chengkp75

Now, I know that down in sunny southern California there isn't much call for wood burning or coal burning stoves to heat a house, but anyone who has seen a chimney fire knows only too well that soot does in fact burn. Both creosote and soot burn in a chimney fire. The difficulty is that soot, being nearly completely carbon, does not give off a flammable vapor like most flammable materials do, so it will not sustain a fire by itself, it needs something that gives off flammable vapors, like creosote. Many materials in the funnel will fall into this flammable material category, and keep a soot fire going until it ignites the fiberglass. As for igniting "a soot pile" with a "blowtorch", it all depends on the composition of the "soot". If there is a lot of ash, which is completely combusted material, then it will be very difficult to ignite. If it is more "pure" soot, then an acetylene torch will readily ignite it. (Haven't seen a "blow torch" in decades, unless you mean a propane torch, but even then, if you get a pure blue flame, you can get soot to ignite)

Technically, you are not allowed to bring anything that is not factory sealed onboard, but whether you get away with it or not, is up to chance.

Well said, Andy. Many people confuse the Muster signal with abandon ship, thinking that as soon as the alarm sounds, they will be getting in boats and sailing away. This is far from the truth, as you know. As you rightly state, the signal that passengers equate with the Muster, is the signal for "Fire and General Emergency" which sends the crew to deal with the emergency, and gets the passengers accounted for in known, controlled locations. As you said, the proper thing for a Captain to do is to sound the "Muster" signal as soon as the situation warrants it, long before any thought of abandoning the ship is made. My suspicion is that the quarantine cabins are all in one, or at most two, muster stations, by themselves, so that they can be segregated. In an actual emergency, I also suspect that the "special needs team" which are tasked with escorting those with disabilities to the muster, will be augmented by other crew who will set up teams to escort the quarantined passengers, and crew, to their muster stations. The passageway guides will also be directing traffic around the quarantine areas, and the closed fire screen doors. We always had about 100-150 crew whose emergency duty was "proceed to muster station, assist as directed" and were used as general dogsbodies wherever needed.

Not off the top of my head, just google "use of LNG as marine fuel". The tanks, unlike tanks for residual or diesel fuel, are essentially vacuum bottles to keep the LNG as close to -260*F (the boiling point of LNG at atmospheric pressure) as possible. Also, unlike "regular" fuel tanks, the vents on LNG tanks are closed with valves to keep the pressure in, and to keep the nitrogen atmosphere in the tank (the space above the LNG in the tank is filled with nitrogen, not air, to prevent the LNG or vapor from igniting, this is called inerting, since if the oxygen content is too low, the methane vapors cannot ignite). Some LNG will always "boil off" and increase the pressure in the tank. This "boil off" is what is used in the engines. If there is excess boil off to what the engines need, there is a system that draws off the methane gas, cools it back down below -260*F to liquify it again, and then pumps it back into the tanks. If there is a problem somewhere, and the tank heats up too much for the engines or the liquifaction plant to handle, or the pressure builds too much, the valves on the LNG tank vent will open and vent methane into the atmosphere (something you really don't want to happen, as methane is 200 times more harmful as a greenhouse gas as CO2).

There is no way to lock a cabin door so that the occupants cannot get out. The fire screen doors in the passageways cannot be locked. Passengers cannot be trapped in any space by locked doors and not be able to get to their muster stations in an emergency. The ship relies on surveillance cameras in the passageways to determine if someone in quarantine is leaving their cabin, and will send security as a response.

There are no carbon monoxide detectors installed, nor required, on cruise ships. The diesel engine exhausts are a source of CO, but that is why the exhausts go all the way up the funnel, and the AC fresh air inlets are down low, typically around the promenade deck. Even a leak in the exhaust system would be isolated from passenger space ventilation, simply by distance. Hot water on cruise ships is not heated by electricity, but by steam, from boilers, and these again could be a source of CO, but just like the engines, they exhaust up the funnel. Another thing, CO is created by incomplete combustion, and with the fuels used on ships, incomplete combustion leads to black smoke as well as CO, so it becomes visible, and therefore correctable.

Those will be the emergency vents for the LNG tanks.

Absolutely, Andy. They don't lock those doors (they can't be) to maintain quarantine, they watch the surveillance cameras and notice when people who are in quarantine leave their cabins.

For the most part, all ships' funnels are merely decorative, there is very little structural about them, particularly cruise ship funnels. But, yes, even LNG powered ships will have exhaust gases that need to be taken away, and they will go up a funnel. LNG is not a source of mechanical power, it is a fuel for a diesel engine, and all diesel engines need exhaust gases to be taken away. LNG is a "real fuel", it just has less carbon per molecule, so it generates less CO2 per Btu of energy generated. For a cruise ship, there will be one exhaust pipe for each diesel generator (4-6), one for each gas turbine generator (if fitted), and one for each boiler (usually two), one for each incinerator, and finally one for the emergency generator. These will all go up to the top of the funnel to lift the gases as far away from guests as possible. I don't know what the design idea was for the Carnival "whale tail", but other ships don't need these to take engine or galley smells away from the ships, I believe it is merely a trademark. Carnival could just as easily had the exhausts go straight up the central funnel and leave the "fins" empty, but this would have sooted up the white mainmast that sprouts from the central funnel. Inside the funnels are intake fans for the engine spaces, and exhaust gas scrubbers if fitted. Galley exhausts go up as high as possible, but generally not in the funnel, due to the high heat in the funnels, as they tend to build up grease (another fire hazard), and are steam cleaned and then inspected and hand cleaned monthly. Similarly, laundry exhausts go up high, many times into the forward mast of the cruise ship, to keep the lint from getting everywhere. These are cleaned by hand monthly as well. I believe that on the Norway/France, the "wings" had the boiler fan intakes in them, as these are very large fans and therefore noisy. In short, a ship's funnel is primarily aerodynamic more than functional.

Yes, the crane is on the wingwall of the drydock, and when the dock broke in half, the crane toppled off the dock onto the ship. The dock had a lifting capacity of about 50,000 tons, and the Oasis class weighs (not gross tonnage, which isn't weight) about 100,000 tons, and is too long for the dock. So, they modified the dock to have two "cofferdams" inside it, and the dock never lifted the stern out of the water, and the bow remained beyond the dock, in the water. When the dock had lifted the stern enough, the cofferdam walls were erected around the azipods and the water pumped out of the cofferdams to allow the workers access to the azipods, which were still technically below water. They did this for Oasis, and Allure, if I remember correctly, but the second time they tried it with Oasis, it broke in half.

It literally broke in half. To fix it, you need something to lift it out of the water, like a bigger drydock. Harmony's damage will definitely wait until the next scheduled drydock, as there is no structural damage evident, and the dented plating is merely cosmetic (no severe creasing of the plating). They could even ballast the bow down a bit, get that dent a little higher out of the water, and do it at a turn around port call. Don't know about Mariner. The Escape repair did not require a drydock, so it didn't go to one. I don't think that Grand Bahamas would have completed the repairs any faster than what was done in PC.

Yes.

Where do you see that? According to Marinetraffic, she is sitting at the wet berth alongside drydock #3, which currently has the Paradero, a small container ship in that dock. Dock #2 is the damaged one, and Dock #1 is too small.

Looks like a fire team member, maintaining reflash watch to ensure the fire doesn't start up again. There are ladders inside the funnel to get up there, and if you look at the photos posted on the first page of this thread, you'll see someone on top of the central part of the funnel, right at the bottom of the white mast. In the photo you mention, you can see the ladder rungs going up the white mast to allow servicing of the masthead lights. The person wasn't there until the fire was out, as it is too dangerous to go up to a fire overhead on vertical ladders.

I'm seeing conflicting data, likely due to postponing some survey dates due to the shutdown, but Freedom's next statutory drydock isn't until Mar '24 or '25 (the conflicting data). Painting a new livery above the waterline would be the least of concerns for scheduling a drydock, that will wait until they are required to dock. There may have been damage to one engine, the one where the exhaust is drooping down, and most likely the one that started the fire, but the absence of smoke anywhere else on the ship leads me to believe that any engine damage would be confined to the turbocharger and exhaust system, so minor in nature, and this would still be just one of 6 engines on the ship. The ship can make full speed on 5 engines, as they have to overhaul these engines every 30 months, or one every 5 months, and it takes a good 2 months to overhaul.

Pretty much any line, as the covid protocols get real complicated.

Pre-covid, it was doable if there was no PVSA violation, but with covid, downlining is not allowed.

Pretty much north of the Maine/NH border, strips are not favorites.

Pretty difficult to do with members from different countries. While there are global labor federations that represent unions in a specific industry segment, each union only represents members in that country, since the labor laws vary from country to country, and no one contract could possibly meet all laws. Well, better pay would require a higher cruise fare, and better working conditions would require even more crew, which would exacerbate the current problem. And, the only ones who don't feel that the pay is more than adequate are folks from countries like the US and Canada with higher standards of living, and at least in the US, our "service" philosophy leaves much to be desired. The major reason that crew have decided not to return to cruising is the feeling of insecurity now, since they got laid off for two years. This is not correct, or legal. Every time a crew member completes their contract, they resign, so "requiring" crew to resign instead of extending their contract is not a hinderance to the crew. It is entirely up to the crew member as to whether they wish to extend. At the end of their contract, they are entitled to everything specified in their contract, including repatriation. And, as the cruise lines are having problems recruiting crew, if they say "no, I'm going home" and then reapply for another contract in the future, the cruise lines will be more than happy to take them back. There are laws, like the Manila Labor Convention, that protect crew members' rights, and forcing crew to remain onboard for a non-statutory position (deck and engine only, and not all of those) is not allowed.

No, they're not. As you say, the bollards are welded to the pilings, and the pilings are strong in tension, which is what the mooring line places on them. But, in shear, or a sideways force on the platform transmitted to the pilings, the pilings will fail, as these did. Not only did the platform go under, but the pilings supporting it as well.

As stated before, while the Captain retains responsibility for the ship, the pilot very often is given the authority to give orders for maneuvering, much like the bridge officers have the authority to handle the ship during the hours that the Captain is not on the bridge. In actual fact, as shown in the Evergiven incident in the Suez, the Suez Canal does not assume responsibility for the ship, so the Captain retains responsibility, while in the Panama Canal, the Canal Authority assumes responsibility for the ship and any damages, so the Captain relinquishes authority. The real second instance that the Captain relinquishes authority, is when the ship enters a drydock, as the shipyard again assumes financial responsibility for the ship at that point. Taking a pilot onboard is mandatory, but whether or not the pilot has the authority to give maneuvering orders is up to the Captain.

As I've stated before, I think that one of the flange joints on the exhaust pipe in the "fin" had a leaking gasket, and soot accumulated inside the fiberglass fin. Then, when the exhaust pipe got hot enough, the soot ignited. This, likely, was building for years, and really could happen at any time. Those fins would be a notoriously difficult space to inspect for soot buildup, just from the way they were built.

Not really. Even idle, the hotel load (since they need to keep the AC running anyway) will be well over 50% load on one generator. And the reason the ships have multiple generators is so that you can optimize the load by reducing the number of generators to match the power required for propulsion. And, even running at low load, the stacks are easily cleaned, daily, by introducing ground walnut shells into the turbocharger to "grit blast" the soot off the turbo and the exhaust pipe. This causes the oft reported soot on aft balconies.

Freedom is only 15 years old, which while it is reaching the date where drydock costs increase dramatically, that really has nothing to do with what happened here. And, maintenance is monitored by a third party, for all ships of all lines, so the old saw of "cutting maintenance" just doesn't apply. RCI's Oasis class ships with the retractable funnels had similar leaks of soot, and they were just lucky this hasn't happened to them.

The difference in cost between a drydocking and a wet berth repair is so great it wouldn't even be considered. A wet berth would cost around $20k/day just for the berth. A drydock runs around $400k/day or more, just for the dock time. Unless a drydock is required by statute, or by the need to repair underwater equipment, it ain't gonna happen, certainly not in the present fiscal environment.