lost all thrusters apparently
How do you do that on a dp vessel?
I’ve no idea about this case. But in the past I’ve come across bad practice relating to switchboards.
Sometimes to save fuel DP vessels would operate with all bus-tie breakers closed.
Starting additional thrusters creates a big power demand, I’ve seen some people briefly close all bus-ties breakers when starting thrusters. So instead of starting an additional generator on one side of a split board they common the board briefly so that there is enough power to start the thruster. But this is really bad practice because you are losing redundancy, even if it is only for a couple of minutes.
The point I’m making is that even if a vessel is DP3, unsafe power management practices can circumvent the redundancies in the systems,.
Many if not most dp3 vessels run closed bus as testing has shown opening a breaker is fast and reliable but closing is not.
Will be interesting to find out what happened unless human error then it will be hidden.
https://www.upstreamonline.com/safety/second-incident-this-month-confirmed-on-saipems-flagship-vessel/2-1-1591046
The untested parts…software, another Bibby Topaz?
“The earlier incident occurred on 2 January when there was a problem with the Castorone’s thrusters — part of the vessel’s DP 3 dynamic positioning system — which reportedly caused it to make an uncontrolled movement”.