This is the tale of a ship that worked between the UK and Santander in Spain carrying granite chips for making slabs.They were close to Santander and the engine threw a conrod. Their first action was to drop the anchor and debate what to do and how to proceed. Now, tug recovery of a stricken ship is costly and they decided to ask for a Pilot boat and be towed in. They then tried to raise the anchor but had run out so much of the chain that the weight of the run out chain was too much for the winch as they were in deep water it was hanging straight down. The decision was cut the chain. Once in the tidal port they were able to strip parts of the engine and then found that the conrod had snapped ! The bits were taken out and this left the crankshaft journal bare with an open oil feed. Due to Insurance they informed the Ins. Coy. and permission was sought to proceed with the journal covered in a bandage clamp to stop the oil coming out and so they loaded their cargo of granite chips and came back to the UK at reduced speed. They made the journey Ok and ported in the Medway and unloaded and then tied up alongside the Chatham dockyard. A ship engineer company were called in and they stripped the engine down and lifted the crankcase to one side.

This where I came in to measure the crankcase bed and determined that the bed was banana shaped with 278thou. side to side deviation and a 180thou. drop at both ends of the bed with variations along the bed. The crankshaft I could not measure but the journal was scored badly. Lloyds Maritime Ins. paid up and a new bed and crankshaft from Doxfords were delivered. How to get the new bits into the ships engine room? Also to get the damaged bits out. They cut a hole in the bulkhead of the engine room from the cargo hold and using a dockside crane were able to extract and insert the items. The work was done and the ships engine ran OK.

How do I know all this? The ships engineer was my Son. So some lessons were learnt, dont drop an anchor in deep oggin as it cannot be lifted, so a total loss. Anchor chain is meant to lay along the sea bed with only a short drop from the boat. Rely on cunning to save losing money and an expensive salvage operation at sea. Still carry out the cargo run so as not to lose revenue. During then repair they called in an oil recovery lorry and sucked out 400gal. of oil from the bilges in the engine room, my Son recovered loads of tools and items from the bilge when it was clear, spanners and nuts and bolts and other sundry items. This ship also had a Lathe fitted and a workshop space with a bench vice and a drill.

Clive