# Dumping Sludge at sea.



## Jocko

Back in the bad old days when we purified the fuel oil with the De Laval separaters we used to dump our sludge at sea. I always remember doing it because it was a steam injector and I never felt comfortable with the noise it made when the steam hit the icy sea. It always felt as if the valve was going to explode. What, I was wondering, would it be an acceptable practice in this day and age to dispose of oily sludge in this way?(Wave)


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## GWB

I dinna think so the wee fishes would nae like it, and the Greenies would get upset


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## James_C

Jocko,
It's normally burned in either the shipboard incinerator (all have them now) or disposed of ashore.


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## John Cassels

Far easier in the old days , dumping it over the wall


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## stores

*sludge*

all the ships i was on we had to carry it up on deck, chuck over the stern, was hard work, hated cleaning them, usually hot and smelly places, (Scribe)


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## chadburn

At the time we were dumping the Goverment's were dumping chemical weapon's!!


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## stores

*Sludge*

So true, think we would be shocked if we knew what they dumped, and the amounts that were dumped, must have had some bad effect eventually, was a case of out of sight out of mind.(Scribe)


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## Orbitaman

James_C said:


> Jocko,
> It's normally burned in either the shipboard incinerator (all have them now) or disposed of ashore.


The last company I worked for had six tankers, all built in the last ten years, none of which are fitted with an incinerator.


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## teop

Blowing out sludgetank with compr.air/steam was standard procedure.
Burning f.o./lubeoil deposits is no good for heat stacks ,creates hard layers
on pipes/walls.
Theres a lot of mustard gas drums dumped in the Baltic near Bornholm.
Fishing mustarded herrings happens.It is a time bomb rusting drums.


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## Jocko

Come to think about it the sludge was probably 99% water and sediment so it wouldn`t have caused that much pollution.


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## william dillon

Jocko said:


> Come to think about it the sludge was probably 99% water and sediment so it wouldn`t have caused that much pollution.


How many fish told you that, I personally have pumped this S**t over the side & would not like to be on the receiving end !!


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## david freeman

never mind the purifiers and clarifier sluge how about the tankers in the good old days-Tank cleaning on leaving NW Europe change of ballst Off Malta and all that crap from tank cleaning went over the wall. The Med off Malta had an oily sheen for mile after mile-Rather disgraceful- Then the balasting of remaining tanks to the canal, for a gas free passage through! MARPOL has done a good job of work.


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## jim garnett

What happens to human excreta these days?I remember i !950 spending 3 weeks in Colombo harbour with another dozen or so ships all voiding their fecal matter into the harbour.It didn't deter us from swimming as ther wasn''t anything else to do.It didn't do me any harm and 62 years I don't expect it will.Before going to sea I often worked in dry docks and the dodging of Fecal matter was an ever present occupational hazard."the good old days"
Jim Garnett


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## surfaceblow

The ships now have sewage treatment plants and holding tanks. 

Joe


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## TOM ALEXANDER

jim garnett said:


> What happens to human excreta these days?I remember i !950 spending 3 weeks in Colombo harbour with another dozen or so ships all voiding their fecal matter into the harbour.It didn't deter us from swimming as ther wasn''t anything else to do.It didn't do me any harm and 62 years I don't expect it will.Before going to sea I often worked in dry docks and the dodging of Fecal matter was an ever present occupational hazard."the good old days"
> Jim Garnett


Ah! The good old days --- one of the first jobs of the deck apprentices after all fast and FWE was to rig the "sh1t chutes" over the discharge ports so that the effluent would be directed into the harbour, rather than over the quay, or barges alongside.


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## Mike S

Ah yes........memories of working a tug alongside the quarter of an Indian ship flying light!

(EEK)


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## Jocko

william dillon said:


> How many fish told you that, I personally have pumped this S**t over the side & would not like to be on the receiving end !!


Hey Billy, pull your neck in, I didn`t design the ships engineroom. Consider the fact that today one single supertanker goes aground and causes more pollution than the entire merchant fleet of the 50s and 60s.(Gleam)


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## Varley

I suppose there must have been, perhaps still are, a few who put sh.. over the wall while having facilities to avoid it but it is the modern media who have misled the public into believing that it's done willfully. We are paid to carry the stuff or burn it, not to spill it!


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## chadburn

Varley, unless you have a "secret" pipe like a well known shipping company had fitted to it's vessel's.(*)) Fortunatly my last year's at sea we criss-crossed the Atlantic which was the place I would give the word to dump, dumping in the Med was a No,No.


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## MARINEJOCKY

Getting real bad fuel and then having to dig that rock solid sludge out of the purifiers in the hottest flat in the shipbefore carrying the buckets up to the deck and dumping it (usually at night) into the big locker. 

I had to deal with one of our ships being arrested in Montreal, it to was criss crossing the Atlantic and did not realize that there was some big rock off Canada that they use for there terrotorial waters. Our ship dumped its sludge and tanks and the Canadians spotted it. They had/have a plane that dives down to take a sample and then go after the ship. 

The oily water seperators were kept in pristine condition for when ever the coastguard etc came on board and I can not remember using one while deep sea. 

Now it is definately the poacher turned gamekeeper as I am involved in water & waste treatment systems. 

and remember that many studies have shown that the earth has many underwater gushers spewing more oil into the seas than any number of ULCC's spilling there cargo's.


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## Varley

chadburn said:


> Varley, unless you have a "secret" pipe like a well known shipping company had fitted to it's vessel's.(*)) Fortunatly my last year's at sea we criss-crossed the Atlantic which was the place I would give the word to dump, dumping in the Med was a No,No.


I did suggest there might be some. Surely they are not ones of us are they? I well remember we regularly produced a "surface sheen" - all the way from Aden to the Quoins - but we had no alternative.


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## bill mc guire

used to pump it straight over the wall though we did have oily water seperators this had been going on from the beginining of steam and the sea is still here let the greenies answer that


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## Varley

Bill,

Just think if you hadn't. Perhaps we would be thought of less badly and not locked up if we put some in by accident - not that any of us would have known how public opinion would be bent against us.

David V


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## jmcg

I thought it was/is mandatory to have a dedicated log book where entries are made detailing disposal including methods,times etc.

Is this correct?


BW

J(Gleam)(Gleam)


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## JT McRae

jmcg - this is absolutely correct. The Oil Record Book is an official do***ent and is closely examined during audits, Class surveys and flag and port state inspections. It has to be written up in a very specific way and this makes it possible when it is examined to pin-point any illegal discharges overboard.


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## jmcg

Thanks for confirmation JT.

BW

J(Gleam)(Gleam)


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## Derek Roger

JT McRae said:


> jmcg - this is absolutely correct. The Oil Record Book is an official do***ent and is closely examined during audits, Class surveys and flag and port state inspections. It has to be written up in a very specific way and this makes it possible when it is examined to pin-point any illegal discharges overboard.


Probably the most "flogged " book on any ship . Sad but that is the way it is . Wait for some heavy weather and pump it all out by all accounts ( exellent conditions being when there is a lot of traffic )
All to do with $$$$$ and the companies like vessels that do not have a high cost of disposing of stuff . 
Perhaps if each vessel was logged on how much they spent on disposal annually there would be better control . There would be a mean for every ship of a particular size and they would be benefited or penalised on what their costs were .
It would penalise the dodgers and benefit those who were following the rules .


Just one mans view . Derek


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## James_C

Would say I concur with Derek, and rather oddly (and perhaps wrongly) it's the Old Man who has to sign the bottom of the page attesting that it is a true statement of the facts, not the Chief!


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## JT McRae

James_C, quite correct that the Old Man has to countersign, but this doesn't stop the Chief from being locked up if there is a spill or it is found that sludge has been pumped over the side.
It's actually pretty hard to flog the OR Book these days, with compulsory weekly tank statements entered into it, and severe penalties if flogging is detected. Even incineration and any other disposal has to be entered, so the book is used generally on a daily basis. Quite different from even a decade ago.
It's probably the main thing that I insist upon with my ER staff that this book is written up accurately and I check it daily.


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## Jocko

There was, as far as I know, no such thing as an Oil Record Book when I was at sea. It was normal watch keeping duties for the 4th Eng. to keep the fuel tanks topped up and purifying the diesel when required. The sludge tank was cleared out when it got full and you didn`t require permission. As far as I was concerned it was mostly water and grit so I didn`t think we were doing serious damage to the ocean. I never sailed on tankers so I don`t know anything about the cleaning out of their ballast as that would have been an entirely different story.


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## CFL

Why dump it at sea? If your ship calls at a Chinese port they'll pay you to take sludge away. We rely on this money (the 'sludge fund') for those expenditures that the company budget will never stand for.


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## Malky Glaister

I never saw an OWS that would cope with sludge. It was mostly high SG and therefore sank. Burn it more trouble for all.
Why is the ocean not covered in oil? Enclosed docks were pretty grim I admit, don't fall in!!

regards Malky


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## chadburn

You are right Jocko that is how it use to be, however, these day's it all has to be recorded in a book. But again, however, Maersk were heavily fined (not that long ago) because they had their vessel's fitted with a "secret pipe" to dump, so what had been recorded in the book for many year's was meaningless.


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## lakercapt

When refueling in Sarnia (At the refinery dock) we would pump the sludge ashore to the refinery.
Next ship maybe got it back again mixed with their fuel as it had a s.g. of .997.


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## manson_shetland

lakercapt said:


> When refueling in Sarnia (At the refinery dock) we would pump the sludge ashore to the refinery.
> Next ship maybe got it back again mixed with their fuel as it had a s.g. of .997.


This happened a couple of years ago on a containership I was serving on. We loaded 800MT of heavy oil bunkers from anchorage off Odessa, and within a very few hours of starting to process these bunkers the purifiers had choked up solid due to the sludge in the fuel. We had to get rid of the whole lot again at our next port, and with HFO at around $600-700 per tonne at the time, I wouldn't have liked to have been left with the bill for that lot!


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## Satanic Mechanic

Well...................

These days the Oil Record Book tends to be one of the most acccurate pieces of literature in existence - try getting caught with an anomoly for a giggle.

Secret pipes - really really really bad news to get caught with one of them.

sludge - i prefer to pump it to shore reception at every opprtunity


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## Satanic Mechanic

JT McRae said:


> It's probably the main thing that I insist upon with my ER staff that this book is written up accurately and I check it daily.


If possible I have one person that fills it in (depends on staff levels of course) that way it reduces the chance of any embarrasment


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## alan ward

chadburn said:


> At the time we were dumping the Goverment's were dumping chemical weapon's!!


I have a photo somewhere us on the Clan Sutherland dumping nuclear waste in concrete filled oil drums on our way to Capetown.I wonder how long before that comes in contact with the atlantic?


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## Derek Roger

alan ward said:


> I have a photo somewhere us on the Clan Sutherland dumping nuclear waste in concrete filled oil drums on our way to Capetown.I wonder how long before that comes in contact with the atlantic?


Ouch !


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## william dillon

(Thumb)


Jocko said:


> Hey Billy, pull your neck in, I didn`t design the ships engineroom. Consider the fact that today one single supertanker goes aground and causes more pollution than the entire merchant fleet of the 50s and 60s.(Gleam)


I'm not having a go at you, merely stating that I have personally dumped this stuff over the side, as we all have done in years gone past.(Thumb)


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## rlrenz

An old uncle of mine worked in the SanFran shipyards during WWII - they had a ship in the drydock one day when someone flushed, and he was on the receiving end. He went into the ship, unbolted the stool, and stuffed every pair of coveralls he could find down the pipe as far as he could with a broomstick, then reinstalled the throne. He told me that he often wondered when the ship found out that the pipe was "plugged".


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## Ian J. Huckin

Well, not dumping sludge at sea exactly, how about pumping bilges alongside??? 

Alongside in Murmansk one winter on an old ore carrier back in the late 60s we were all marched out on deck by armed guards in the snow and cold one morning whilst being interogated as to who had polluted the harbour. We all pleaded innocent until the commanding officer directed us to look over the side. Ice had come in the harbour overnight and with three inches or so of lovely fresh snow on top the black lake there lined up perfectly with our bilge pump overboard!!!!!

I believe much whisky was traded for freedom.


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## bob francis

every ship i was on the oily water seperator never worked so hench over the side


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## BoB Vick

Check out U-tube, enter in search line BW Danube. you will find out how getting rid of slops is carried out these days??????


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## FILIPVS

alan ward said:


> I have a photo somewhere us on the Clan Sutherland dumping nuclear waste in concrete filled oil drums on our way to Capetown.I wonder how long before that comes in contact with the atlantic?


In the Atlantic Trench in 1982-1995 were throwed 140.000 tonnes of nuclear waste from Uk and Netherlands mainly . It was legal. 
http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/te-acuerdas/acuerdas-vertidos-radiactivos-fosa-atlantica/685580/
What good times those in which one could legally pollute all for milleniums!!


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## lakercapt

FILIPVS said:


> In the Atlantic Trench in 1982-1995 were throwed thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste from UK and Netherlands mainly . It was legal.
> 
> Robertson of Glasgow had a vessel that did the dumping every summer for years.
> Topaz was the ship.
> The crew were checked on a regular basis to see if they were contaminated.The ship too was monitored.
> Alas many died of cancer some years late.
> We were told that it was safe Yeah I also believe in the tooth fairy.


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## tom roberts

As posted previous when an os on the Novelist we loaded 40gallon drums of something at Octel Ellesmere Port and dumped it at sea ,when loading the shore side workers wore protective gear we just wore shorts etc.Years later I worked there horrible place the air was thick with the smell of lead never ever saw a seagull over the place or any other wild life.Another oddity was the Manchester sewage boats that used to sail out into the Mersey and dump their contents .Anybody can shed light on this?.


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## Pat Kennedy

TOM ALEXANDER said:


> Ah! The good old days --- one of the first jobs of the deck apprentices after all fast and FWE was to rig the "sh1t chutes" over the discharge ports so that the effluent would be directed into the harbour, rather than over the quay, or barges alongside.


I was in the Ascanius alongside in Gdynia in the early sixties, when Poland was part of the Soviet Union. Someone had neglected to hang the sh1t chutes over the inboard side and after a few hours a pair of port officials accompanied by armed militia stormed up the gangway threatening draconian fines and imprisonment unless the steaming piles of crap on the quay were cleaned up.
Four of us from the deck crowd, two JOS and two deck boys were sent ashore with shovels, brooms and buckets to do the dirty work.
I wouldnt mind but the effluent from the sailor's bathroom discharged on the outboard side, so it wasnt even our crap!
Pat(Thumb)


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## Pat Kennedy

jim garnett said:


> What happens to human excreta these days?I remember i !950 spending 3 weeks in Colombo harbour with another dozen or so ships all voiding their fecal matter into the harbour.It didn't deter us from swimming as ther wasn''t anything else to do.It didn't do me any harm and 62 years I don't expect it will.Before going to sea I often worked in dry docks and the dodging of Fecal matter was an ever present occupational hazard."the good old days"
> Jim Garnett


When I worked on the cranes in Western Shiprepairers in Birkenhead, the first job for the crane once the ship was on the blocks and the gangway rigged, was to pick up a couple of shipwrights in a box, and visit every opening in the hull on both sides of the ship, where the chippes would hammer in a wooden bung with a hole drilled through it. they fitted a tube into the hole which ensured any liquid discharge would be directed a few feet from the hull.
Regards, 
Pat(Thumb)


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## garry Norton

How does yatchs and pleasure launches get rid of their waiste as many do not have sludge tanks and there is more of them than comercial vessels and they operate close to shore. I suppose my age is showing as in the Pacific Islands our coastal craft had thunder boxes over the stern or shutes leading overboard and some of our craft carried 100 passengers.


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## BoB Vick

Check out You Tube then enter BW Danube you will see what is happening today with 3rd world officers and crew


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## hamishb

In the early 1960s I seem to remember dumping the results of tank cleaning sludge over the stern via a pipe fitted for the purpose of discharging this waste. Perhaps some of the deck department could verify this. This pipe can be clearly seen on photos of the stern views of British Judge (in drydock) and British Cavalier also less clear on British Holy It terminates in a right angle bend over the stern.
Hamish


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## Orbitaman

BoB Vick said:


> Check out You Tube then enter BW Danube you will see what is happening today with 3rd world officers and crew


Happening today? The video is date stamped 1980 - only 33 years ago. In 1980, the practice shown in the video was still legal.

I have sailed on ships with British Officers who pumped far more oil than that in the video over the wall in the course of tank cleaning. Suggesting that the practice is only carried out by 'third world' crews is wrong!


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## chadburn

hamishb said:


> In the early 1960s I seem to remember dumping the results of tank cleaning sludge over the stern via a pipe fitted for the purpose of discharging this waste. Perhaps some of the deck department could verify this. This pipe can be clearly seen on photos of the stern views of British Judge (in drydock) and British Cavalier also less clear on British Holy It terminates in a right angle bend over the stern.
> Hamish


I alway's thought that the particular pipe you mention was part of the pre- installed over the Stern RAS system if BP Tanker's were "Called Up"


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## oldseamerchant

hamishb said:


> In the early 1960s I seem to remember dumping the results of tank cleaning sludge over the stern via a pipe fitted for the purpose of discharging this waste. Perhaps some of the deck department could verify this. This pipe can be clearly seen on photos of the stern views of British Judge (in drydock) and British Cavalier also less clear on British Holy It terminates in a right angle bend over the stern.
> Hamish


Discharging slops over the side? Has it stopped? I don't think so! It was a regular occurrence up into the 90s. No specific, dedicated, special pipe. Just over the side in the conventional manner.


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## Orbitaman

oldseamerchant said:


> Discharging slops over the side? Has it stopped? I don't think so! It was a regular occurrence up into the 90s. No specific, dedicated, special pipe. Just over the side in the conventional manner.


Slops can still legally be discharged overboard provided the discharge meets the following criteria:

The vessel is not within a designated 'special area';
The vessel is underway;
The vessel is more than 50 nautical miles offshore;
No more than 30 litres are discharged per nautical mile;
The total quantity of oil discharged is no more than 1/30,000th of the cargo the slops were a residue of;
The slops are discharged through an ODME;
The overboard discharge is above the water level.


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## DaveM399

Orbitaman said:


> Happening today? The video is date stamped 1980 - only 33 years ago. In 1980, the practice shown in the video was still legal.


I was not too sure about the date, as the picture quality of the video is far better than anything I can remember from that era. In fact were domestic video cameras even available then?
A quick Google shows that BW Danube was built in 2007. Was there an earlier ship of that name?


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## k.atkinson

In the early 1980s when pumping sludge or bilges over the side was becoming frowned on I remember several ports where we could not get anyone to collect it even though the port said the facilities were there. About the same time our manning became Philippine engineers(?) so leaving Antwerp one evening I was on stand-by for the Straits of Dover when I looked out of the control room door to see the bilge pump going. I turned it's breaker off and when the 4th appeared and asked what he was doing. He replied "pumping bilges", I said "we are about to go in the Straits", He replied "it is dark". I chained and padlocked the valves so only I could operate the pump.


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## Peter Hewson

When I started, early 60`s, discharging "slops" at sea was still quite commonplace, Sewage treatment systems ("Seaway") where a (relativly) "new" addition, and had a bye-pass for use on passage. "Oily water seperators" likewise where appearing more commonly. They really only worked well under narrow operating conditions of swell, pitch/roll. Towards the end of the 70`s, we where already discharging into sludge barges in port.
Pete.


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## taffe65

Peter Hewson said:


> When I started, early 60`s, discharging "slops" at sea was still quite commonplace, Sewage treatment systems ("Seaway") where a (relativly) "new" addition, and had a bye-pass for use on passage. "Oily water seperators" likewise where appearing more commonly. They really only worked well under narrow operating conditions of swell, pitch/roll. Towards the end of the 70`s, we where already discharging into sludge barges in port.
> Pete.


I was taking over DOB duty arrival Hong Kong and the chief eng had booked the sludge barge for when alongside (mv Tokyo Bay, chief was J.J. Lorimer aka "jumping jack"). Anyways normal day on board but sludge barge turned up later than ordered, so being the "hero" and wanting to completely empty the e.r. sludge tk it ended up me being down below till next morning.I voluntarily did this because a full sludge tk was a pain with the oil record book needing filling and faffing about with the O.W.S. every day, basically just reducing the workload on an already busy duty day. Anyway just turned in after a nice brekkie and shower when the the chief knocked on my cabin door with large cardboard box and hand written in felt pen " TO SLUDGE ENGINEER ! ", inside said box were two "foo dogs" made out of a green soapstone, they proudly sit either side of my fireplace to this day.The sludge barge crew were very happy because I,d pumped the good crap into their tank, whereas before they were just getting watery waste oil, the Wilden pump worked its ass off even with having to pump hot sludge,great pumps in my opinion.


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## Challisstern

BoB Vick said:


> Check out You Tube then enter BW Danube you will see what is happening today with 3rd world officers and crew


I watched both of the videos and fell asleep waiting for something to happen.


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## Challisstern

I remember going through the locks in Panama and the 2nd was pumping ER bilges, luckily the C/E was standing on the port side where the ballast pump OBD was and smelt diesel, so informed ER on the sound powered phone in rather colourful Scots. By the time the 2nd saw the Chief after Stand By it was perhaps forgotten as we weren't caught.
West bound we left a brown wavy line on the white hulled yatchs after a spillage during bunkering HFO, fortunately at night. It's not the doing it, but being caught doing it.
Bunkering is a Science, but after a spill where you are caught its an Art to come up with mitigating cir***stances that leaves you in the clear, blaming it as an act of god (doesn't matter which one).


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