter of take it or leave it.


As R/O On one ship I had concern about the battery life and as look would have it we were having problems with the main circulating pumps
and had 7 days anchored in Aden. I gave the batts a full discharge/charge tests checking sg etc.They were somewhat less than perfect. Had words with the old man and we arranged new set to be delivered to us as we anchored to take on water at Singapore [none available in Aden]. I did not look on battery maintanance as a chore, But as you say vital to safety of life at sea.


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## Baulkham Hills (Jul 11, 2008)

My relief arrived and for some reason there was a long handover lasting a week or so eventhough he was on the ship before and knew it well. There was an emergency generator made by a defunct manufacturer called Torpedo, this generator could be difficult to start and it was practice to start the generator every three days or so rather than weekly and this made starting easier. It had two independent staring systems with seperate batteries two starters and two control systems. One was a key start and the other was an auto start on black out which would allow 3 engine starts of 6 seconds with 4 seconds between each start. So a black out could be simulated by using the auto start button without supplying power.
I asked my relief if he wanted to start it and he said he would walk around the engine room instead, so I went to do it myself. After checking the radiator and oil level. I pressed the auto start button and all I got was a loud clunk but the engine was not turning over.
Then the starter motor began to smoke. By this time the first start was over. Obviously something was very wrong. I tried to stop the starting sequence but to no avail, to get at the controller would mean screwing the cover off and disconnecting the power and there was no time. Meanwhile the 4 seconds were over and it tried to start the engine again, even more smoke from the starter motor again. The only thing I could do was disconnect the starting batteries. It seemed like a long time but eventually it stopped trying to start the engine.
Using my shifter I undid a terminal on the battery just in time to avoid another start. In the meantime the smoke from the starter motor activated the fire alarms.
Afterwards the C/Eng asked me what happened and I explained what I did, no different from many other times. He tried to bar over the engine but it would not move. Eventually it was discovered there was a pinhole corrosion between the cooling line and one cylinder which filled up with fluid and when I attemted to start it I was in effect trying to compress liquid. 
The starter motor was removed but apart from burn marks and being covered with carbon when it was cleaned up it was undamaged. The company later asked why the generator was being started despite being standing orders to start it weekly. Then the next thing was was the water level low in the radiator, the C/Eng did the figures and found that the level would less that 2mm at the radiator when a cylinder had water in it. After the pin hole was repaired the generator started ok and worked normally. I sailed on the ship again, I never had that problem again.


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## M29 (Apr 20, 2007)

7woodlane said:


> Big container ship in Southampton. During survey asked why no mention of weekly lifeboat tests in the radio log at all. " Well, if I actually test it, it will cause it to break down, so I just don't test it". This from senior R/O in the company. So that's ok then. (Was it the Southern Cross whose radio room was completely wiped out by lightning strike off the Australian coast ? The lifeboat radio saved the day by enabling the ship to eventually make contact with a coast station).
> *Other instances elsewhere with radio batteries particularly NIFE cells. The Specific Gravity never changes during charge/discharge, common knowledge, or so I thought.* Why fiddle the readings in the battery log to mimic lead-acid charge/discharge readings. " The previous R/O did it so I copied him. " said he. I forget the name of the ship. just as well.
> To put these comments into proper perspective. They are individual cases and in no way reflect on the good conscientious R/Os out there who greatly outnumber the Heidelburgers amongst us.


Hi All
Flew from UK and joined ship at Montreal, bound Great Lakes. A swift change over of about an hour and agent whipped previous R/O and other officers away to airport.
On inspecting Radio Room found the following problems.
VHF (essential for Seaway transit) faulty.
R408 main reciever very unstable.
Reserve receiver (monitor) completely dead
MIMCO Crusader non operational on half its bands.
Part B battery log recorded perfect lead acid readings for two banks of batteries, however, in our company we never used LA always NIFE and only one bank.
Battery locker door was painted over several times and no key could be found. The 3/E broke in in for me and sure enough, one bank NIFE. 
It is a tribute to the robustness of NIFE cells that this battery was ok even though obviously not maintained fro a long time. 
None of us are perfect but I felt that the state of the Radio Department on this ship could have led to charges of criminal negligence had anything serious happened. I was fortunate to be traveling the Lakes off normal radio watches and having the time to bring things back to normal. I have to say however that normally handovers in this direct employ company were excellent.

Best Wishes

Alan


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