Dear Matt / Wolffy,
A busy swing had by us... A few notes:
Week 1:
- Raw water leak in port engine room pipe coming from strainer box became serious with 160L raw water in engine room bilge (9 drums vacuumed out!) found on prestarts one morning. Repaired and engine room flushed and cleaned.
- Vessel operated at APLNG for 2 days to cover BK breakdown.
- Set up lines at berths at QC1 and QC4 both sides for vessel operations during GLNG shutdown and organised ramps.
Week 2:
- Both mains serviced and fuel filters replaced - all okay.
- Picked up yellow environmental monitoring buoy drifting astray in Jacobs Channel and dropped at Service Wharf for Col Andersen of Vision Environmental to pick up.
- Vessel began operations at QCLNG with new schedule.
Week 3:
- Vessel operating at QCLNG.
- Incident 4.10.16 of rescue of sunken Kayakers stranded in Auckland Channel with inbound ship. Incident report submitted.
Other than the above some important stuff...
- WATCH ramp on inside of QC1 and western side QC4. QC1 inside ramp is worst and needs to be put on large angle to boat to work effectively. Not much room for wash and movement at all. Sometimes I man helm and keep in gear whilst loading and unloading. Have had forgiving weather thankfully. Dave will forward weather emails from QCLNG. Remind passengers to watch heads in safety briefing approaching dock. If things are really hairy use GL2 and advise QC1 security on house radio. Security will let you know if passengers still coming close to departure times at port central.
- Be careful to look out for Saratoga at QC3. Even though they aren't loading passengers and nor do they call a no wash but they whinge about any wash on the radio even when it's a tug doing 13kts and not us... Long story.
- Berthing western side at QC4 with strong SE and run in tide good fun... Enjoy! ;-) Note the yellow buoy marking the mud bank.
- Wash and scrub boat and an hour later it will be covered in coal dust in an hour with these northerlies.
- To avoid conflict with Parangool... 0530 use inside QC1 and berth western side QC4 for 0620 (we haven't had pax for this run since we started doing it...) then berth inside QC1 again for 0700. In the afternoon use eastern side QC4 for 1350 then when returning for 1530 use western side and then inside QC1. Parangool will move after 1530 so you can use outside QC1 ramp for 1630 arrival. Outside ramp is much safer at QC1 so don't hesitate to ask Parangool to move or wait till they are finished unloading and hold off to use their ramp at your discretion. Safety first. Have spoken to Dave about all this and he is supportive. On weekends there are no clashes.
- For all runs over 20 mins write the reason why in log (see my examples). I have told Dave sometimes the boat just can't do it and he understands. In this case put down tides or something...
- See flagged emails.
- Don't forget WRZs. Sometimes you may have to go around the top of North Passage island to do runs if ship is swinging in LNG swing basin. Talk to Trojan if you need to, very helpful to get status of ship.
- Getting 4 days out of full tanks with longer runs and many dead runs.
- Had to adjust rudder alignment twice this swing, nothing too serious but may be one to watch in case it becomes more frequent.
- All the usual stuff, cleaning, engine rooms, Genset, engineering etc. has been done for handover. Let me know of any issues. Genset still leaking a little coolant, topped up 1l last week. Port main still using a little coolant, monitor. Been running port at 1900rpm and stbd 1950rpm for runs and she's pretty happy. All other fluids at accepted levels.
As always I'm only a phone call away if you need any help or questions.
Safe boating,
Tony.