MONDAY 23RD JANUARY 2006
It was a pretty rough passage from Ishigaki Shima, with winds of Force 8, and a heavy swell. At some time mid morning, we suddenly had complete quiet. No engine, no fans, and no generators, hence no go in the water and no lights. It appears that one of the junior engineers hit the wrong icon on the computer and shut the whole lot down. Funny to hear the Captain and Chief Engineer explain it as a computer fault, not the computer itself, the human intervention to the computer. It was only about 5 minutes before some power and fans were restored, followed by the engine slowly coming back to life. It does startle you when these continual noises stop, but when they are present you don’t tend to hear them at all.
We arrived off the coast of Shanghai to anchorage No 1 at 10.20am, and dropped anchor to await our Pilot. This was to occur about noon, with arrival at our berth 6 hours later. Plan A soon went out the port hole. Next call, Plan B, was Pilot about midday tomorrow with berthing at 6 pm. All was well, and it gave us a bit of a breather from the rocking and rolling. 12 laps of the deck, which I now know is a round trip of just over 400 meters, so 4.8k, with 30 steps up and 30 steps down, and I deserved the Spanish White Wine I indulged in before dinner.
TUESDAY 24TH JANUARY 2006
We had a quiet night, and spent the morning preparing for an evening in Shanghai. Generally we were having a lazy day. Judy did the washing then both of us got into the Sudoku Puzzles and books.
After lunch we went for our constitutional around the deck, with Judy doing a lap, then a lot of looking into nooks and crannies, and talking to what crew she came across. She then went to the bridge to annoy the Duty Officer, and found out that Plan C was now in play. Up anchor at noon tomorrow and berth at 6 pm. Oh well, can’t be helped. The very heavy rain of last week had put everybody behind, and our berth (and by the amount of ships bobbing around near us, 50 other berths!), was not vacant and we had to stay put.
I continued on with the walking and notched up 14 laps before my thirst got the better of me. It is quite therapeutic to be able to walk around a vessel of this size. Every turn gives a changing vista, what with other ships and boats gliding by, and our own crew hard at work in every little corner or crevice. They are always doing something even though we are at anchor. Every day, force 8 wind days included, the crew is out on deck greasing, chipping rust, grinding, painting, or doing a million and one of the other chores that go with maintaining our vessel.
As we sat down to a drink and chat with fellow passenger, Dr John C (Cam) Lewis, a real nice fellow who is great company and shares a few laughs with us, our Chief Engineer dropped by to tell us Plan D was now in play! Up anchor at 6am Thursday and berth noon. Only time will tell, and it appears we are well onto “Chinese Time”.
WEDNESDAY 25TH JANUARY 2006
We started off the day in holiday mode. Skipped breakfast and stayed in our beds until after 9am. The food on the ship is quite good, and as mentioned earlier in the unfolding story, it is also very filling. There are choices on offer if you don’t want a particular cooked meal, and by that I mean there is always salad and cold cuts etc. The only problem we have found is that it is too good! All the good work losing so many kilograms of weight over the last year may be to no avail if we keep eating like we are. How do you walk away from a dining table when the food and conversations around it compliment each other so well? Today we thought it best to skip breakfast and just have a brewed coffee (brought the great little coffee maker from home that was given to us by our friends, Jon and Pat Taylor, obviously they must have had a premonition about this trip before we told them!), and had a piece of fruit to get us through to lunch.
Lazed around in our cabin until lunch, the biggest meal of the day on board this ship, then took in a quick tour of the bridge straight after we had eaten. Our Captain, Henryk, took us under his wing again, and as he usually does with us, proceeded to answer all of our questions in detail, but at the same time making us feel most welcome in his domain. He is really a wonderful person and we both feel he is adding to our experience immensely. He advised us of the change of schedule for the various upcoming ports (AGAIN!), and told us he had posted the new schedule outside our cabin door. We had missed it when we came out, but sure enough it was clipped to a magnet right beside the door when we got back. It seems a bit odd, and we feel quite privileged, but the other 2 passengers don’t get the same treatment and have to delve to get any info. Must be our charm, or maybe the crew think we are just Aussies and need all the help we can get!
Today’s bonus occurred when we were taking our afternoon stroll around the deck together. We had been searching and looking in every possible place we could as we walked. There are just so many things to see it all takes time to take in. As we were heading back along the starboard side towards the stern, along came the Chief Engineer, Andrzej, who said he was looking for us. When Andrzej was leaving the dining room after lunch, I had asked him if it would be possible to see the engine room at some stage, and while he said he would show us, it would not be for a few days. We told him not to worry as we were onboard for another 3½ months there was plenty of time, and only when it suited him and his schedule, should he give us the guided tour. Well he had decided that now was the appropriate time and if we liked, follow him. Follow him we did, and boy was it an eye opener!
You never realize when you see a ship, just what or how much is inside it. The engine room is spread over several levels and is at the rear of the vessel. We started off near the generators, over 1000kva each, and there are 3 of them. All up, including the great big, noisy 6 cylinder engines that provide the power for the generating units, they are about 4m long and 2.5m high. Obviously one was idle as a standby, as is the case with all of the systems excepting the main engine. There are standby redundant systems for everything. The fresh water tanks held 25 and 30 tonnes each of fresh water and this is made by a desalination plant at all times when the ship is traveling. The fresh water is used throughout the ship for domestic use (and tastes great), and is also used to cool the engines. The sea water is used to cool the fresh water that is used to cool the engine. The main engine is a 7 cylinder MAN/BMW internal combustion engine of massive proportions, producing 15,000kw of power. The spare cylinder liner clamped to the wall stands over 2½ m tall. The spare piston also clamped to the wall, is around 600mm diameter. The fuel injectors are close to 450mm long and 80mm diameter. There is a device, much similar to look at as a car starter motor that is fitted to the fly wheel. It is used to turn the flywheel, thus lubricate the cylinders when the engine is sitting idle like at present. They turn it over once a day just to keep the lubrication up to all the internal parts. This starter motor like thing is about 1m long and ½m in diameter. When it is time to get sailing, the engine is started with a blast of compressed air, then fuel is added for combustion, and away she goes. The main drive shaft that connects the fly wheel with the propeller is 650mm in diameter, and about 8m long., and together with the bearing housings and stern bulkhead seal, it has to be seen to be believed! There are massive compressors, the size of which I have never seen before. There are pumps and valves connected to everything. The boiler is used to produce all of the hot water used in the ship by means of a calorifier. It also produces the steam that is needed to heat the bunker oil (fuel) for the engine. In its raw state, this oil has the consistency of a sponge, so it has to be heated to be transferred along the fuel lines. The bunker oil is heated to 40ºC so as to be able to be pumped through the fuel lines to the engine. It goes through strainers and filters before going through the fuel injectors (now at 300ºC) into the cylinder heads. The rudder is controlled by 2 huge hydraulic pumps powered by 2 equally huge electric motors.
The control room is the size, and has the complexity of an electric power generating plant control room. Every thing is switched and monitored via computer, but obviously there are manual systems as a backup. They have a complete engineer’s workshop with a lathe, drill press, and a full set of any tool you may even remotely need to fix any thing that may go wrong at sea. As Andrzej said, we have to be able to fix it ourselves if it stuffs up, so we need all of the right gear to do it. Those reading this that have any appreciation of things mechanical will understand just how big this whole engine room thing is. Once a month, Andrzej climbs inside the outer casing of the main engine to inspect the bores, and this bloke is over 6 foot tall!
This may all sound a little simplistic, and I guess it is a real précis of the systems, but the sheer size and complexity of the engine room, together with all of its associated equipment, is just to vast and detailed to describe in this forum. Hopefully we will soon work out how to include photos on this site for you all to enjoy the sights we are taking in.
Well, we are as happy as pigs in the proverbial……..! What a day we have had, and each day seems to get better as we go along. We are so happy we have come on this “voyage of discovery”, well voyage of discovery for us any way. The rest of the day has been spent lazing around with a coffee cup and sudoku puzzle.
Hang on…………….STOP PRESS!!!
9pm, and we are just off for another bridge tour and low and behold, Plan E has just come into play. Latest is that we don’t get under way until 6pm tomorrow with expected arrival at berth in Shanghai at midnight. We may get to celebrate Chinese New Year on land yet! As I said earlier, Chinese Time has come in to play, and Judy and I have got the time to enjoy it, no problem for us.
It was a pretty rough passage from Ishigaki Shima, with winds of Force 8, and a heavy swell. At some time mid morning, we suddenly had complete quiet. No engine, no fans, and no generators, hence no go in the water and no lights. It appears that one of the junior engineers hit the wrong icon on the computer and shut the whole lot down. Funny to hear the Captain and Chief Engineer explain it as a computer fault, not the computer itself, the human intervention to the computer. It was only about 5 minutes before some power and fans were restored, followed by the engine slowly coming back to life. It does startle you when these continual noises stop, but when they are present you don’t tend to hear them at all.
We arrived off the coast of Shanghai to anchorage No 1 at 10.20am, and dropped anchor to await our Pilot. This was to occur about noon, with arrival at our berth 6 hours later. Plan A soon went out the port hole. Next call, Plan B, was Pilot about midday tomorrow with berthing at 6 pm. All was well, and it gave us a bit of a breather from the rocking and rolling. 12 laps of the deck, which I now know is a round trip of just over 400 meters, so 4.8k, with 30 steps up and 30 steps down, and I deserved the Spanish White Wine I indulged in before dinner.
TUESDAY 24TH JANUARY 2006
We had a quiet night, and spent the morning preparing for an evening in Shanghai. Generally we were having a lazy day. Judy did the washing then both of us got into the Sudoku Puzzles and books.
After lunch we went for our constitutional around the deck, with Judy doing a lap, then a lot of looking into nooks and crannies, and talking to what crew she came across. She then went to the bridge to annoy the Duty Officer, and found out that Plan C was now in play. Up anchor at noon tomorrow and berth at 6 pm. Oh well, can’t be helped. The very heavy rain of last week had put everybody behind, and our berth (and by the amount of ships bobbing around near us, 50 other berths!), was not vacant and we had to stay put.
I continued on with the walking and notched up 14 laps before my thirst got the better of me. It is quite therapeutic to be able to walk around a vessel of this size. Every turn gives a changing vista, what with other ships and boats gliding by, and our own crew hard at work in every little corner or crevice. They are always doing something even though we are at anchor. Every day, force 8 wind days included, the crew is out on deck greasing, chipping rust, grinding, painting, or doing a million and one of the other chores that go with maintaining our vessel.
As we sat down to a drink and chat with fellow passenger, Dr John C (Cam) Lewis, a real nice fellow who is great company and shares a few laughs with us, our Chief Engineer dropped by to tell us Plan D was now in play! Up anchor at 6am Thursday and berth noon. Only time will tell, and it appears we are well onto “Chinese Time”.
WEDNESDAY 25TH JANUARY 2006
We started off the day in holiday mode. Skipped breakfast and stayed in our beds until after 9am. The food on the ship is quite good, and as mentioned earlier in the unfolding story, it is also very filling. There are choices on offer if you don’t want a particular cooked meal, and by that I mean there is always salad and cold cuts etc. The only problem we have found is that it is too good! All the good work losing so many kilograms of weight over the last year may be to no avail if we keep eating like we are. How do you walk away from a dining table when the food and conversations around it compliment each other so well? Today we thought it best to skip breakfast and just have a brewed coffee (brought the great little coffee maker from home that was given to us by our friends, Jon and Pat Taylor, obviously they must have had a premonition about this trip before we told them!), and had a piece of fruit to get us through to lunch.
Lazed around in our cabin until lunch, the biggest meal of the day on board this ship, then took in a quick tour of the bridge straight after we had eaten. Our Captain, Henryk, took us under his wing again, and as he usually does with us, proceeded to answer all of our questions in detail, but at the same time making us feel most welcome in his domain. He is really a wonderful person and we both feel he is adding to our experience immensely. He advised us of the change of schedule for the various upcoming ports (AGAIN!), and told us he had posted the new schedule outside our cabin door. We had missed it when we came out, but sure enough it was clipped to a magnet right beside the door when we got back. It seems a bit odd, and we feel quite privileged, but the other 2 passengers don’t get the same treatment and have to delve to get any info. Must be our charm, or maybe the crew think we are just Aussies and need all the help we can get!
Today’s bonus occurred when we were taking our afternoon stroll around the deck together. We had been searching and looking in every possible place we could as we walked. There are just so many things to see it all takes time to take in. As we were heading back along the starboard side towards the stern, along came the Chief Engineer, Andrzej, who said he was looking for us. When Andrzej was leaving the dining room after lunch, I had asked him if it would be possible to see the engine room at some stage, and while he said he would show us, it would not be for a few days. We told him not to worry as we were onboard for another 3½ months there was plenty of time, and only when it suited him and his schedule, should he give us the guided tour. Well he had decided that now was the appropriate time and if we liked, follow him. Follow him we did, and boy was it an eye opener!
You never realize when you see a ship, just what or how much is inside it. The engine room is spread over several levels and is at the rear of the vessel. We started off near the generators, over 1000kva each, and there are 3 of them. All up, including the great big, noisy 6 cylinder engines that provide the power for the generating units, they are about 4m long and 2.5m high. Obviously one was idle as a standby, as is the case with all of the systems excepting the main engine. There are standby redundant systems for everything. The fresh water tanks held 25 and 30 tonnes each of fresh water and this is made by a desalination plant at all times when the ship is traveling. The fresh water is used throughout the ship for domestic use (and tastes great), and is also used to cool the engines. The sea water is used to cool the fresh water that is used to cool the engine. The main engine is a 7 cylinder MAN/BMW internal combustion engine of massive proportions, producing 15,000kw of power. The spare cylinder liner clamped to the wall stands over 2½ m tall. The spare piston also clamped to the wall, is around 600mm diameter. The fuel injectors are close to 450mm long and 80mm diameter. There is a device, much similar to look at as a car starter motor that is fitted to the fly wheel. It is used to turn the flywheel, thus lubricate the cylinders when the engine is sitting idle like at present. They turn it over once a day just to keep the lubrication up to all the internal parts. This starter motor like thing is about 1m long and ½m in diameter. When it is time to get sailing, the engine is started with a blast of compressed air, then fuel is added for combustion, and away she goes. The main drive shaft that connects the fly wheel with the propeller is 650mm in diameter, and about 8m long., and together with the bearing housings and stern bulkhead seal, it has to be seen to be believed! There are massive compressors, the size of which I have never seen before. There are pumps and valves connected to everything. The boiler is used to produce all of the hot water used in the ship by means of a calorifier. It also produces the steam that is needed to heat the bunker oil (fuel) for the engine. In its raw state, this oil has the consistency of a sponge, so it has to be heated to be transferred along the fuel lines. The bunker oil is heated to 40ºC so as to be able to be pumped through the fuel lines to the engine. It goes through strainers and filters before going through the fuel injectors (now at 300ºC) into the cylinder heads. The rudder is controlled by 2 huge hydraulic pumps powered by 2 equally huge electric motors.
The control room is the size, and has the complexity of an electric power generating plant control room. Every thing is switched and monitored via computer, but obviously there are manual systems as a backup. They have a complete engineer’s workshop with a lathe, drill press, and a full set of any tool you may even remotely need to fix any thing that may go wrong at sea. As Andrzej said, we have to be able to fix it ourselves if it stuffs up, so we need all of the right gear to do it. Those reading this that have any appreciation of things mechanical will understand just how big this whole engine room thing is. Once a month, Andrzej climbs inside the outer casing of the main engine to inspect the bores, and this bloke is over 6 foot tall!
This may all sound a little simplistic, and I guess it is a real précis of the systems, but the sheer size and complexity of the engine room, together with all of its associated equipment, is just to vast and detailed to describe in this forum. Hopefully we will soon work out how to include photos on this site for you all to enjoy the sights we are taking in.
Well, we are as happy as pigs in the proverbial……..! What a day we have had, and each day seems to get better as we go along. We are so happy we have come on this “voyage of discovery”, well voyage of discovery for us any way. The rest of the day has been spent lazing around with a coffee cup and sudoku puzzle.
Hang on…………….STOP PRESS!!!
9pm, and we are just off for another bridge tour and low and behold, Plan E has just come into play. Latest is that we don’t get under way until 6pm tomorrow with expected arrival at berth in Shanghai at midnight. We may get to celebrate Chinese New Year on land yet! As I said earlier, Chinese Time has come in to play, and Judy and I have got the time to enjoy it, no problem for us.
posted by Shipmates on a world journey | 3:19 AM
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