Lesson learned.   The key is to a successful family vacation is to plan it when the conditions are optimal. Our life as a maritime family is different.  Yes, daddy does go to work for three months at a time. But, the flip side, is that he is home with us, for three months at a time as well. The key is to take advantage of this situation, not be blindsided by it.  If possible, a vacation should be planned when daddy first gets home. Yes, maybe he’ll be a bit shell shocked after his “quiet time” at sea, but his tolerance levels will be refreshed. He will also actually be craving family time. Subsequently, when daddy gets home, the kids are so thrilled to see him that they tend to focus on him instead of declaring war against their sister who last cookie, or their brother who is breathing in their air space. In general, family time–together time is more enjoyable, more peaceful when daddy is fresh on the scene.  There is no reason why that peace at home cannot be packed up and taken on vacation. In fact, it can and should be!

At lunch, I quietly marveled over our little guys thoughts and comments. Was there some sort of a divine event that rocketed our son to a higher, more profound level of maturity and understanding? Did I miss something? As he wiped his ketchup fingers on his tie and devilishly delighted in serenading the table with an original score orchestrated from his armpit, my devine maturity theory went up in smoke. He was still a silly little six year old. However, he was also a silly little six year old who had 100% confidence in his daddy’s love for him, regardless of his daddy’s location. This secure unwavering love didn’t happen overnight. It happened everynight, over six silly and wonderful years from the land and from the sea. And, it was his to keep forever.

Our kindergartener learned a lot this year. He can read. He can write. He can count the money in his piggy bank. However, no lesson was more precious then the one he learned somewhere between the many nights his dad had tucked him into bed and the nights that his goodnight kiss came via long distance “ship to shore” phone call. Daddy loved him. Plain and simple. Sure and true. It didn’t matter where daddy’s ship took him, daddy’s heart was always home with us. Forever and Always.

Having a lot of ships moving around in the local waters means that there has to be a very active and well-organized maritime community that can offer the back up and service that these vessels will need. There is always need for repairs and supply of just about anything available under the sun. The service people in the maritime community have to be available on relative short notice. It’s not like in the industrial sector where all stops at days end. Ships continue to move around the clock.
People live onboard these ships and they have to make sure that the ship can continue to operate around the clock. That is their job. Engineer will look after the engines and other mechanical work that has to be done. The navigation officers will make sure that they move safely from port to port loading and unloading the cargo they be hired to transport.
In Montreal, the demand on fast service is very common as this is the place where you have the first lock entering into the Saint Lawrence Seaway and things tend to happen very fast. Ships that enter into the Seaway for the first time might have some problems that are usually ironed out very fast. The demand for continues movement while in the Seaway is quiet high.

This light introduction to the demand for service speed in Montreal is just the beginning of a series of articles under way covering the Maritime Community in USA and Canada.

Technorati Tags: Maritime Community In Canada, MAritime Community in USA

The flow of “Ship Spares In Transit” is international and relative very high volume.  Some parts of the world have more than others but that is due to ships trading patterns. Ship spares processed this way are usually moving fairly fast and Customs in general are very accommodating the keep the delay at bare minimum.

There are a variety of companies specializing in this kind of forwarding and trading and most of them are very good at their job and well connected around the world.

I tend to agree with Martin on this subject but I will add a few things to it. The people that have pushed the market into this situation are mostly ship management companies. The way I see this all happening is simply a matter of money. As always, money talks!

When the request for parts or stores is sent to the company head office they in turn request a price bid from 3 suppliers. In most cases the lowest bid will get the order to supply. It should also be said that lowest bid is not always the best for us on the ships. Many of these things can be contributed to people in purchasing not having enough experience to deal with these issues.

In my current position as purchasing officer for a supply company I see this happening all the time. A request doesn’t turn into order unless it is competitive in pricing. This in turn has allowed for substandard products to enter into our market. If you want to have the order you have to supply a product that “can” do the job but at a cost that is acceptable to the management company.

Where we all have to be vigilant is where we allow these products to be purchased and used. Consumables are one area where these substandard items are used a lot. Spare parts for certain equipment should not be allowed to be substituted at all in my opinion. There is too much at risk doing it.  I personally think that you can get away with using sub standard products when it doesn’t affect the safety of the ship or its operation.  Example being an overboard valve. You would not use an inferior type valve in place for a certified quality product and risk having it all fail on you while at sea. This is maybe an extreme example but it could happen. Ask at same time; Who certified the valve and How? On the other hand you don’t need a high cost fancy flush valve for a toilet.

Let us start with the starting battery. When a battery is fully charged and exposed to 0 deg F it has only 40 % cranking power. It is at 100% cranking power when the temperature is 80 deg F. To prevent this loss of cranking power we can install a heated box for the battery. Using a heated box we must have a thermostat to prevent over heating. We can also install battery thermal heating pad. This is a thermal pad that wraps around the battery. It is available for most sizes of batteries.

For the engine we can heat the oil pan in a similar way. There is a silicone heating pad made for this purpose and it comes with adhesive backing and can be glued to the oil pan.  The availability for these heating pads is in 220v and 120v. For the oil pan size depend on the volume of your engine oil. Max watt output that I have found so far is 400W.

These two small modifications to your lifeboat will greatly improve your chances of having a trouble free voyage in the cold north.
If you need any more information, feel free to leave a comment with your contact details.

Here are some of the working of it;

This system would use air as a medium, so the diaphragm separated the oil from the rest of the system. If it was full of diesel fuel, it would give a false reading because the ‘head pressure’ (the height of the gauge above the bottom of the tank) would introduce an offset equivalent to whatever volume of oil in the tank at the height of the pressure gauge. Effectively, whatever height the pressure gauge was, it would read zero whenever the oil was at the same level as the gauge, or negative when it was below the height of the gauge.

The failure probably occurred when the diaphragm or fittings in the sensor leaked and filled it with oil.

How do you covert an old system like this to a more modern system using digital displays etc.

Here are one senario using a day tank for 3.35 tons of  diesel fuel with a density of .8284 as a sample;

You need a pressure transducer that can be physically adapted to the bottom of the tank, and it would be electrically hooked up to a digital indicator programmed to read the pressure but is scaled (programmed) to convert the pressure into volume. The scaling would be calculated from the depth and dimensions of the tank, using the density of oil.

In this case, you need a pressure transducer that reads 1.72 PSI, or 47.63 in. H2O, or 3.5 in. Hg, minimum. (Don’t get one that reads more than twice that, however. You lose resolution.) This is quite low. Be sure that the ‘wetted’ components of the transducer are compatible with Diesel fuel. (Usually not a problem as most of the time they use Stainless Steel.)

The pressure of oil when the tank is full is 47.63 in. H2O as you supplied a density of .8284 for Diesel. If your tank is 57.5 in. deep then that is how you select the transducer. The digital indicator is scaled accordingly to convert into litres, gallons, etc. for every inch of depth.
Mounting brackets for the transducers are usually available from most dealers