# Now then how was this problem solved



## Derek Roger (Feb 19, 2005)

My number 2 son who is Chief on a tug in Saint john NB called me regarding a problem ; it was that thought which prompted me to ask the question re the Lucigen bilge pumping problem in my last thread .

This one was more compex and he solved it not I .

They were on station when he lost the SW cooling and had to return to dockside .
After the usual checks he determined there was a blockage on the sea bay .
A diver was brought in and declared the sea bay clean ?? The strainer was clean ?
He determined the blockage was in an internal pipe which was removed and proved to be clear.

The only possibility of a blockage appeared to be below the ship side valve where the diver could not see from outside the hull .

Number two Son solved the problem ; how did he do it and what was the root cause .????????????/



Derek 

Bu--er Lugs working overtime .


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## Don Matheson (Mar 13, 2007)

Two thoughts Derek, the intake affected by plastic sheeting or, and this one caught me out big time. Had a water flow affected by baby mussels which when the engine stopped the water flow did also and the tiny mussels grew in the intercooler. They seemed to enjoy the warm water in there and stayed till my water flow through both engines was falling off and they were only discovered when we opened the intercooler. 

Don


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## surfaceblow (Jan 16, 2008)

I was on one of the Sealift Tankers when we started to increase speed the engine on the line jacket water started to climb. After changing over to the other engine that engine jacket water started to climb. Since the two engines had its own strainers and pumps it was quickly determined that the common skin valve had its gate drop close. After ballasting the vessel to get the sea valve out of the water and a call from the US Coast Guard that we we were drifting toward Mexico. The Captain climbed over the side to check if the valve opening was out of the water. While the Captain was on the Pilot ladder the GVA asked me what was the Captain looking for when I told him we were checking for a fish in the intake pipe. When the Captain came back onboard he hit me telling me he almost fell off the ladder from laughing. We went back down below to take the bonnet off the valve and removed the gate valve's disk. After straighting up the ship we got underway washed tanks, ordered a new valve and headed to our loading port.

Once at the loading port we anchored and installed the new valve with the aid of a diver and shore gang.

Another time we use to get plastic bags that would block the intake screens as soon as you stop the pump the plastic bag would drop, but has soon as you restarted the pump the screen would plug up again. 

Joe


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## Derek Roger (Feb 19, 2005)

Not a plastic bag in this instance but he did use a sheet of thick plastic to have the diver cover the intake grid so the valve could be removed for inspection ; only a 5 ft head so not too risky a proposition He had made up a blank just in case there was a problem during the valve removal .


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## Derek Roger (Feb 19, 2005)

Im off fishing for a couple of days so will check the progress on Sunday .


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## Derek Roger (Feb 19, 2005)

He removed the valve and found two big eels in the pipe below the valve . They were both coiled up and dead and plugged the understide of the valve perfectly .


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## JoK (Nov 12, 2006)

LOL, I have suffered the mussel plugged lines, but never heard about eels.
I sailed with a professional 3rd steam engineer almost 30 years ago...OMG that long?....and he was telling me about loosing the vacuum on the condensers and the recip engines coming to a grinding halt. They had to go to atmosphere to sort things out. When they took the end bell off of the condenser, thousands of cooked tiny fish came flooding out. They put everything back together and raised vacuum and went on their way. Unfortunately, the cooked fish were a little more difficult to get out of the bilges and things were ripe for the next while.


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## spongebob (Dec 11, 2007)

A few mussel stories on thread "Mussel trouble for Shields ferry"

Bob


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## Derek Roger (Feb 19, 2005)

I experienced mussel problems in the sea strainers when trading between Vancouver and the far east . Strange thing was noticed that only the port strainer was being affected ; stbd was clean . We concluded that we were picking them up off the dockside as we were almost always port side too .


After that we only used the stbd strainer when alongside and never had any more mussel problems .


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## Satanic Mechanic (Feb 23, 2009)

Brisbane Jellyfish anyone - on one occasion I had 5 200 liter drums full of them and was getting about 3 minutes out of a strainer before it needed cleaning. After a few days of this we were like a Formula 1 pit stop team but jeez oh - the smell was indescribable


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## Don Matheson (Mar 13, 2007)

The problem with the mussels was a surprise to me as we used to fit Naflok balls in the sea strainers which I thought were doing a good job.
Seems Dutch mussels are imune to chemical killing!
Kept the rest of the pipes and engine cooling cleen though.

Don


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## chadburn (Jun 2, 2008)

Preferred "up and over" v/v's below the water line, that along with a decent Rose Plate and Blowjack's.(Thumb)


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## kewl dude (Jun 1, 2008)

Small plastic bags were a BIG problem while alongside in Saigon. Local soft drink beverages that were in cans in the US and Europe were sold in small plastic bags with a sharp end straw. There were so many of these bags in the waste water streams that they were sucked in by our main induction and plugged up the main condenser tubes.

Some of the plants I sailed like C4's had a split condenser. Half could be valved off while the other half was holding the vacuum. We became adept at quickly opening and cleaning out the other half, putting the bags in empty five gallon buckets to be added to our garbage taken ashore. We often wondered if that garbage was not just dumped back in the water.

Greg Hayden


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## Satanic Mechanic (Feb 23, 2009)

kewl dude said:


> Small plastic bags were a BIG problem while alongside in Saigon. Local soft drink beverages that were in cans in the US and Europe were sold in small plastic bags with a sharp end straw. There were so many of these bags in the waste water streams that they were sucked in by our main induction and plugged up the main condenser tubes.
> 
> 
> Greg Hayden


Aaaarghh - I'd forgotten about them -Bangkok as well - the entire economy seemed to based on making poly bags and then dumping directly into the sea suctions. And oh how I just loved being waist deep in the Chao Phraya.


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## jim garnett (Sep 13, 2009)

I had a similar problem in the Philly to baltimore canal while sailing behind an icebreaker.The intakes were blocking up with ice, so we attached a steam hose to a small cock on the intake.The only time i used steam to cool the main engine.
JIM GARNETT


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## chadburn (Jun 2, 2008)

Jim, that's a Blowjack as I knew it, ususally a steam v/v is mounted on the tapered bobbin piece twixt ship side and sea valve and get's rid of most "blocking agent's" incuding live organism's.


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## jim garnett (Sep 13, 2009)

chadburn said:


> Jim, that's a Blowjack as I knew it, ususally a steam v/v is mounted on the tapered bobbin piece twixt ship side and sea valve and get's rid of most "blocking agent's" incuding live organism's.


No,it was a small cock used apparenly for taking sea water samples.It had no steam connection.We just pushed a on rubber hose held by a jubilee clip and the other end to a steam sampling point.Having been in St John NB in the winter .I found it a place of ,high tides low temperature and very dry when thirsty after a hard day.I'd believe anything could happen there and working on a tug there would be a fate worse than death.
Jim Garnett.
(ex st john's tourist board)


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## John Timmins (Nov 24, 2010)

The chief mate came down into the engine room at 0345, which was unmanned at night, and went to the ballast valves and opened some to gravity de-ballast a filled cargo hold. Then he went on watch. at 0400.

Then the 2nd Engr gets an alarm, gets out of bed, and finds a d/gen overheating. Then the other starts overheating. He calls out the C/Engr and then the Main Engine starts getting alarms too.

To save a call out overtime hour for the duty engineer, and for some reason he couldn't wait till 0800, the chief mate came in the engine room and touched things.... a no-no on U.S. flag ships. The hold previously had coal in them. He did not inspect them. They were cleaned perfectly prior to ballasting. This was the Panamax bulk carrier *M/V Archon.*

So the water from that ballasted hold with all that head up to the main deck, starts racing down a 12 inch line to the low sea chest spinning that ballast pump backwards bringing coal with it. Eventually a hatch cover wedge that was in the rose box jammed the impeller of the ballast pump. 

So the coal flowing to the sea chest is now sucked up into the salt water service pumps which delivers coal to the generator lube oil, jacket water, and air coolers, each salt water cooled (and plumbed with cu-ni piping.) So that explains the generators over heating.

Now the main engine turbocharger air cooler is plugged up with coal, another big job, a B+W GB with the 900mm bore. Fortunately this wasn't too bad and we weren't stopped long. The standby generator was used until we got both the other gens rodded out.

Now the C/E starts raising hell about the Mate and then we, the engineers, are told to deballast, except the pump won't turn...WTF now ????

We got to Houston and the entire pump casing was changed out; that wedge was in it.

I heard later that this happened again on one of the sister ships, a guy coming down in the middle of the night to deballast the same way. That time the ship was dead in the water for 4 days. I wonder if it was the same chief mate?


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## Derek Roger (Feb 19, 2005)

jim garnett said:


> No,it was a small cock used apparenly for taking sea water samples.It had no steam connection.We just pushed a on rubber hose held by a jubilee clip and the other end to a steam sampling point.Having been in St John NB in the winter .I found it a place of ,high tides low temperature and very dry when thirsty after a hard day.I'd believe anything could happen there and working on a tug there would be a fate worse than death.
> Jim Garnett.
> (ex st john's tourist board)


Anthing but dry now Jim .


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## Don Matheson (Mar 13, 2007)

*Scottish Jellyfish attack power station*

Just been on Scottish TV news that Torness nuclear power station has been shut down due to a massive insurge of jellyfish onto the filter screens. Bay is filled with the creatures and fishing boats are netting them to try and get them away from the power station. 
They say that due to the amount of jellyfish it may be next week before the power station is up and running again.
Well done the jellies! Safe nuclear power, not while there are jellyfish around.

Don


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## Shipbuilder (Jun 30, 2005)

Similar thing hapenned when we went down to the Falklands in '82 in ST. HELENA. The MOD fitted us with a Reverse Osmosis plant to obtain freshwater from the sea in order to supply ourselves and our two charges (HMS BRECON & HMS LEDBURY) with freshwater. Our normal FW tanks were filled with fuel for BRECON & LEDBURY and we replenished them every third day on the trip down.
Reverse Osmosis worked fine all the way down, but the moment we arrived in Stanley it stopped! It was bunged up with krill, some sort of tiny sea creature. The entire time we were down there, it remained bunged up and never worked properly, so we had to get FW from FW tankers. Almost as soon as we left for home, the krill cleared off and it functioned normally all the way back. 
Bob


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## Derek Roger (Feb 19, 2005)

Shipbuilder said:


> Similar thing hapenned when we went down to the Falklands in '82 in ST. HELENA. The MOD fitted us with a Reverse Osmosis plant to obtain freshwater from the sea in order to supply ourselves and our two charges (HMS BRECON & HMS LEDBURY) with freshwater. Our normal FW tanks were filled with fuel for BRECON & LEDBURY and we replenished them every third day on the trip down.
> Reverse Osmosis worked fine all the way down, but the moment we arrived in Stanley it stopped! It was bunged up with krill, some sort of tiny sea creature. The entire time we were down there, it remained bunged up and never worked properly, so we had to get FW from FW tankers. Almost as soon as we left for home, the krill cleared off and it functioned normally all the way back.
> Bob


Krill . The wee shrimps that the salmon feed on . That is why the salmon and sea trout fishing is so good there .

Derek


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## Derek Roger (Feb 19, 2005)

More Eels on Alan Oceans tug . Had the same problem again last night and sister ship had the same last week .
I have suggested to him that they change the screw lift valves for full flow gate valves at the next drydocking so that the eels will pass the valve into the strainer where they can be dealt with properly . 
The good news is that as there seems to be a glut of eels entering the Saint John River there should also be a good run of stripped bass ; time to put the boat in the water !


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