He also provided very good video clips to show how the rudder works to direct the propeller thrust for steering, and to show the various generators, and control panels.
Very well done video, given the info he had to work with.
The ship should have had 3 or 4 “big generator engines”.
2 of which should operate at all times to make sure they have steering power and other auxiliary loads.
When the lights went out, everything was off. Main engine, and all big generator engines. There is also a smaller emergency power generator to make power for navigation lights and emergency circuits.
The small emergency generator is required by SOLAS International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), to auto-start within 45 seconds.
The ship stayed dark a bit longer than 45 seconds, so that was a point of failure.
The black smoke out of the stack was not from the main engine, but from the big generator engine(s) cranking up and taking load.
At that point, they can move the rudder, but it will not do much of anything, because it needs the water flow from the propeller to be directed by the rudder to provide the torque needed to turn that huge ship.
He points out bad fuel as one possibility, and of course electrical switchboard failure.
My comments:
He seems to think the blame is likely the fuel. But he does not seem to have the information that the ship had power failure at the dock (as reported in social media).
He DID say that there was clearly a failure of the emergency power panel, because the nav. lights simply are not supposed to go out. And the “black box” lost power as well, which is not supposed to happen.
The propulsion engine never restarted. It takes too long to reset everything, and it needs the big generators to be running.
Just was not enough time.
He makes a nice comment at the end about this being a “kobayashi maru”
event, except without Captain Kirk there to cheat and save the ship. When all this happens in a crowded sea lane, you are going to have a collision. Only the tug boats would have saved them. Whatever jackass decided not to provide tug boats until they cleared the harbor should be thrown under the jail.
Total cost of this disaster will likely be around 4 billion dollars plus the loss of life.
Here is the start procedure for a propulsion engine
Ship’s fuel.
Here they switch from the heavy black fuel oil, to the lighter grade of fuel to enter the Euro-zone air pollution control area.
h/t JustmeTX
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