The rent-a-generator was up outside the engine room hatch. The cables going to the switchboard went through the hatch not an electrical stuffing tube. The captain was worried if there was a fire we could not seal up the engineroom and use the Haylon (boy I thought that stuff was gone with the steam ships). The captain was correct about the wires but I informed him I could cut them with a fire ax to get the hatch shut if the engine compartment was fully engulfed, (after shutting off the deck generator of course). I stirred up a hornets nest with him (captain) and the port engineer (he had been a hydraulic parts salesman before the put on his engineering cap). The port engineer flew up from Seattle and I flew the f out of there as fast as I could.
I shipped oil from Alaska for 10 years on VLCC’s and we would have run our turbines with no oil going to them to avoid an environmental disaster like the Exxon Valdez if we had to get the vessel to a safe anchorage in an emergency. With no power to a tug you have no steering. If the only other generator is not wired up you are screwed in confined waters if your only power source fails.