Yeah… I’m really curious as to what else was happening on board. It’s really easy to sit in my recliner and nitpick what we can see on the videos but really we only have a fraction of the information available.
I’ve never worked for SLNC though I am aware that they don’t have a great reputation. This makes me wonder what kind of turnover they have… more turnover usually means less familiarity with the emergency systems. More turnover also can mean more people new to their positions (ie, first time sailing in a rank) which can equate to an experience gap, particularly with younger officers.
I imagine we’ll be getting more information soon, now it’s just time for the waiting game. The ship is still floating, so it should be relatively easy for investigators/salvors to see what was done.
Did most people take them? I don’t remember much practical DC training at school. Nor was there any real DC training when I worked on oil rigs. MSC had a required DC training when hired, but unless you’re former MSC or former Navy do private companies and unions have required DC training in a wet simulator?
I‘ve also been an armchair abandon ship questioner on other threads before, but that was a fair amount of water coming in from what was a catastrophic enough failure to reasonably suspect it could get worse quickly.
Not all of them. I don’t know that any of us took any DC courses for OSI on the T5 (Champion class) tankers.
Heck, the only DC courses I’ve been through were back at TMA messing around with collision mats and the sundry bracing, shoring, and pipe repair gear that was a whole lot more common on ships in that era. I haven’t seen even an adjustable shoring beam on a ship in at least 10 years. DC on commercial ships seems to be limited mostly to burst pipes from what I’ve seen in recent years.
Any instruction or drills on flooding and damage control was confined to my time in the navy. Even when we used the same facilities the drills I completed in commercial shipping were limited to fire fighting. But then no one was shooting at us.
We were loading an old steamer at Ras Tannura many years ago when a section of the sixteen inch pipe to the main condenser failed. There was no control room and the two engineers on watch were tucking into a meal on the Manoeuvring Platform when the condensate pumps alarmed. They peered over the rail to see a rapidly filling engine room. They immediately sounded the engine room alarm and every engineer onboard left the saloon where the evening meal was in progress. The Chief Engineer on entry to the engine room activated the general alarm.
The Mate and the Third Mate were on deck and the Master was alone in the forward accommodation. The two on deck heard no alarm and the Master heard only the general alarm but they could all see the Indian crew bursting out of the aft accommodation wearing lifejackets.
Meanwhile just off watch at 18:00 a new second mate who was my relief and I were enjoying a beer and a cigarette in a small room in the after accommodation, where we could hear the engine alarm but nothing else. We were confirming our wise choice as mates when the electrician’s wife stuck her head in the door and told us the general alarm was ringing.
To cut a long story short it was all hands to the pumps . The main circulating pump and the two pump room stripping pumps were lined up onto the engine room bilges along with every thing else. The leak was dealt with by securing the Second Engineer’s flipflop over the hole with bandit strips and entombing it in a cement box. He had big feet.
do private companies and unions have required DC training in a wet simulator?
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No.
[quote=“BeerCaptain, post:44, topic:76928”]
MSC charters require the same classes.
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Can you give an example of an MSC charter that requires that training? I’ve been required to have CBRD and small arms but never even seen damage control offered at civilian schools.
Emergency generators are not located in engine rooms. A limited amount of power would be available. Prior to the loss of potable water pressure draw off and save. If absolutely necessary to use, there were emergency (food & water) provisions already on board.
Also, without power they have no directional stability. How safe/comfortable do you think living on there would be in a typhoon when adrift dead in the water?
I’ve been on three service support (PM4) vessels contracted to MSC in the last ten years. The only courses required on any of our contracted vessels (not just mine) were SRF/SA and CBRD (and the secure comms course if your vessel is equipped with SIPR). I understand it’s the same for the HOS boats as well.
Just because AMO requires it in their contracts (which is a fantastic moneymaker for Star Center at taxpayer expense by the way), doesn’t mean it’s the norm for all the other contracted vessels too.
Any engineer worth the title is able to find a way to transfer fuel to the emergency generator tank. The MDO pump should be on the E buss anyway. That same engineer should be able to connect emergency power to the reefer compressors for periodic cooling. It’s not like the stewards are going to be in and out of the reefers all day and night. Since there is little need for most of the consumers on the emergency buss on what is essentially a dead ship, five or six crew should eat like royalty for the first week at least then still gain weight until reaching a port. They aren’t on a desert island.
Also consider the safety of being on a ship dead in the water in typhoon alley during typhoon season. Yes, is better to be on the ship than in a lifeboat but it’s absolutely better to be safely rescued than on a dead ship.
Given what I’ve heard about SLNC’s pay and turnover, I suspect that if I were there, I’d feel very little obligation to inconvenience - let alone potentially imperil - myself to try and preserve their asset when a ship still capable of keeping the water out is ready to offer a ride. This ain’t the Navy.
