Ferry Stripdown: Drydock of PRIDE OF BRUGES: TV Documentary....

[Captain Gordon Whittaker]

Very well presented, in simple terms, by non-seafaring people. How would we, as seafarers, describe the refurbishment of a Space Shuttle? The terminology was slightly askew at times, (Compass rows instead of compass rose) in the subtitles, and a few references to the ship, "Rocking", but we all had to learn this when we first went to sea. Good educational value, in my opinion. I may well use this in my Merchant Navy Training Board presentations, in colleges, given permission by the makers. Thanks for the posting.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Well thanks for the link, i watched it and was pleasantly suprised, a bit scary in those confined space, was interesting. and glad i have seen it, retract my comments,

Tony, those confined spaces were okay, as you could stand up in them. I used to survey Double Bottoms on 2000 ton vessels at one time, the access manholes were 2'6" oblong, once you were in there it was crawling through all the vertical floors with same dimension lightening holes and then crawling (more wriggling than crawling) out to port and starboard sides and then wriggling backwards. To get back to were you first entered you had to wriggle backwards all the way to your entry point. All this whilst on a slipway in in Waalhaven. Freezing in the winter with weather minus degrees and sweltering in summer when you were boiling. I found this wriggling difficult, how my more rotund colleagues felt or managed I do not know because I found it difficult being a svelte (at that time!) 9 stone. Did this numerous times per year for a number of years and never ever looked forward to it, as double bottoms not matter what they were used for were always smelly, dirty, wet (you can never pump out all the residues) you came out looking and smelling as if you had just emerged from a cesspit. Also you are doing this (in the dark) with a torch in one hand and a survey hammer in the other to tap the rivets (or welds) and plates to ascertain if they are sound, it's amazing how soon your ears become attuned to the different sound a good plate or rivet will make as opposed to a faulty one. Ultra sonic sounding was only conducted on Four Year Special Surveys as it is an expensive exercise and Supt's were cheap and ultra sonic operators will not crawl through DBs to test vertical floors and sections, they will only do shell/deck plating and exposed bulkheads.

Doing these inspections were even more scary when the these surveys had to be done when vessel was afloat and ships moving around you, as if they it you and you were broached there would be no chance of getting out. Like everything you get used to it, when you have a wife,kids and mortgage to support.

[Capt Bill Davies]

Sounds scary Ivan! The DBTks I was used to were min 2mtr with some of the Ore/Oil Carriers inxs of 3mtr. One Ore Carriers in particular 4mtr.

Bill

[Tony Wilding]

my worst experience was on TSS Ceramic, entering the Oily Water Seperator which had a blockage, as we approached New Zealand, we were told we could not enter Port if it was not working, what a job, ! after many hours it cleared, the other experience was on MV Wanstead, STBD side in the Shaft Tunnel, had to open up a Ballast Tank ? ? quite a big area, de scale it, i think some kind of oil Cargo was carried in there at times, appeared to have heating coils, / ? ?, then had to carry in buckets all the rusty particles up the emergency escape ladder to dump them, that was O/Time for us dayworkers, took about a week, needed a hard hat, but none in those days, when you hammered the steel sides you got showered with rusty metal from the top of the Tank, never liked enclosed spaces, i was suprised the tank interior was not coated with a rust preventer., did not worry about working in the Engine Room, but enclosed spaces felt nervous.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Sounds scary Ivan! The DBTks I was used to were min 2mtr with some of the Ore/Oil Carriers inxs of 3mtr. One Ore Carriers in particular 4mtr.

Bill

It was Bill, especially if you got cramp, which you did on occasions because of all the contortionist moves you had to make. On the plus side it was ship construction close up and personal. It must have been much worse for the guys who had to construct them in the first place especially on the riveted frames and floors, it must have been hell.

[Chris Allman]

As a cadet on the Raphael I had to work with the Carpenter in the Duct Keel to clear a blockage in the bilge line from No 1 hatch to the Engine Room. It was the worst job I have ever done. Raphael had three hatches forward of the Engine Room and we had to dismantle each section of pipe and clean it with a coal chisel tied to a bamboo man helper. There was creosote trapped in small quantities in the pipes and it ran out and burned our hands and arms. It was also very hot the duct keel being box shaped three foot by three foot. I had lumps on my head for weeks having banged it numerous times on the deckhead of the duct keel. It took us nearly two full days to clear all the pipe sections and reassemble them all with new gaskets and cleaned nuts and bolts.

Chris.

[Louis the Amigo]

Hi shipmates what is scary about a ships tanks in a dry dock ? the only danger is fumes/fire / toxic chemicals but you have some safety gear and gloves and good workmates but after the first couple of days its like going aloft at sea{ bosun chair} after your done it a few tmes, no worries, I use to go pot-holeing in a group {hobby} that can be real scary after heavy rain!!!!The only probelm was in the dry docks I worked was with my feet, after a few hours {seaboots} fine in safety boots the plastic overalls were heavy but kept you warm and dry in the wet/dirty conditions.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Louis...............depends on the size of the tank and the situation.......... Safety gear in 1960's/70's, don't make me plastic overalls, safety boots what the heck were they. As a Supt you didn't have any shipmates to look after you, in drydock or afloat alongside most ships are bereft of crew, ship's didn't have the personnel to assign to you, sometimes a deck officer would climb down into the hold stand at the tank top manhole and shout "are you okay super" every half hour or so. Your inspection gear was your birthday suit covered by an overall, summer or winter and you were down there four or five hours at a time, there are a lot of vertical floors to examine in a DB tank 60' feet long and 30' wide (and there is more than one of them) with the largest lightening hole centre line and only 24" wide and about 18" high and smaller as you get out towards the extremities, so its always back to the centre line to wriggle through to the next bay. But that was my life and I enjoyed it, doesn't mean to say I wasn't apprehensive at times.

When you go pot-holing you go with a team of professionals, well clad and with communications and it is a hobby, but each to his own, as I would find that scary no matter how well clad and warm..

[John Arton]

Ivan
Have spent hours like you crawling through double bottoms doing routine inspections and cleaning, as Ch. Off and Capt. on anything from small chemical tankers to cape sized bulkers.
My worst experience though was spending 7 days in a duct keel on a OBO when we were cleaning for grain. The hold bilge valve remote controls were knacked so it meant to had to manually operate the hydraulic solenoids that drove the bilge valves. She was 105000 tons so you can imagine the size of the duct keel. To save a lot of running around and because radio comms. were not very good, myself and bosun devised a series of signals by knocking on the tank top when he wanted the bilge suction to be changed. Used to get coffee and sarnies passed down to me as the place was filthy and I was forever having to crawl over ballast lines etc. to reach the solenoids.
To compound matters this ship had terrible crack problems and we were constantly at it repairing leaks from the double bottom ballast tanks into the duct kel. Such was the extent of these leaks that the engineers had the bilge pump running constantly on it together with a wilden pump. One night both pumps failed and when we turned too in the morning the water at the aft end was covering the lightening holes so I had to literally swin to get access to the valves for the bilges.
Daft I am
rgds
JA

[Tony Wilding]

I never realised this kind of work took place on ships, to be honest i could not do it, makes me nervous just trying to imagine the conditions, to be down there alone is frightening., maybe Ship Design needs changing, am amazed H and S allows such working conditions, all the stories posted regarding continual cracking of welds is worrying, i still think the main problem is Ships have become too big. Aircraft are going the same way. i know weldingis here to stay , but i dont think rivetted Ships had these fracture problems, in many ways progress is not progress, after seeing on youtube a video of a loaded Container Ship in heavy weather Hogging and sagging , taken on deck just forward of the Bridge looking FWD between the tiers of Containers and seeing how the Hull was bending its not hard to imagine how it fractures, i dont think Ship Designers can ever fully appreciate the Stresses on a Ship, the Sea knows no Master,