# Engine control room on the bridge



## henry1 (Mar 25, 2015)

Anyone sail on the Japanese style VLCC's with the engine control room, cargo control room and ships office all on the bridge.
I sailed on three, the first one was in 2002 and a bit of a culture shock, no control room in the engine room just an alarm repeater screen in the workshop, the main switch board was in the open engine room.
On long stand by you had to do six on six off with the 2/E on the bridge with the 3/E and 4/E in the engine room.
Sometimes during the day it was interesting to see the bridge operations but at night you were curtained off as your area was lit and you had no conversation with the other engineers only the telephone.
There was an elevator from the bridge that went down to the workshop level but on stand by you could not leave the controls unless relieved by the 2/E.
There was another type that had the engine control room and cargo control room together on the main deck level with windows that looked into the engine room but never sailed on that type.
Pleased to say the newer Japanese vessels reverted to normal style.


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## James_C (Feb 17, 2005)

BP had a class of 40k dwt product tankers built by Mitsubishi in 1990 with just that arrangement. I believe the idea behind it was that they were going to adopt the "dual certificate" system in the future, but thankfully that never happened.
It wasn't much fun for whoever was on watch on the bridge as there was constantly people milling around especially during Smokos, as the Old Man and Chief would appear from their office round the corner as would many of the engineers from below.
The combined ECR/CCR on the 1st deck above the upper/main deck appeared to be a standard design feature on many Korean built tankers from the mid 90s onwards. The ship's office was usually nextdoor.


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## doxfordsix (Apr 2, 2012)

I sometimes wonder if there have been instances of loss of bridge control? I hark back to Trincomalee in 1960{not then a busy anchorage},when the local pilot went movement crazy to the extent that the J/E on the log hurt his wrist. Down came the Chief. Called the Bridge. Captain this is a Doxford 6 not a Morris 8. You have 3 starts in 10 mins,use them well. Have they ever pressed their buttons and
nothing happened or do the wonders of science inform them of small matters like starting air pressure? Oh, its a different life now!


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

There have been. There will be. One can make a system with almost no failure modes but that 'almost' is part of the fabric.

Probably all the more exciting, too, if the CCR combined with the wheelhouse.


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## ken thompson (Oct 14, 2009)

often wonder whether brocks 'mahout ' was the first bridge control vessel in the world. sailed eng/cadet on sister 'markhor' 1967/68, at that time on charter to Kawasaki. don't remember any major problems with the 'very analogue' system.


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## Duncan112 (Dec 28, 2006)

doxfordsix said:


> I sometimes wonder if there have been instances of loss of bridge control? I hark back to Trincomalee in 1960{not then a busy anchorage},when the local pilot went movement crazy to the extent that the J/E on the log hurt his wrist. Down came the Chief. Called the Bridge. Captain this is a Doxford 6 not a Morris 8. You have 3 starts in 10 mins,use them well. Have they ever pressed their buttons and
> nothing happened or do the wonders of science inform them of small matters like starting air pressure? Oh, its a different life now!


Certainly. usual cause in my experience was failure of the turning wheel sensor to pick up the flywheel notches. We overhauled the JABSCO valves on a 2 year rotating cycle as, allegedly, they had been another cause of failure.

One non failure was due to the stern lifting coming through the Heads at Melbourne, the overspeed went, illuminating the "Emergency Stop" button on the bridge, the Master pressed this, thinking it would be a reset - it was not, but engaged the Bridge Emergency Stop. The engine having already stopped there was no further indication of the Bridge Stop having been pressed. Very nearly breakfast in St Kilda!!


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## YM-Mundrabilla (Mar 29, 2008)

If the rail industry is any sort of a guide it will happen!

The Tasmanian Railways (whatever they were called that day) rails bulk cement in train loads from Railton to Devonport for export by sea to Melbourne.

The loco hauled trains are loaded by an employee on the ground using some sort of remote control pack to advance the train, wagon by wagon, under the loadout.

Anyway, in September 2018, for whatever reason, the system failed and the train rolled away of its own accord. All remote emergency commands apparently failed and the train ran driverless for the 21 km from Railton to Devonport where it was diverted into a dead-end and was subsequently 'derailed' (crashed) injuring a couple of by-standers.

The ATSB (Australian Transport Safety Bureau) is still trying to work out what happened but, clearly, at least one fundamental old fashioned safeguard in the form of catch points/derails at the exit from the cement siding was absent. (Ouch)


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## henry1 (Mar 25, 2015)

As to the CCR also being on the bridge, one C/O painted a yellow line with warning sign duty officers only to try to keep some of the crowd out.
The other thing about the ECR on the bridge was when on bridge control the master was about three meters away from me using the telegraph and I had the ECR telegraph in front of me.
Another problem was with the switch board being in the open engine room it was subject to high temperatures and oil mist and water vapour hence more problems with the equipment than I have had on vessels with the switch board inside the air conditioned ECR.


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## callpor (Jan 31, 2007)

henry1 said:


> Anyone sail on the Japanese style VLCC's with the engine control room, cargo control room and ships office all on the bridge.
> I sailed on three, the first one was in 2002 and a bit of a culture shock, no control room in the engine room just an alarm repeater screen in the workshop, the main switch board was in the open engine room.
> On long stand by you had to do six on six off with the 2/E on the bridge with the 3/E and 4/E in the engine room.
> Sometimes during the day it was interesting to see the bridge operations but at night you were curtained off as your area was lit and you had no conversation with the other engineers only the telephone.
> ...


First came across a similar arrangement on the CGT cargo vessels "Rochambeau" and "Sufferen" in 1968! They had a full complement of polyvalent officers with Deck/Engine Certification. Seemed to work well?
Specifying and then superintending the building of a series of 6 small chemical tankers in the early 1990's we had the same arrangements. Unfortunately the Italian registry and unions did not allow the vessel operators to take advantage to reduce the manning (as originally anticipated) so were still conventially manned. Oviously worked out OK as vessels now more than 25 years old and still operating successfully having been amortized by year 7 of NWE operations!
Chris


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## ChathamChavs (Aug 31, 2008)

Slightly off topic . My wife on several occasions operated the bridge telegraph whilst manouerving on "Bridge Control" . She also used to draw frogs in the movement book ......!! Early 80s - Silver Line , Bridge Boats and Almak .


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## russellward (Feb 6, 2013)

Still remember the time when large container boat rounded up coming into Auckland. Beached at Cheltenham for a tide fortunately they were making. She had lost electrics to the steering apparently. Machinery kept plugging away. Mind you, old cable telegraphs have been known to fail The way some skippers play tunes on them with the engineers unable to keep up and probably answering one in four gongs.


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## dannic (Mar 10, 2013)

ken thompson said:


> often wonder whether brocks 'mahout ' was the first bridge control vessel in the world. sailed eng/cadet on sister 'markhor' 1967/68, at that time on charter to Kawasaki. don't remember any major problems with the 'very analogue' system.


Sailed with "Mahout" pneumatic bridge control on Port Chalmers, still worked ok but engine synch system didn't, so had to spend 30 minutes getting both engines at same rpm! As were heading down channel in fog telegraph in frequent use!! 
Dannic.


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## dannic (Mar 10, 2013)

henry1 said:


> Anyone sail on the Japanese style VLCC's with the engine control room, cargo control room and ships office all on the bridge.
> I sailed on three, the first one was in 2002 and a bit of a culture shock, no control room in the engine room just an alarm repeater screen in the workshop, the main switch board was in the open engine room.
> On long stand by you had to do six on six off with the 2/E on the bridge with the 3/E and 4/E in the engine room.
> Sometimes during the day it was interesting to see the bridge operations but at night you were curtained off as your area was lit and you had no conversation with the other engineers only the telephone.
> ...


Was on some Japanese built tankers with engine control room combined with cargo control room, could do very little from control room, switchboard outside in engineroom, 1 alarm unit in workshop, so standby chief was in controlroom and watchkeeper alone in workshop!

Dannic


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## double acting (Sep 14, 2008)

*CS Alert*

She not only had bridge but also fore deck & after deck control when working cable. Being diesel electric it was never any problem.

Funnily enough the Old Man never used bridge control, for some reason always using the conventional engine room telegraphs.

They did try to fit automatic recorders but they couldn't cope with frequent movements so we went back to conventional paper & pencil


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## KEITHMAR (Oct 8, 2012)

Yep DA. High tech! but been around a long time and hardly ever fails!


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