We conducted about 9 drills, and were moving at a good speed. I was in the control room and heard a squeak. It was slight and not often. I asked what it was and no one seemed to hear it over the ambient noise coming from the huge engine room.
Squeak squeak..... squeak squeak squeak squeak! Got louder and we all got looking around but by then it was too late.
I was one foot out the door as it went kaboom.
All machinery was shut down as we checked for fire it was so nasty.
Seeing nothing, smelling nothing and hearing nothing! Weird... but that’s when we heard GE alarm and smoke in our storeroom which was right behind the engineroom. One you have to go 50 feet forward and up a ladder, back 75 feet then down thru two compartments to get to.
Found the problem. The oil supply line to a bearing worked its way shut and overheated. That caused the kaboom..
System was inside the casing so we couldn’t see what it’s consution was and it wasn’t good.
The bearing was a roller ball bearing, like giant hockey pucks riding on a sleeve.
What it should look like
What it does look like
No one was hurt thankfully.
We locked up the gear and need to inspect that but we need to go on blocks and pull the shaft and bearing. We are looking at a month repair and immediate patrol after. I probably won’t be back to my house till October after tomorrow.
My relief letter was submitted that morning as we got underway. The xo being snarky wrote “you might regret this” but had no idea what we were about to face...
My guys are getting a sea story out of it for sure.
I’d chop this up to shipyard negligence. The oil valve has a safety pin latch on it, but who ever installed it decided the pin was too hard to operate and just wrapped it around the shaft. Allowing it to shut itself.
That is so frustrating.
