06 Jun Damage Control
We are 291nm and 36 hours from Dutch. The wind has backed down to around 15kn from the WNW. I am an optimist so I’d like to think that the worst is behind us.
Let’s do a brief review of what has broken or gone wrong.
1st. There was this itsy bitsy 24vdc hot water heating fan that quit running and put out a lot of smoke. There were no visible signs of any burnt parts. This is the second fan to go kaput in the past 10 years even though these guys get very little use. We are running a solid 27vdc in our DC system and the line voltage at the fan reads 26vdc.
The fan was fused by the manufacturer and obviously there should have been a lower amperage fuse.
Pic of fan
2nd. Our weather reports were calling for W winds not to exceed 20kn and seas in the 6-9ft range. Our actual was 35-40kn and seas in the 6-12+ range. When we took a large “rogue” wave on our port side the side access door to the port lower deck blew its latch apart. Noodle, who is a Mechanical Engineer specializing in US Navy drydock operations and was also the US Navy’s#1 drydock safety officer for the World, estimates the side loading on the deck access hatch was somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000#+. The Engine room port side air intake was closed off due to the known weather coming on the port side. The Starboard air intake was open and when the port side deck filled up the water ran over to the starboard side and dumped into the engine room. Not only that, but it also filled the lower deck bath exhaust line, dumping water and years of built up crud into Noodle’s bath vanity!
3rd. I thought I had securely bolted the aft deck teak table to the rail with a 1/2in stainless bolt downs. The bolt held OK but the side loading from the swamped deck caused the table to break apart. It currently is on the salon floor and we will see if we can cobble it back together when we get into port.
4th. The galley sink drain…….you may have read about it from Noodle in our guest blog section on mvstarr.com site. The picture of it shows that this isn’t something we could have fixed with JB Weld and duct tape. The weak spots were out of sight on the back side of the drain. I examined all of the other sink drains to verify that this was the only piece of metal drainpipe still left on board Starr.
Let’s do a brief review of what has broken or gone wrong.
1st. There was this itsy bitsy 24vdc hot water heating fan that quit running and put out a lot of smoke. There were no visible signs of any burnt parts. This is the second fan to go kaput in the past 10 years even though these guys get very little use. We are running a solid 27vdc in our DC system and the line voltage at the fan reads 26vdc.
The fan was fused by the manufacturer and obviously there should have been a lower amperage fuse.
Pic of fan
2nd. Our weather reports were calling for W winds not to exceed 20kn and seas in the 6-9ft range. Our actual was 35-40kn and seas in the 6-12+ range. When we took a large “rogue” wave on our port side the side access door to the port lower deck blew its latch apart. Noodle, who is a Mechanical Engineer specializing in US Navy drydock operations and was also the US Navy’s#1 drydock safety officer for the World, estimates the side loading on the deck access hatch was somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000#+. The Engine room port side air intake was closed off due to the known weather coming on the port side. The Starboard air intake was open and when the port side deck filled up the water ran over to the starboard side and dumped into the engine room. Not only that, but it also filled the lower deck bath exhaust line, dumping water and years of built up crud into Noodle’s bath vanity!
3rd. I thought I had securely bolted the aft deck teak table to the rail with a 1/2in stainless bolt downs. The bolt held OK but the side loading from the swamped deck caused the table to break apart. It currently is on the salon floor and we will see if we can cobble it back together when we get into port.
4th. The galley sink drain…….you may have read about it from Noodle in our guest blog section on mvstarr.com site. The picture of it shows that this isn’t something we could have fixed with JB Weld and duct tape. The weak spots were out of sight on the back side of the drain. I examined all of the other sink drains to verify that this was the only piece of metal drainpipe still left on board Starr.
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