My Experience as an Engineer, as a Mariner.

[nozzlering]

Hello All. I have been thinking of starting a new thread. Its not a travelogue, but my journey through different countries, my job. It might seem interesting to many of us, I believe.
We go to a supermarket, buy some fresh Kiwi fruit. Our imported stuffs. Food items for countries where hunger terrorises more than anything else. There's an array of things which are made/ grown in one part of world and used in another part. These things need to be transported. And the job is being done since last hundreds of years, mainly by waterways. Yes, I am talking about merchant ships. And I feel proud to be a part of this supply chain, though indirectly. The earth is almost 75% covered by water, and thats where we operate.
After a long vacation, I responded to the call of high seas. I was scheduled to join my new home from Egypt. The ship is huge, 300 m long. It is driven by a 78000 bhp goliath. I will come to that part later.
So after clearing immigration, I get on a boat which takes me to the ship, waiting for a crew change. The gangway (stairs) is lowered. I board the ship. This is not the first time. Yet I have this excitement and anxiety. I am taken to my cabin where I relax for few hours. The next day's gonna be long. We will be crossing Suez canal. Then to Turkey and few ports in Ukraine.
Then we will sail back to Suez canal and go towards far east countries.
And there's a portion of our route where we have a threat of pirates. Who are trigger happy youngsters. They give no second thoughts before shooting. And they are afraid of nothing. Well thats too much of information at the same time. I will come one by one. I am glad to share my experience with fellow TAIans.

 

[nozzlering]

Before I start, let me introduce you to the Goliath.
Its made by Sulzer. It is electronically controlled, common rail, like our modern diesel engines in cars. Its a 2-stroke marine diesel engine with 10 cylinders, each with bore dia of 960mm. It gulps more than 100 tons of fuel per day at full speed of 25 knots/hr (about 45 kmph). It has 3 turbochargers.
In addition to it. there 3 power generators who are capable of generating 9 MW of power. And there are a lot of other machineries. And we are here to make sure they are maintained properly and the ships runs without/ minimum breakdowns.
I post a picture of the engine. What we see is just showing the exhaust valves of all the cylinders. A part of cylinder heads is visible too.

 

[nozzlering]

Here are few pics of my journey to the ship which is going to be my new home for next few months. Also there are few pics which I took while we were transiting Bosperus canal in Turkey. Its really very beautiful.

 

[nozzlering]

More pics. Continuation of above post.

 

[Akash]

Excellent write up Mr. Mariner. Although i never fancied myself being the same, however, after looking at those pictures, i regret not even considering merchant navy as career. Keep posting more pics along with your experience onboard (Ship[wink]).

PS: 5 star rated to the well deserved thread.

 

[amit1km]

The sea looks awesome man. Merchant Navy charm is different. Share us more about your experience.

 

[autosafari]

Good start Nozzlering.

Keep posting.

We are eager to read "Nozzlering the Sailor"

 

[Gurrala74]

Hey my friend !!

How are you !! Oh It really wonderful to see these pics and your narration. it looks to the continuation of my discussion with Siva(Auto_Luver) from Chennai who is also a Chief engineer on one of the ship. Everything looks awesome to me and hope you must be enjoying. I enjoy with your photos because I fear about water and sea and imagine that I will never opt to be a marine engineer or a career in Navy, but fortunately now I am associated with Navy in different way !!. Those engines area looks very huge man, Sulzer it must be a same Swiss company now named as Burkhardt compression !!

So after looking at that cairo airport, I just remember my dream of visiting the Pyramids some time in life. So how many more months you are sailing and when are you back to Bangalore. I am eager to meet you soon and have lots of discussion on marine
have a safe and happy journey my friends keep updating with lot of pics whenever you can

 

[rafian]

More pics. Continuation of above post.

Nozzlering, thank a bunch for sharing the pictures and info. Request you to post more pictures, share your experience on the vehicles you get to see (may be ride and drive) in various countries. Thanks.

 

[sethumurugan]

Superb Thread Mr. Nozzelring. Since you are in ship always, you can some pics in ship also. So that we would be able to know how it is inside the ship.

 

[nozzlering]

Thanks all.
The thread should have been started earlier. But believe me, the machineries have kept me on my toes since last one month. I crossed Suez Canal twice, and I had no time to click a few fotos. Well, I will come back again and am sure I will have some fotos then. Right now we are in Arabian sea, passing the piracy area near Somalia. We are extra cautious and propelling at a higher speed. At this part of the world we prefer rough seas, as that prevents pirates from attacking us. I haven't yet taken much photographs, as mostly busy with getting things back to oepration. There are few issues out here, and our team is trying to solve them.
Anyways I happened to go out at Romania. There, Reanult was omnipresent, same like Maruti Suzuki in India. There were Audi, BMW, Daewoo too. I also happen to visit shore at two ports in Ukraine. I travelled twice, both times Daewoo. One was Daewoo Matiz automatic and other was some sedan model.
I didnt have time to go for pyramids at Egypt. Maybe I sign-off at Egypt and I will be visiting them for sure. And belly dance show too.
Right now we are heading towards south east Asian ports and Chinese ports. Nothing exciting for us. Because schedule will be very hectic. Short port stays frequent port calls, and heavy traffic. So faster we get out of it, better for us. Will try to go meet friends at Singapore.
Guralla. Sulzer has been taken over by Wartsila Switzerland. At present you will find only two makers for marine diesel slow speed engines. Sulzer and B&W. These two dominate the market. Long time ago Fiat also used to make marine diesel engines. And they were horrible.
We have an emergency generator too. To take care of any power failures. And I have seen, many times, the generators to be Cummins, manufactured at Kothrud, Pune. I will be back by the year end, and would sure like to attend a TAI meet. I am glad to know we have more fellow mariners out here at TAI.
As I said I haven't taken much pics. But I will soon upload more pics of our ship. Here's a few of my small cabin. It has an office cum day room, and a bed room.

 

[nozzlering]

A typical day onboard
My day starts when I wake up at about 6 am when I wake up. I get ready, get into my overalls and go down to officer's mess room. Our chief cook has prepared a healthy breakfast. We have the food, and some chit chat with fellows. 0745 hrs I go down to Engine control room where I meet with my staff. I have a plan for the day. After assigning jobs to the engineers and crew, I go for a rounds in the machinery spaces. We work as per our Planned Maintenance system. personnel safety is given utmost importance. 1000 hrs is tea break. All engineers again meet in the control room. Then back to work. 1200 hrs is lunch time. Again delicious food. And Sundays lunch has to be Chicken biryani. We again go for work at 1300 hrs. 1500 tea break. And we wind up at 1700 hrs. The engine room is put on UMS mode (Unmanned machinery Spaces). The engine room is left on automation for all night. We have our dinner at 1730 hrs-1830 hrs. After that I meet with Chief Engineer for a short while to plan for next day. Then I get back to my cabin, finish some paper work. This is time to talk/ chat to my wife. I almost talk to her everyday. And not to mention, surf TAI. Look for new posts. Sometimes watch a movie.
Working on a ship is a different experience all together. We work with different nationalities. And we come to know, though different, people all over the world are so similar. Every one has a family back home. Have aspirations. Everyone loves peace, likes to be happy. For example, we have our chief Engineer from Pakistan. And he is one of the nicest persons I have met. We all talk about our differences. The way media displays us, as a country is mesleading, most of the times. And the conclusion is all that's nothing but dirty politics. Peace is all what everyone wants. Anyways.

 

[rafian]

Awesome posts nozzlering. Keep it coming. I wish you great time at work and a safe journey back home. I used to work with Pakistanis, absolute gems. You're right, politics creates all the differences and war as well.

Most countries have small automatic cars. Unfortunately, it's not common in India. I wonder why? Thanks to Hyundai for offering automatics. Wish we had small diesel automatics.

 

[sethumurugan]

A typical day onboard
My day starts when I wake up at about 6 am when I wake up. I get ready, get into my overalls and go down to officer's mess room. Our chief cook has prepared a healthy breakfast. We have the food, and some chit chat with fellows. 0745 hrs I go down to Engine control room where I meet with my staff. I have a plan for the day. After assigning jobs to the engineers and crew, I go for a rounds in the machinery spaces. We work as per our Planned Maintenance system. personnel safety is given utmost importance. 1000 hrs is tea break. All engineers again meet in the control room. Then back to work. 1200 hrs is lunch time. Again delicious food. And Sundays lunch has to be Chicken biryani. We again go for work at 1300 hrs. 1500 tea break. And we wind up at 1700 hrs. The engine room is put on UMS mode (Unmanned machinery Spaces). The engine room is left on automation for all night. We have our dinner at 1730 hrs-1830 hrs. After that I meet with Chief Engineer for a short while to plan for next day. Then I get back to my cabin, finish some paper work. This is time to talk/ chat to my wife. I almost talk to her everyday. And not to mention, surf TAI. Look for new posts. Sometimes watch a movie.
Working on a ship is a different experience all together. We work with different nationalities. And we come to know, though different, people all over the world are so similar. Every one has a family back home. Have aspirations. Everyone loves peace, likes to be happy. For example, we have our chief Engineer from Pakistan. And he is one of the nicest persons I have met. We all talk about our differences. The way media displays us, as a country is mesleading, most of the times. And the conclusion is all that's nothing but dirty politics. Peace is all what everyone wants. Anyways.

Awesome posts nozzlering. Keep it coming. I wish you great time at work and a safe journey back home. I used to work with Pakistanis, absolute gems. You're right, politics creates all the differences and war as well.

Most countries have small automatic cars. Unfortunately, it's not common in India. I wonder why? Thanks to Hyundai for offering automatics. Wish we had small diesel automatics.

Its great to read your postings.

As you said there is no difference between Pakistan and indian people. Only this dirty politicians do all this nasty things.

Pls share pics whenever possible.

Sethu

 

[nozzlering]

I am so much occupied with some technical problems out here. Also the month end paperwork has kept me busy for last 2 days. Anyways. we are just now passing by the southern most part of India. In few days we will be near Singapore. And some of us have completed there time onboard. So soon we will be seeing new faces.
Today evening I took out some time to go on deck to take some snaps. There was a beautiful bird relaxing on the deck. But it was not in a mood to get clicked. I tried a lot, but couldn't capture a good snap.
One interesting thing I would like to share is that since while we travel to different countries, we are crossing one time zone to another. So to keep up with the local time, we advance or retard our ship's clocks. Like now, we are travelling from Eastern Europe to Singapore, we are gradually advancing our clocks to match with local time. So by the time we're in Singapore, our time and Singapore's local time is synchronised. In case we cross Pacific ocean, a whole day is advanced or retarded. So when a mariner says he had seen 32 days in a month or 27 days in february or 29 days in leap year february, he might actually be right.
Anyways here are few pics. Though I could have taken much better ones. I will definitely post more and better ones soon.