A ship was sailing to Europe with 30,000 tonnes of wood products, when the crew noticed that vibration was coming from the no. 1 purifier.
The incident
The purifier was shut down straight away as the crew were worried that there was an imbalance in the bowl, and we changed to the no. 2 purifier.
I was a bit worried that something like this might happen as eight weeks ago we had opened the purifier and noticed sludge and deposits inside, as well as a damaged seal ring. The Chief Engineer had told us it didn’t need replacing – he had a lot of experience, so we didn’t disagree with him and left it as it was. I wasn’t sure the spare seal rings on board were in good condition so I suggested that we should try to get some spare rings before leaving Singapore. Unfortunately, the schedule was hectic and somehow we forgot this
said the Third Engineer.
A few days later the crew noticed vibration on the no. 2 purifier, which they knew must also have been due to excess sludge, and so they shut it down and opened for inspection.
We noticed that the seal ring was damaged and we also found out that the spare we had on board was faulty and could not be used
A day later there were high exhaust temperatures on all the cylinders of the no. 2 diesel generator. The Third Engineer called the Chief Engineer, and he ordered the main engine load to be reduced and the diesel generator shut down. The crew then started the no. 1 diesel generator and put it on the switchboard.
A few hours later there was a leak coming from the no. 2 cylinder cover on the no. 1 diesel generator.
We were worried that the valves were misaligned and so we shut down the diesel generator and stopped the main engine
The ship then started drifting and it took us three days to get one of the two diesel generators working again. The crew managed to get the no. 2 diesel generator started on marine gas oil by manually pushing in the fuel rack, however they couldn’t get it to run on the main switchboard.
We finally managed to get the main engine running on HFO by again forcing in the fuel rack manually, and we continued the voyage as advised by the shore office. Unfortunately, this luck didn’t last, and the main engine stopped after a while. The diesel generator that we were using was showing high exhaust gas temperatures, and so we had to shut it down, leaving us in total blackout. After some time salvors arrived and towed us to the nearest port
When technicians arrived on board they asked to restart the purifiers. As expected, they kept going into shut down.
Probable cause
According to the Swedish Club, the primary cause of the breakdown was failure of the purifiers. With both purifiers having damaged seals, it is highly probable that the impurities and water contained within the fuel oil were not removed before being burnt by the main engine and diesel generators.
Finally, the purifiers were stopped and the vessel continued to consume the fuel without any purification. As a result, the engines were not able fully to burn the fuel being fed and suffered overheating and internal damage.
Lessons learned
- To consume untreated heavy fuel is never a good idea. In hindsight, with the fuel treatment system out of order the engine crew should have immediately switched over to marine gas oil whilst the problem with the purifiers were rectified.
- Another important aspect of this series of events is the lack of spare parts on board. It seems that the engine crew did not have full control of their inventory of consumables which hindered them in carrying out relatively simple repairs to the purifiers.
- It is also recommended that the effectiveness of the fuel oil treatment system is periodically verified by analysing fuel oil samples taken before and after treatment.
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