Dukhuntr,
Certainly appreciate the full disclosure and with that knowledge I certainly can’t fault someone for trying to become more knowledgable about something they have doubts about. There certainly are more than enough topics in the above posts for at least two different threads. But for now let me stick to the problem you have presented.
Unfortunately I can’t seem to view all photos posted to these forums and in fact while I can see the photo tag in your post, it seems to be a hypo-link rather than a hyperlink. That being said let me take a stab at what I believe you were looking for. So you look at the oil record book C 12.3 entries for how much waste oil / sludge the guy is burning and you say “how can I even begin to check this out and have some confidence in my conclusion”. I’m afraid there is not as simple an answer as you were proposing in your original post. I wish I could have seen the photo because it would really depend on the extent of the damage to the furnace lining whether the thing was in use or not. BUT small pieces of refractory fallen down doesn’t mean that much. In fact it could mean the guy is trying to keep the thing maintained. Maybe he didn’t have proper patching materials, maybe he did not properly prepare the surface he was going to patch, maybe he didn’t let it cure properly and it fell out. So he might be trying to do the right thing and you picked the day a chunk fell down. It is nearly impossible to burn shipboard waste oil and not produce slags. If they are tightly adhered to the refractory and someone gets in there with a chipping hammer gives a few taps and removes the slag he will inevitably be taking small bis of refractory with it. So this is normal wear and tear and results in normal refractory repairs. Cracks too can be normal so don’t take that as some kind of pass fail criteria on furnace condition. Depends on design but like 1/2" deep cracks are not big problems as they act like a expansion joint opening and closing with each heat cycle of the unit. Cracks only are an issue if they go so deep the structural steel is directly exposed to heat/flame of furnace. So look at the steel, see any signs of overheat? Careful there though, most furnaces have an inner and outer steel structure, the void between being combustion or cooling air on way to burners or general supply to furnace. Of course if you see square feet of 2"+ thick chunks lying on the furnace floor you could legitimately ask the guy “what’s up chief”?
There are far too many types and sizes of incinerators out there to give you a detailed check list of things that might indicate it is in regular use or not but I’m afraid we (ships crews) are at the mercy of you (PSC inspectors) when it comes to your conclusions and I hope the guy doing my inspection does have enough experience to make a decent evaluation in the time he has. As I said in earlier post you can’t look in a furnace and make any estimate of how much is being burned. You might look in the furnace and add furnace condition to the whole list in your head about the incinerator condition. What’s the sludge burner look like? Ask them to describe how they process waste oil and sludge to the point of sludge injection. Does it make sense to you? Are they describing a system where they settle excess water out, do they have the means to employ a circulating pump to mix it up and prepare an emulsion for injection? How do the controls look. How about their IOPP certificate some reg body or flag state checked out their stuff somewhere in the last year. Do you see conditions on the incinerator to suggest the IOPP is not valid?
Note that the USCG or some other regulatory bodies type approve incinerators and the document usually makes reference to a capacity perhaps a BTU/hour loading for refuse incinerators and a kg/hour for waste oil. Do some math and see if the the amount they say they are burning is somewhere in the ballpark. Note “ballpark”, the BTU content of the test set up for the type approval may or may not reflect shipboard waste oil/sludges. In other words don’t be a dick about the number.
It has been a while since this USCG licensed mariner sailed on a US flag ship but I seem to remember words in just about every section of the CFR’s that went something like “nothing in these rules shall prohibit OCMI from using his discretion when” blah, blah, blah. What a beautiful thought huh? Marine inspectors with real experience exercising their discretion. You couldn’t BS them, they didn’t nit pick you. I applaud your attitude in trying to get better at your job I just hope “better” to you does not mean unfair to the mariner. I get the impression it does not. Use the force for good Dukhuntr.
My own attitude about PSC inspections has changed. I used to think what a load of crap. They come on top of class, class for flag, internal and third party ISM audits and in some case client, OVID, on hire/off hire, ISO schemes for quality, environment. I’m pretty confident we maintain our ship well. I also know NO inspector comes to a ship and thinks he did his job unless he finds something. Now I try to argue just the specious points and thank them for the little things they find. Hey I don’t know everything maybe I can learn something here too. By the way most of the PSC inspections I go through are NOT in the US. There is a very wide variety in who gets those jobs around the world and what they expect from the crew and what they want to see.
I would say you doing a PSC inspection is one small link in the overall scheme. Not trying to say it doesn’t matter but really it is a spot check after all. Class/flag surveys and ISM should be doing the heavy lifting. If you see an operational and maintained incinerator you should probably just leave it at that. But if you can put your pointy hammer through the fire main maybe the ship should be detained. If it doesn’t cost substandard owners anything they aren’t going away. I’m all for the level playing field ISM promised but I don’t see it out here.
Hey look at that, looks like I couldn’t stick to the topic after all. Sorry about that. Hope you will continue to ask technical questions if not here than of the resources you have available to you. You gotta know that jabs are always a possibility though. Water off a ducks back? Try to do some research first and ask a complete question giving details and you should get some better responses. Again good luck.