Troubleshooter
It happens every time, most of the time when major holidays arrive – Easter, Christmas, New Year, weekends and days off, suddenly the phone rings and on the other end a voice says It’s a troubleshooting job somewhere, you should go somewhere and attend to some vessel.
We arrived on the vessel a tanker full of cargo. It was loaded with crude oil and it was in standby in anchorage.
Before we reached on board some things had happened. The subcontractors’ team when arrived at the port gate they couldn’t enter because they didn’t have proper paper. I had lost the way to the port instead of 2 hours I made 3 hours.
Finally, we got on board. It was late at night. Chief mate came to meet us.
After some discussions regarding troubleshooting of engine crane, we decided it’s better to continue next day and meantime we can get some sleep.
Surprise… we got a cabin on the deck dirty and smelly. No way, I couldn’t sleep there. But anyway after a short time the guy came again and he said something that this cabin is not proper for us. We went and we got better cabins.
Next day a new team of subcontractors arrived on board. Prepared with everything at least they seemed to
be. The job was not complicated but required proper men and proper tools. But, like my previous experiences the subcontractor team was unprepared. Their tools box was something very tinny with some tools but not enough for repairing the engine crane.
It’s a trick with this subcontractor’s team. This time everything was done in haste because the job came at the last minute. Just we had to go, unprepared. In service, jobs happen pretty often this kind of things.
When it’s enough time you should very carefully choose the subcontractor teams. At least before the troubleshooting job starts one meeting is required with the foreman or the person in charge of the subcontractor team. First to get acquainted and secondly to talk about the job and planned accordingly.
I met subcontractor teams that they were doing a repair job for the first time.
And this is bad for me because it’s a headache to work with people which are not aware of the job and could be dangerous relating safety.
Description of troubleshooting job
The trolley wheel it was out of the wheel-rail. The traveling trolley was hanging; only one side was holding the trolley on wheel-rail.
The job was more mechanical I mean the operation of the crane was normal just the mechanical parts were damaged. We had to make measurements and to check why traveling trolley fell.We suspected that they tried to lift more than SWL (safe working load). The engine crane was overloaded. The traveling beam was deformed.
We fixed the traveling trolley back on the wheel-rail.
Locked in the position and warned;”Do not use the engine crane for lifting any load, it is not safe!!” The work on the engine crane has not finished just made a temporary repair. A next visit required for a proper repair.
