Greensboring.com | Greensboro, NC

Re: I must be missing something

2013-03-20T01:46:06+00:00

I bet they hired idiots. Probably Americans being paid minimum wage who are trained to pushed buttons rather than understand what the buttons are connected to.

Speaking of... if you haven't seen Idiocracy, I highly recommend the movie. It definitely explains a lot of things going on in this world.

Statistics: Posted by Liv — Wed Mar 20, 2013 1:46 am

Re: I must be missing something

2013-03-20T01:11:41+00:00

Liv wrote:
I'm certain these things a drive-by-wire, but there's got to be a mechanical connection somewhere, and a diesel engine, is still a diesel engine... so unless there's catastrophic engine failure, I'm not getting it.

Sure, there are mechanical components to anything that moves under its own power. I bet that when you get down to the bottom of things, the design was cheapened in order to maximize long-term profits. That's the American Way, you know.

Statistics: Posted by SouthernFriedInfidel — Wed Mar 20, 2013 1:11 am

Re: I must be missing something

2013-03-20T01:08:29+00:00

I'm certain these things a drive-by-wire, but there's got to be a mechanical connection somewhere, and a diesel engine, is still a diesel engine... so unless there's catastrophic engine failure, I'm not getting it.

Statistics: Posted by Liv — Wed Mar 20, 2013 1:08 am

Re: I must be missing something

2013-03-19T13:26:44+00:00

lazydog wrote:
i don't think any of us can even begin to understand how complex a system of engines like that is.

I can get a lot further than 'beginning' I work in the mining industry and huge diesel-electric drive systems are common there. Maybe not as large as this ship, but similar in scale and at least as complex.

Other than Liv's joke about duct tape, our point is that we are surprised that a ship like this was so vulnerable to a localised fire. I would have expected to see more redundancy in the cabling that a section or an engine could be taken out of service without disabling the ship. People's lives are at stake - lots of them.

Statistics: Posted by A Person — Tue Mar 19, 2013 1:26 pm

Re: I must be missing something

2013-03-18T21:57:32+00:00

lazydog wrote:
so now we're all cruise ship mechanics? i don't think any of us can even begin to understand how complex a system of engines like that is. it's ridiculous to sit here and act like something or this scale is an "easy" fix and can be macguyvered in a couple of hours.

Didn't mean to give that impression. What I was pointing out was that the interconnected nature of the generators on this ship -- and others in the same class -- is a probable weakness that should have been avoided in the design of the ship. Just as the Titanic was sunk because of an oversight in the bulkhead design, a little foresight in the realm of electrical generation might have allowed this ship to operate at lowered capacity (and kept it out of the world headlines) instead of completely shutting down.

Statistics: Posted by SouthernFriedInfidel — Mon Mar 18, 2013 9:57 pm

Re: I must be missing something

2013-03-18T15:43:45+00:00

Nothing is so complex it's beyond tampering... ask any thief, con, or tinkerer.

There's a terrorist somewhere in the world piecing a nuclear bomb together. It's a ship, not a space station.

script

Statistics: Posted by Liv — Mon Mar 18, 2013 3:43 pm

Re: I must be missing something

2013-03-18T14:16:08+00:00

so now we're all cruise ship mechanics? i don't think any of us can even begin to understand how complex a system of engines like that is. it's ridiculous to sit here and act like something or this scale is an "easy" fix and can be macguyvered in a couple of hours.

Statistics: Posted by lazydog — Mon Mar 18, 2013 2:16 pm

Re: I must be missing something

2013-02-19T21:53:43+00:00

Splice some wires, grab the duct tape. Are people helpless these days?

Statistics: Posted by Liv — Tue Feb 19, 2013 9:53 pm

Re: I must be missing something

2013-02-19T16:35:50+00:00

My understanding is that the ship is diesel-electric and that the fire damaged the electrical cabling. The ship already had an uncorrected fault in its cabling which had impacted its speed.

http://psix.uscg.mil/PSIX/PSIXDetails.aspx?VesselID=495593

Engineering Generator (propulsion/auxiliary-electric)
Description of Deficiency
Vessel reported a short in the high voltage connection box of one of the ships generators causing damage to cables within the connection box. The condition of the ship and its equipment shall be maintained to conform with the... ..regulations to ensure that the ship in all respects will remain fit to proceed to sea without danger to the ship or persons on board. 50AC SOLAS 2009 CH1 reg 11.

I have to agree that this is both surprising and worrying. But regulations stifle jobs and companies should regulate themselves, what's a few stinky passengers or dead miners on the altar of free enterprise.

Statistics: Posted by A Person — Tue Feb 19, 2013 4:35 pm

I must be missing something

2013-02-19T09:38:59+00:00

I keep shaking my head over this story of the Carnival Triumph and the engine room fire from last week. What gets me is that it sounds like the ship was about completely disabled, even though only ONE engine caught fire, and that fire was quickly and efficiently put out.

The stories I read say that there was a separate room with a different set of engines that weren't touched by the fire. And were those engines also incapacitated? It just seems to me that it's remarkable that so much of the life support system of an ocean liner could go off-line through the loss of one of several power plants. No sewage treatment, no air conditioning, no power for cooking? No power for propulsion? Seems like a ship of that size should have enough redundancy and isolation built into its power plants that losing one would only be a minor inconvenience, not a crippling failure.

I mean, this was a fairly bad situation in the Gulf of Mexico. What if it had been on a trans-Atlantic passage, and went off-line 1000 miles from anywhere? This is a relatively modern ship, only 14 years old and built to handle problems like this... one would think. Eventually, the government will have to step in and investigate this industry. Something is wrong here, and the industry has appeared rather reluctant to fix itself.

Statistics: Posted by SouthernFriedInfidel — Tue Feb 19, 2013 9:38 am