Thanks to Mark from Cork for the inspiration for this one, a spoof interview about a tanker accident in the 90’s, the accident really happened. It was a Greek tanker called the Kirki. Here is a link to the actual story from AMSA http://www.amsa.gov.au/Marine_Environment_Protection/Major_Oil_Spills_in_Australia/Kirki/index.asp
Archive for the 'Tankers' Category
Originally uploaded by kristian gos
Stoc Regina, Stockholm seen at Karlstad on lake Vänern, Sweden. Photo taken by Kristian Gos 20th December 2006.
Fantastic mirror image, hard to believe it is late December.
I read a report the other day about a tanker that had mixed her cargo onboard involuntarily. It’s not the first time a cargo cocktail has happened and probably won’t be the last either. In this particular case there was a valve open that should have been shut, a case of misunderstanding between the mate and the pumpman. The misunderstanding cost a lot of money, wasted a lot of time and used a savage amount of paper for all the report writing which hindsight is so good at. The valve that was left open allowed one grade to mix with another, for example petrol with diesel, ok if you are driving a Soviet WW2 tank but not great for performance cars. On my last ship every valve had an electronic tell tale, so if the valve was open it was green on the control panel, and shut it was white and in between it was a % figure, and any problems there was a warning flashing red alarm. In the above case there was some kind of manual up-dating which was obviously not working. The electronics are not fool proof but they help, there is no idiot proof system, but if the idiots slow down they become normal. When I was cadet about 15 years ago when one of the ships I was on simultaneously pumped diesel up a petrol line and petrol up the diesel line, destroying 2 shore tanks full of their respective products, this incident brought about more control of events and name tags on manifolds and a pre-cargo operations meeting agreeing which pipes were connected to where and what was going to happen when, reducing the likelihood of the same thing happening again.
It happened again in our new report from the other day, on a modern ship. Why? Trying to do things quickly and not in a controlled manner, the pumpman opened a valve that would be needed later, trying to save time, or save himself opening and closing the valve a few times. One of my colleagues a Captain retiring in a week or so after 45 years at sea said of the incident “you never hear them say, take your time boys and get it right, we prefer to have a slow turn around than a load of paper work after an incident” all you do hear is buzz phrase generator speak about quality systems and ISO 5 million and 1. All the quality systems in the world won’t stop incidents due to hasty actions.
Buzz phrase generator, combine one word from each column. Sound familiar?
Marry in haste, repent at leisure.
The tanker trade has to put up with all variations of inspections from Classification Society to Flag State and Port State, there is even the internal audit. Most of the above are relatively painless and can be interesting sometimes. If you want to put the fear of God into a crew you tell them that there is going to be a Vetting inspection. All the major oil companies referred to as the “Oil Majors” send out inspectors to tankers to check that the standard of operations meets their near impossible set of standards. It is in fact a case of “double standards” having worked for two of the biggest oil majors and now working for an independent, the standard kept on the big boys ships while good can often be less than good in some cases downright disgraceful but all can be swept under the mat, on the small independent tanker relying on the oil majors for work the standard has to be better than perfect all the time because if you get a bad report from theses guys then you are losing freight and that is money.
The inspection is like a trip to hell with extra roasting on better days, they turn every paper over twice to see if there was a mistake the first time they didn’t spot. They frighten the crew so much that they can’t even say their own name let alone describe their emergency duties. They rarely find anything worth talking about, so what they do find is not worth talking about but by Jaysus can they talk about it, in great length. There is a phrase in Ireland “You have to listen to thunder” this is a true case of that, the inspector finishes his tour with a lecture on how everything could be improved, when the best and immediate improvement is his stepping foot on the gangway to leave.
Vetting inspections, a necessary evil in our trade, without them you get no cargoes. No cargoes, no jobs. Just put on your ear protection and best plastic smile and get on with it.
And your chosen subject is? The bleedin’ obvious.
Our rules and regulations sometimes go beyond a joke and into the sublime regions of the twilight zone and the “more than me jobs worth” attitude kicks in, first though a small glossary to assist the land lubber in understanding what I am going on about.
Tank cleaning: fairly obvious this one, the process of preparing tanks for the next cargo, usually by washing with hot water or other methods.
Gas free: The atmosphere in a cargo tank must have no explosive gas, and for the technically knowledgeable that is below 1% LEL
LEL: lower explosive limit of a gas, I won’t go any further on this definition.
Inerted: Tanks are inerted with a gas to below 8% oxygen.
Now a story of the triumph of rules over reason, aka common dog f..k.
We arrived at a certain port with tanks clean and ready for loading, furthermore the tanks were gas free and had a breathable atmosphere having been ventilated for 12 hours, to facilitate the gas freeing the cargo hatches had been opened at the final phase, round covers about 1½ metres in diameter you can see all the way to the bottom of the tank 12 meters down if you have a flashlight. If you look in you can see that the tank is empty and clean and there is no liquid whatsoever of any shape or form, it is dry in other words.
If you wanted you could go in the tank and look around and reemerge unscathed still breathing in fact you would have been invigorated from your experience, ok point made the tanks are clean and the atmosphere safe.
Enter tweedle dumb and tweedle dumber,
TDTD….are the tanks inert?
ME no they are gas free and clean.
TDTD Then we must carry out a closed inspection.
ME eh? Why? the tanks are clean and dry and have fresh air in them, I have just been for a walk down there and am unscathed nay invigorated.
TDTD The rules say if the tanks are not inerted then we must carry out a closed inspection.
ME, ok but all the tanks are open and have fresh air in them, what do the rules say about that?
TDTD The rules say if the tanks are not inerted then we must carry out a closed inspection.
ME is there an echo in here or have you a parrot in your pocket, come on guys live a little, a bit of common sense here?
TDTD (producing a well thumbed tome of rules and regulations and leafing to page whatever subsection blah) The rules say…….
ME (throwing eyes up to heaven) OK, closed inspection it is…..
Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle dumber proceeded to the deck and looked through the near opaque glass inspection hatch, the beam of their flashlight glaring against the glass confounding the view nearly completely, barely a stride away was the open cover with a clear view of the tank……
Later they signed the document that said “Tank Inspection Approved”, even though they were unable to see in the tank but signed anyway, because the rules had to be stuck too, I appealed to their sense of adventure, -now lads the papers are signed everybody is happy, would you like to go for a walk inside one of the tanks?
No sense of humour.
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