TWL: maintenance and equipment failure
At 02:16 PM 5/27/02, you wrote:
crew (witness our destroyer recently blown up and saved by her crew). The
current feeling is that the rapid assessment of battle damage is the key to
controlling damage and that a net of different types of sensors and
automated fire suppression devices and remotely actuated water tight doors
sewn throughout the vessel will make the up difference (or more) of less
If any of you think this sort of thing can be translated over into yachts,
well think again.
The support system to maintain something like this is awesome and the
present level of electronics aboard yachts is not being maintained properly
even now. Much less an even more complicated system.
A point in fact. About a year ago a commerical vessel ran onto the North
Jetty at Yaquina Bay, in the dark in poor conditions. There is some
evidence to suggest that the pilot house was so lit up from electronic
equipment, and the jetty being almost dead ahead and not obvious on the
radar that they just ran right into it.
In other words, if you live by the sword, you die by it.
Become dependent on these fancy tricks and when they fail or contribute to
the problem, then that's what gets you killed.
There is a point of diminishing returns where the increasing complexity of
the system does not contribute to increased safety.
The people who are so enamored of this increased complexity, generally have
a vested interest in it. They make their living from building, selling it,
etc. Think about that for a while. That goes for both the people with the
vested interest and those evaluating that vested interest.
Regards,
Mike
Capt. Mike Maurice
Near Portland Oregon.
Arild notes, "The point I wanted to make here is that nothing can replace a
human check
and presence in the engine room on a regular basis.
Automation is a wonderful supplement to - not a replacement of - human
supervision and control."
Interestingly enough, the US Navy is now looking at ways to reduce crew
aboard its surface combatants. It seems to think quite the opposite is
true. SMART SHIP is a crew-reducing initiative the USN is trying that I
have seen on some of its AEGIS cruisers (and others). It uses advanced
computer displays and controls to reduce bridge manning (typically ten
people) and engineering watch stations. The hope is that this experience
will help in the next big shift in ship construction when the new line of
combatants is started in a few years.
From personal experience, I am all in favor of a reduction in the bridge
crew of Navy ships for normal peace time cruising, but not to the ridiculous
an dangerous levels of merchant ships (witness the fatal collision of the
tow with the I-40 bridge in Oklahoma where the captain blacked out and
nobody else was available to take over).
One of the biggest challenges for the Navy in this area is how to maintain
the traditional toughness of our ships added by a well trained and numerous
crew (witness our destroyer recently blown up and saved by her crew). The
current feeling is that the rapid assessment of battle damage is the key to
controlling damage and that a net of different types of sensors and
automated fire suppression devices and remotely actuated water tight doors
sewn throughout the vessel will make the up difference (or more) of less
crew.
Rich Gano
CALYPSO (GB-42-295)
Southport, FL
Rich Gano writes
Interestingly enough, the US Navy is now looking at ways to reduce crew
aboard its surface combatants. It seems to think quite the opposite is
true. >>>> snip<<<<<
From personal experience, I am all in favor of a reduction in the bridge
crew of Navy ships for normal peace time cruising, but not to the ridiculous an
dangerous levels of merchant ships
REPLY
For the navy that is an excellent plan. A typical warship is over manned just
so that if casualties are suffered there will still be sufficient crew to carry on.
In addition, a warship is designed a funded with relatively deep pockets unlike
most pleasure craft.
A reduction in crew does not necessarily mean no people at all. If a bank of
automatic sensors and alarms are monitoring all the expected trouble spots,
then two or even one person can still prowl about looking for the unexpected.
I'm with Maurice on this one. Most recreational yachts cannot possibly
compete in terms of expendituer or maintenance with even the smallest war
ship or for that matter most Coast Guard cutters.
However, judicious use of SOME automation is justified and affordable.
Last week I saw a new red bottle mounted next to the fire extinguisher. In
appearance and size it looked like a 5 lb CO2 bottel but lacked the requisite
labels etc.
I asked and was informed it was part of the engine room ventilation system
from Delta T fans.
In the event of a fire, this bottle containing an inert gas would be triggered by
the Fireboy circuit and discharge gas to drive pneumamtic cylinders that
automatically closed the shuttters for the engine room fans.
These boats are equipped with 5 HP blower motors and 24" fans both inlet
and exhaust so a huge amount of air is moved at all times when the fans are
running. Even when stopped the 25" ducts will admit a lot of fresh air.
Physically closing metal shutters is the only way to limit the amount of air that
can reach the fire even if the fire extinguisher bottle fills the engine room with
gas.
That is good example of automation which is affordable. In the event of an
engine room fire this is one thing less for a small crew to worry about.
Cheers
Arild.
Mike Maurice wrote:
The people who are so enamored of this increased complexity, generally have a
vested interest in it. They make their living from building, selling it, etc.
Think about that for a while. That goes for both the people with the vested
interest and those evaluating that vested interest.
REPLY
Guilty as charged. I have to confess that I am one of those who have a great
interest in technology.
When I posted my earlier comment about nothing can replace a human
presence in the engine room, I was recalling an incident when a friend and I
were enroute in his 42 foot house boat in the Trent-Severn canal system.
Propulsion consisted of twin( big block ) mercruiser stern drives.
The rubber elbow in the exhaust line failed, dumping the cooling water into the
bilge.
The friend was my old chief from the Navy and he insisted on runnign a tight
ship. Consequently when under way we maintained proper watch keeping
procdures. Good thing too. I had done a previous inspection an hour
previous and everythign was fine at that point. During the next hourly
inspection of the engineroom I saw the engine half submerged in water from
the cooling system. Nothing untoward was showing on the gauges.
Although the bilge pump was running, that design did not have an indicator
light at the helm. Therefore the hourly visual inspection was a life saver.
At the time of the discovery we were half way across a lake with 50 foot
depths and half an hour from the nearest shore.
Hopefully, my varied experiences have tempered my enthusiasm for
technology to the point I'm not blinded to the potential short comings of that
same technology that facinates me so much.
Cheers
Arild
Hello listees
^From time to time I find vague references to "water injection" even on diesels.
Most often in conjunction with emission control but also at times with small
performance improvements.
Do any of you know more details?
How do you calibrate the metering system?
The obvious downside is that such a system may be maintenance intensive.
Anything else?
Arild
I certainly would not expect all this tech stuff to be
translated to the average yacht. I just brought it up to
show you the way some other operations are heading.
OTOH, I considered it a big plus when I installed an
automatic HALON release bottle in the engine room with
remote alarms on FB and lower station. So some amount of
automation, imitating the big boys IS possible for us
average Joes.
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Maurice [mailto:mikem@yachtsdelivered.com]
Sent: Monday, May 27, 2002 9:39 AM
To: Rich Gano
Cc: trawler-world-list@samurai.com
Subject: Re: TWL: maintenance and equipment failure
At 02:16 PM 5/27/02, you wrote:
crew (witness our destroyer recently blown up and saved by
her crew). The
current feeling is that the rapid assessment of battle
damage is the key to
controlling damage and that a net of different types of
sensors and
automated fire suppression devices and remotely actuated
water tight doors
sewn throughout the vessel will make the up difference (or
more) of less
If any of you think this sort of thing can be translated
over into yachts,
well think again.
The support system to maintain something like this is
awesome and the
present level of electronics aboard yachts is not being
maintained properly
even now. Much less an even more complicated system.
A point in fact. About a year ago a commerical vessel ran
onto the North
Jetty at Yaquina Bay, in the dark in poor conditions. There
is some
evidence to suggest that the pilot house was so lit up from
electronic
equipment, and the jetty being almost dead ahead and not
obvious on the
radar that they just ran right into it.
In other words, if you live by the sword, you die by it.
Become dependent on these fancy tricks and when they fail or
contribute to
the problem, then that's what gets you killed.
There is a point of diminishing returns where the increasing
complexity of
the system does not contribute to increased safety.
The people who are so enamored of this increased complexity,
generally have
a vested interest in it. They make their living from
building, selling it,
etc. Think about that for a while. That goes for both the
people with the
vested interest and those evaluating that vested interest.
Regards,
Mike
Capt. Mike Maurice
Near Portland Oregon.