Enroute Rotterdam To Fremantle

On 3rd February 1989, our vessel ‘TAPIOLA’ left the port of Goteborg, Sweden and sailed to Rotterdam, Netherlands in the morning. Once the loading work for all containers had finished, the vessel left the port of Rotterdam on the morning of 4th February. We were expected to reach Fremantle (Perth), Australia on 27th February. North sea and English channel seemed quiet, however the Bay of Biscay was bad, a little more rough than usual.

Motor Vessel TAPIOLA was a roll on – roll off container vessel. She was on a fixed charter route. The vessel used to sail from Europe to Australia (4 ports), Singapore, Hongkong, South Korea (1 port), Japan (3 ports), United States of America (3 ports on West coast, through Panama canal and then 7 ports on East coast), Canada (2 ports) and back to Europe (5 ports). The whole trip used to start from Goteborg and finish exactly after 3 months at the same place. The vessel was always hard pressed for time. It was mandatory to reach on time, and to leave the port in few hours post arrival. Except few ports like Goteborg, London, Sydney and Mobil, we would hardly get any time on any other ports. The vessel maintenance was mainly done by CISERV at Goteborg. Apart from operations, hardly any time was left for ship staff. This is how, the vessel was always maintained in a top class condition.

The distance from Rotterdam to Fremantle (Perth), via the Suez canal is 11,517 nautical miles (NM), while via the cape of good hope is 11,237 NM. Our vessel always sailed via cape of good hope. It was a 23 day trip to Fremantle. On an average, our vessel used to cover around 500 NM in one day. Till 7th February, we were doing great on schedule, a few hours ahead. Suddenly, I received an alarm for trouble in the main engine. During the investigation, it was found that engine unit no. 6’s exhaust temperature had shot up to 600 degree centigrade. This was very unusual. I had to reduce engine speed. However, this had now created panic all over. The Captain had called the Chief Engineer and he immediately came down to the Engine room.

We both discussed the problem at length, and then checked the entire engine thoroughly. All the parameters were checked. Anything and everything related to the main engine #6 was carefully checked. We both could not find anything unusual. The only thing we noticed was that even at low speed, #6 exhaust temperature was high. This had happened on the evening of 7th February. C/Engr decided to wait until the next morning, and said. “If this condition prevails, then we will need to carry out #6 decarbonisation”.

By next morning also, there was no change in the exhaust temperature for #6. Hence, I had no other choice, except to carry out the decarbonisation for #6. The C/Engr discussed the problem with the vessel’s Captain and arranged for the main engine shut down. After making all necessary preparations, I informed the bridge and shut down the main engine. The decarbonisation work took about 6 hours to complete. However, we still did not find anything wrong with the unit. Everything was in perfect shipshape. The Main engine was re-started, but still had to run on slow speed only. We were not able to trace the problem. We kept on thinking. However, solution was not there.

The charterers were making noise and so was the Captain. Everybody was hard pressed for time. We were already running late with our schedule by about 6 hours. I was really annoyed with myself. Our main engine was SULZER RND-M 90. This was my favourite engine and by then, I had worked on 4 ships with same engine. I always thought that I understood this engine really well. But, I was not able to pinpoint and solve the problem. I decided to go through the main engine history book. I asked C/Engr to do the same, as same was maintained and kept in his office. I read the whole history book. Maintenance of everything was well mentioned, however there was no record available about the scavenge valves. I mentioned this to the C/Engr, but he did not take it seriously. I even requested him to shut down the engine for an hour for checking, but he did not support my idea.

The next check in the C/Engr’s mind was about timing of the fuel pump. I have seen it in the history book. For the main engine, all fuel pumps timings were checked and redone 2 years ago. Hence in my opinion, that was a complete waste of time.

Anyways, the C/Engr convinced the Captain for another 2 to 3 hours main engine stoppage. Unit no. 6 fuel pump was opened, cleaned and was checked for the timing. Nothing wrong was found. While pump assembly etc was going on, I thought of checking #6 scavenge valves.

I did not expect this work to take more than half an hour. Along with fuel pump work, this could even finish earlier. I did not inform the C/Engr and told our Filipino motorman to open the door for lower scavenge space. All the sets of the scavenge valves were well in place in lower space. I went ahead and told motorman to open the door for upper scavenge space. Oh my god (OMG), one set of the scavenge valves had come out of place and fallen on the floor. I informed the C/Engr about same and also told the motorman to fix the set of scavenge valves. Total work of fuel pump and scavenge valves was finished in 3 hours.

We re-started the main engine and slowly increased it’s speed. The exhaust temperature had come down. The engine was functioning exactly like when we started from Goteborg. The problem was finally found and solved. We had to increase engine speed further, to cover for our time loss. Considering the time difference etc, our vessel was expected to reach Fremantle (Perth) by 16.00 hours on 27th February and we reached at 16.30 hours.