I am a proud Marine engineer and I would like to share with you my story in this interesting platform where most of my mates are part of it.
This event happened during my tenure with one of the world’s reputed Cruise Liners. She is a magnificent, adorable and advanced cruise ship with a complement of around 3000 (including guest and crew on board). She used to make short voyages and not used to long hauls. It was the time she started her maiden long runs. Destinations she touches were splendid awesome places on this earth that one would love to visit .
Ads were blasted all-round attracting more tourists. All the guests were excited and looking forward for that thrilling experience. She was parked in her home port. It was a busy long day for the crew on board preparing for the long cruise run. Tons of stores that include galley stores, general stores, Spares both deck and engine, got loaded and stored.
On the other hand the stevedores were busy handling passenger luggages. Guest service were busy welcoming new passengers, who were loaded with dreams and excitement. Deck hands were busy with surveyors, regular routine checks. Entertainment team was busy practising to present fun filled events to the new guest.
Under the water below the Plimsoll line we engineers were busy doing regular routines such as taking bunkers and gearing up in all means for the long run. This beautiful cruise ship had five medium speed engines that generate power and supply to a MSB from there two high rated powerful motors turn the propellers.
As the day was overwhelmingly busy, I as an engineer on watch after a good sleep came to the control room for taking over Noon watch. My relieving counterpart was exhausted and handed over me the watch saying two engines are online and notified me of other regular stuff’s. After taking over the watch I started to step out for the regular rounds. Part of my daily routine I start my rounds from the economizer platform and go about others. That day as soon as I left the control room I heard my walkie talkie ring. My motorman called me to attend an alarm in one of the F.o.purifier. So I moved directly to the bottom platform to attend the alarm asking him to check the economizer platform. Later, I took the rounds of the engine room space which is in a streamlined fashion running forward to Aft without many decks unlike cargo ships.
After the routine rounds, I was busy overhauling a Lube oil purifier and my wiper was cleaning a tank with my motorman aside. By 3:00 pm, my motorman came rushing, he was visibly panicked from the impact of something that he saw . That day he was so panicked that he pulled me by my hands and rushed to the economizer space. I was awestruck on seeing a mini sun burning red hot and ready to explode before my eyes. One among the two economizer was burning red hot and I couldn’t stand even a few meters away from it due to heavy radiation. It was even difficult for me to breath in that radiation. Somehow I gathered some strength and called up a senior engineer in the control room and the bridge to apprise them about the scenario. Then I started on appropriate actions to stop the fire like slowing down and stopping one engine was carried out simultaneously. Code Red was announced in the general speaker system. I, as part of Engine room fire team, immediately jumped into my Fire suit and rushed to the platform under fire. A team of firefighters fought the fire for 4.5 hrs to put it off.
An internal probe was ordered to find out the reason for the fire and we found that the EGB circulating pump, that was circulating the boiler water to make super saturated steam, got the plastic coupling between the motor and pump broken. It was an unfortunate day that even the water level indicators and temperature sensors gave away and no alarm was notified in the control room due to some automation issues. Thus, whole of the unit was later replaced with new ones that had lot of additional advanced features to ensure a foolproof system gets in place.
In summary, the lesson learnt was that even a small incidence can lead to a potential disaster.
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