Engine questions from a deckie

[Lewis]

Some miscellaneous questions about engineering from a deckie

What's the difference between marine gas oil and marine diesel oil? Ask on ship answer was gas oil is more expensive but doesn't realy answer the question.

Have 4th engineers gone out of fashion? I've never been on a ship with one.

What does a chief engineer do? Seems like the second engineer runs engine room only time the chief looks busy is during bunkering.

Most of the problems on ship seem to be due to computers software or telecoms and engineers on board cant do much about these. Are engineering cadets (or ETO cadets) taught these or is it just one of those things I know deckie course can be a bit behind the times?

[SWonder]

Q1/ Only using HFO on my current ship but from my probably limited understanding MGO is made from distillate and MDO is blended and therefore of lower quality hence the difference in price.

Q2/ I have had 4th engineers on all ships throughout my training so no they haven't gone out of fashion. On some smaller ships their job is combined with that of the 3rd engineer.

Q3/ 2nd Engineer is responsible for the day to day running of the engine room and managing the other officers/crew in E/R. The Chief's time is taken up by paperwork and on my current ship he is also the Safety officer (more paperwork). He deals with fuel/lub oil consumption, requests for spares/new stock etc, I'm sure one of the actual Chief's on here will be able to give you a better idea!

Q4/ Companies nowadays seem to be seeking more multi skilled Marine engineering/electrical engineering guys, electrical engineering has been quite a large part of my curriculum at College over the last 2 years. Some ships are phasing out ETO's all together. I wouldn't say a lot of problems on ship are computer software/telecoms related,perhaps on the bridge yes but not necessarily in the engine room. I would feel confident once qualified in doing basic electrical work given everything we are taught at college but I certainly wouldn't be able to take on the role of Engineer and ETO, there are plenty jobs that ETO's do that are quite specialised and skilled.

[SWonder]

P.S

Having witnessed ETO's being driven crazy by requests from the Bridge to come fix some bit of kit when all that needs to be done is for it to be turned on/off or reset I strongly suggest you familiarise yourself with those procedures haha!

[thebrookster]

1) MGO is probably to purest fuel form used onboard, comparable to diesel you put in your car! MDO is next in line, and is more of a blend.

2)4/E's still exist, I was one last year!! Also may be called Junior Engineer, very common rank on Cruise ships, though most bigger companies use it as a "training rank", basically where the C/E observes you working and assesses whether or not they wish to to trust you as a full watchkeeper. Though from what I can see the Cruise ship companies use it more as a formal rank, but then that may well be because the competition for promotion is quite high in that field (I have a couple of friends whom circa August 2012 who are still 4/E with the likes of Disney, whilst conversely I was promoted to 3/E during my first assignment on C/E reccomendation, and another friend of mine who works for Stena was effectively automatically promoted to 3rd after x weeks service time). Smaller ships such as Offshore etc don't seem to use the 4th rank, though I suspect this may well be more a space issue than anything else!

3)Ideally, the 2/E (or 1/E in some companies) is more work orientated, and runs the day to day stuff in the ER. C/E is more office based, and covers a lot of the paperwork side. The good ones will generally have stuff they "play" with (many of the Chiefs I have sailed with often have pet projects for each assignment!), also they generally are in charge of the Air Con onboard as well.

4)Hmm. Some engineers can fix this stuff, others can't. I have always been IT orientated, and have little trouble fixing computer based stuff, though we do have ETO's onboard who will deal with most of it. All my experience as an Officer has been on older ships (all around 14-15 yo) and my next assignment will be the same age of ship, so I am generally always kept pretty busy with pure mechanical stuffs!!

[ETwhat?]

The first three have been well covered, but I for the 4th I think your probably missing the point that there is a lot of work going on that isn't a 'problem' specially mechanical certainly on a UMS ship the majority of the alarms are mechanical and require a little tweaking in the morning to sort what ever it was out but unless you take an interest in the engineers you wont really hear about it. For stuff on the bridge it is more often computer/ electronic related and that is often a case of wait for parts, which is more related to the cost of carrying all possible parts for something that may never fail.

I've seen some engineers who would struggle to change a lamp let alone trying to fix anything electrical so its good if cadets are now getting a better electrical education

[Steve]

Have 4th engineers gone out of fashion? I've never been on a ship with one.

How many engineers were on your ships? What were their titles and ranks?

The RFA has 4th Engineers, but calls them 3rd Officer (E), and if you wanted to be really pedantic and old school about it you might call them 5th and 6th (and 7th, etc.) engineers.

[Lewis]

8 hips so far
all had C/E 2/E and 3/E. One had cargo engineer and another an eto

[GuinnessMan]

Some miscellaneous questions about engineering from a deckie

What's the difference between marine gas oil and marine diesel oil? Ask on ship answer was gas oil is more expensive but doesn't realy answer the question.

Have 4th engineers gone out of fashion? I've never been on a ship with one.

What does a chief engineer do? Seems like the second engineer runs engine room only time the chief looks busy is during bunkering.

1) MGO is a higher fraction of crude oil than MDO and is "cleaner" (well, less Sulphur and other ****). As you said, it's more expensive and is currently sitting around the $900-$1000 per tonne mark, whereas MDO is around $800-$900 per tonne. If you want more info, PM Clanky or Chiefy!

2) Nope, still about, it just depends on the vessel, size, trade, MSMC, etc...

3) Very similar to what a C/O does in that he is the manager of the Engineering Department, just he doesn't maintain a watch. 2/E is usually responsible for folks day to day work within the ER. However, there are terrifying moments when the C/E will actually grab tools and attempt to fix something. If this happens, get your grab bag and sit in the lifeboat.

[Steve]

8 hips so far
all had C/E 2/E and 3/E. One had cargo engineer and another an eto

Most of your ships had a total of three engineers?

[Chiefy]

What does a Chief do......no idea when you find out please let me and clanky know......ta!

But seriously. ....jeesh where to start? Well budgets, purchasing, technical liason, repair specs, overall charge of elecyro mechanical stuff, surveys, fuel and lubes...ordering of consumption control of, trouble shooting, go to engineers engineer, god the list is endless....yes sitting at a desk may look like doing nothing...but where do u Think your pens and pencils come from? Who makes sure we have bog roll? Who makes sure we have enough fuel and of the correct type we dont break any laws.....trust me I hardly have enough hours in a day some days....and thats without stupid emails asking for info that the people shoreside should have and probably have easier access too.

Yup sitting around doing nothing. .......I have heard of it, dont see much future in it though

[Lewisscott22]

Whilst we are on the subject of asking questions...

When an officer on the bridge calls the duty engineer informing him/her that the vessel needs to slow down - say for a collision situation - what is it that an engineer actually does?

Now, I understand that dropping the ships speed from 24 knots to 16 in a short space of time is not advised. I think have a rough idea why not and what is done, but I am sure someone could provide a more detailed answer.

[ETwhat?]

Ah I wish we went everywhere at 24kts it would have shaved 11 days off the last passage,
It will depend on each ship I've sailed on Ro-ro's that you could clutch in put full pitch on and go with nothing needing changed once the engines were running, current ships it tends to be issues with the economiser if its going to be very slow for a long time and also adjusting all those little things that should auto regulate but don't.

but the engineers will be along and explain

[Clanky]

Whilst we are on the subject of asking questions...

When an officer on the bridge calls the duty engineer informing him/her that the vessel needs to slow down - say for a collision situation - what is it that an engineer actually does?

Now, I understand that dropping the ships speed from 24 knots to 16 in a short space of time is not advised. I think have a rough idea why not and what is done, but I am sure someone could provide a more detailed answer.

On a modern ship with automated controls it's mostly a case of monitoring temperatures to ensure that the engine doesn't cool too quickly and risk cracking cylinder liners etc. if he/she is really on the ball they might try to preempt the situation by manually reducing the cooling to the engine before the control system realises that it needs to, but to be honest most engineers who have only ever sailed on automated ships probably wouldn't be able to judge who much to do it. A sudden reduction in fuel consumption can also cause problems with the fuel temperature control on a ship which burns HFO.

If there is a shaft generator on the board then on some ships there may be a need to get an auxiliary generator running before reducing the main engine speed or propeller pitch.

Oh and the kettle will need to go on to make the chief a coffee.

[Chiefy]

Yup....stop the fresh water generator...prepare the auxy boiler...stop the steam turbine and power turbine....just stuff...depends on ship and trade....if u need to drop 24 to 16 that quickly u havent been paying attention have you?....or u where hoing to fast in the first place......

Million and one bits to do..may have to take counters...csll the chief....all sorts its a bit open ended tbh

[Steve]

On a modern ship with automated controls...

I've sailed on diesel-electric ships where the bridge can do pretty much whatever we want with the speed controls and the engine control and power management systems just do the business in the background. I've also sailed on older ships (slow and medium speed diesels, FPP, built 1970s and early 1980s) where we are free to change speed at manoeuvring revs, but then at higher speeds there is a load programme that slowly increases and decreases engine revs (but that can be bypassed in an emergency). And other older ships (medium speed diesels, CPP, 70s/80s) where there is no load programme or control system but at higher speeds the bridge is required to change pitch slowly in accordance with a written schedule (e.g. 5% per minute or 10% per five minutes). I've always suspected that the last one is a bit of a Chief's trick to keep the alarms down, and if there really was a hard reason why we couldn't freely change pitch there would be some sort of control system as per the load programme or ramp on other ships.