Oh, I just thought of a little note I got from a friend the other day. It was about “Danfoss” parts. He was asking why at times it was so difficult to locate Danfoss parts. He had just gone through a whole day looking for a pressure switch. Mind you, the one he was looking for was probably a old one that had been in use for some time. Anyhow, he had a partial number, a serial number, rating in bar, differential in bar, voltage and size of connections.

You would think he said, that a company as large as “Danfoss” would have a way of tracking old serial numbers on these things. After speaking with a “Danfoss Technical Rep” they came to a conclusion the old part would be replaced with a model that was fairly close in the ratings. After this process he was asking for a way of getting the part and was told by the distributor that getting parts from “Danfoss” sent out the same day was next to impossible. Delivery could be up to 10 working days. Back to square one he said, just about ready to give up.

I know from personal experience that it can be hard at times to locate these various parts that you would need on a ship.

One rule of thumb that a chief engineer should always remember when ordering parts is that the person he is communicating with ashore has to be provided with all possible information. What seem easy and “Standard” to you onboard might not be so in the hands of a purchasing officer ashore. The contactor looks very simple and standard in your hands but don’t forget that the person ashore doesn’t have the part in his/her hands.

Today with communication being as it is with e-mail etc. there should be no problems for you to attach a digital photo of the part. The old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words is so true.

Now comes the tricky part, deciding on a replacement part!

What does a ship chandler do? A ship chandler or ship supplier is a company that specializes in accommodating the request for stores and spares to the ships. This is a very broad term and it covers a lot of different product categories. It can be anything from Tomatoes to Engine Pistons and Nuts and Bolts.

 A ship Chandler usually works directly with the Ship Manager or Ship Owner. A large part of Ship Supplier work is simply sourcing of products used onboard the ships. Today the world is the shopping ground for ship suppliers. Anything can be sent express to just about anywhere in 3-5 days. This speed of service has been a blessing and also made it possible for the ship owner to have his ship replenished with stores at just about any location in the world.

 The speed of the ships has also made in necessary to increase the speed of deliveries. In order to accomplish this most owners or managers are preparing any requirements well in advance of ship arrival. Ship arrives, get the stores delivered and shortly after are underway again. A ship supplier locates a product that has been requested by the ship staff. This product is delivered to the vessel at first opportunity. The charges related to this service are then invoiced to the owner or manager.

In dealing with a multitude of owners from all over the world it can be a task at times to keep track of the owner or managers credit rating. Many of the ship chandlers are gambling large amounts of money on their customers and some of them loose it at times.  There are a few people specializing in collection of overdue billing but it is usually the ship chandler them self that has to do the collections.

To most people the ship agent will be the one that takes care of clearing the ship in and out of port. He becomes the ships local representative when it comes to Government and customers. In some cases you can find two ship agents handle the ship while in port. It is usually an agent representing the shipper and one representing the ship owner. In this case the shipper is the one that pays for his cargo to be sent with the ship owners ship. In other words he is the customer. In high value shipments there is always a good idea to have a representative present during the loading of the vessel to look after ones interest.

A ship agent will take care of all the paper work that goes with taking a ship in and out of port. The ship agent will look after all fees that are due to the port and long shore men. These are the people doing the actual loading or unloading of the ship. He will make sure that the local customs office is kept up to date with all custom transactions. He will coordinate the requests that come from the people he is representing. It might be a demand for doctor appointments for some crew members. It might be a demand for visa from a joining crew member that want to joint the ship while in port. A lot of the work that an agent is doing is also done before the ship comes to port.

Underlying responsibilities are much more than this and the boarding clerk that physically handles the ship might do a lot more than this if he also looks after the shippers of the cargo. There are a lot of details that we will not cover in this article but it is safe to say that a ship agent can be a very busy person.

In this brief introduction to the Marine Agent in the Maritime community in Canada we have just touched base on this subject and we do intend to write more about it at a later date.

Electrical work like rewinding of a electric motor can be done ashore and does usually require a shop facility that can handle this kind of work. Most ships have electricians on staff that can handle most of the regular general electrical requirements. However it can be situations that are just to demanding for onboard repair to be done.

In port of Montreal there are many companies capable of doing ship repair work. There are also companies that are subcontractors working under a ship repair company. This kind of company is in most cases a highly specialized company within a certain area. Many times, a job requires the service person to go with the ship while continuing to do the job. In the area of Montreal this is very common, as the vessels will in many cases only be transiting to or from the Great Lakes.

So here we have covered some of the work that a ship repair company is doing. The main thing though is that most of them a re very skilled at their job and are doing great jobs.

How do you find that right ship repair company for the job at hand….

As an example; if I want to put a parcel onboard a ship while she is transiting the Seaway, I will have to inform and get permission from the Seaway authority with the consent from the ship master. The master has to present to the Seaway Authority a list of personnel that will be attending the ship while in transit. All personnel entering onto Seaway property must conform to their regulation for security and safety.
The flow of cargo to and from the Great Lakes port all have to enter into or exit the Seaway System and locks in Montreal, Canada.  Some cargo ships built for the Great Lakes are never exiting as they are on regular trade routes within the Great Lakes and have no need to exit. Some cannot exit as they are too large for the Seaway Locks in the Welland canal and also in the locks between Lake Ontario and Montreal. These ships are mostly dry bulk cargo ships transporting coal and other commodities within the Great Lakes. The crew and officers on these ships are of US and Canadian nationality.

In the latter years we have seen increase in barge traffic on the lower “Lakes”, mostly handled by push boats. The cargo is mixed of dry and liquid bulk.

Foreign ships entering into the Great Lakes have to conform to Saint Lawrence Seaway regulation. To verify and approve a vessel, a joint USA and Canada inspection is performed in Montreal on the first voyage of the navigation season. The ship and crew are inspected and approved for the season. However a inspector is still verifying the ship while in first lock on each voyage inbound Great Lakes. Since the international ballast regulation came into effect and also since a joint Canada/USA ballast control system came online for the Great Lakes, verification at same time as Seaway inspection is also done. The US and Canadian Seaway Inspectors are filling out a ballast report conforming to both US and Canadian regulations. Vessel will have to keep log of all sampling of new ballast to make sure that salt level is sufficiently high.

Note Following:

As a website completely independent of Government and Shipping companies, Maritime Community is planning to put some time into writing about the various segments of the Saint Lawrence River and Great Lakes, the companies and technologies involved in this area.

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.