ChiefEngineer’sLog

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It is well known that, sometimes in different ports of the world, air is pumped together with fuel during or after delivery and the trapped air will artificially expand the bunker levels into the tanks. The trick is called “cappuccino” effect. It will take few days until aerated bunker will settle and vessel would notice a decreasing quantity in their stock over time. A few key indicators proves to be useful in order to determine bunker aeration and they are: jerking bunker hose during delivery, bubbles on sounding tapes and most obvious bubbles observed in receiving bunker tanks.

Fuel oil supplies can be mixed with fuels already onboard if some conditions are fulfilled (new fuel is proven compatible with existing fuel stock by spot testing; new fuel is pre-tested and within specification limits for marine fuels; mixing takes place in a few tanks as possible)

Bunkering is a complex process, that requires a thorough preparation. Each fuel or distillate are of different grades and must meet a number of different parameters and requirements. All of these are standardized.

Did you know that, in 2018, top 5 shipowning countries have remained the same: Greece, Japan and China, Germany and Singapoure? The fleets of Greece, China and China, have been growing, while Japan, Germany and Korea show a decreasing trend. Total number of ships have increased by 6% and reached 50 732 ships over 100 GT. Overall world tonnage increased by 14 % and reached 1,910,012 thousand DWT. - Source: infomaritime.eu

Inspection of a failure non return valve. The valve is installed on an overflow line and found stuck in close position. This kind of job requires a lot of attention and care as it may lead to accidents and injuries if the person involved is not properly trained. It is kind of…”don’t do this at home”…thing

Life boat hydrostatic release failure. During periodical life boats testing, the hydrostatic release mechanism failed to disengage the hook for the release lever. We noticed that the securing hook was unable to go fully up in order to free the activation lever (into the short video can be seen that the hook doesn’t go all the way up). The root cause found to be a leaking hose, through which sea water comes inside the bottom of floating hook push rod. The hose can be found underneath hydrostatic release mechanism and it is not quite accessible. In case of this type of failure, there is an access glass that need to be removed and the hook can be manually lifted in order to release the hooks.