Engine room systems design parameters (safety.)

Now I'm completely lost! LOL. Turrets turning? Maybe my composition is too old fashioned. What presumption! But I think I get it. Point taken. Waste of time.

To clarify; numerous yachts are being built while ignoring completely the practice of following the fundamental and well tried systems installation parameters as regards fuel, air, bilges, sealings, etc.
I stated, from knowledge, that these parameters are, nearly always, an insurance society, as well as a class certification, requirement. I thought that an interesting state of affairs and wondered why it was not being discussed.

(The entire drift of the stronger retorts from that point on from evidently non-engineers was to dismiss my comment as 'unproven' rather than to discuss the actual safety issue or, more usefully, some possible ways to expose the situation or improve the installations. I was asked to 'quote' the regulations and it was even suggested that I was simply wrong.)

My original comment was to 'ginger up' a response from other, possibly grumpy, but professional marine engineers rather than anyone else. ( ie. those who are, presumably, well aware of the situation, as well as the long standing industry regs., and may be irritated with having to ignore it.)

(But all one gets is smart-alec repetitive contradiction rather than actually positive discussion.)

But if any actual marine engineers (grumpy or otherwise) would like to comment, I would love to discuss, possibly, their thoughts or findings, or some method of revelation of the problem such that it may even start to be addressed.

'Roundthehorn'... you got it ..... exactly. Thank you.
(love the name by the way ... brilliant ....... shades of Spike Milligan and Peter Sellars all at sea and still 'in charge'. Highly appropriate to the daft necessity for such revelation. )

1) The 'proof' you ask ( and I'd LOVE to be able just to print off) is now so deeply buried in layer upon layer of (now often contradictory) MCA, Lloyds syndicate, veritas society and manufacturers regulation as to be quite impossible for a wee fella like me just to 'dig it out' in months or to present it comprehensibly. Hence my suggestion simply to ask a truly professional 'marine lawyer' such as from Ince and Co.
(The initial answer, as it was to me, will most probably be a shrug of the shoulders, a nod and a grin.) I'm not a lawyer. I'm an engineer.
2) The daytank requirements (why fixate on that one alone I wonder) are, as any older engineer will know from his 'booklearnin', written in stone, as well as every respected society advice and insurers requirement for God's sake! But I shall spend this day to dig out a couple from the net if I can.
3) I'm bringing it up in yacht forums to see if there are other supers or chiefs who would like to do something about it. ( I realise, particularly in the yachting industry, any negative comment is seen as blasphemy....but we Paddies don't yet suffer from too much political correctness. )
Anyhow....good positive point and suggestions. Thank you.

KIWI.
You are absolutely right of course. Fatigue and a few pastis apart, my comment finally broke surface last night from yesterday first being asked to advise/design a generator shift and re-installation in 24 hrs, and then, after most of the work was done, being 'second guessed' by a 'suited adolescent management company busybody who'd never crossed a bathtub in his spotty life' to, in effect, triple the cost and time of the job while at the same time eliminate two actually important safety aspects. (ie. do it wrongly.) Reason...so that, in his opinion, it 'looked' better. It does not.
I HATE this situation where one has to be a prostitute to halfwit political charlatans to do one's job.
So, yes, one or two pastis were applied and I took up smoking again.
I admit it.

Your comment about class rules being the minimum is such a welcome breath of fresh air. If someone asks about 'building to class rules', I usually grumble something rudely to the effect of 'why can't we do a quality job instead'.

'Accurate detailed' description......I COMPLETELY understand that suggestion but, as a practical day to day engineer, you will maybe see that the problem of which I am speaking is, in much part, as a direct result of the insurance companies, regulation societies, yacht builders and machinery manufacturers now ALL putting profit before professionalism and, as a result, burying the less attractive regs.in impossibly deep piles of impossible to find (even on the net) small print. This is now in ALL their interests and, increasingly evidently, politically incorrect to discuss in public.
This cynical situation even seems to be reinforced by 'pretendy engineers' who never knew the rules in the first place. Comments against correct (gravity) day-tank feed even on this forum are a case in point and not worth dignifying with an answer! I'd like to guess for which builder he works...but won't.
Anyway, thanks for the typically civilized advice. You are quite right and upon recovery I shall try to dig out something regulatory to quote to the time-served aetheists.
rgds

I shall not dignify this (frighteningly revealing) comment with an answer. As I said before, I created this forum for marine engineers alone. Suffice to say, if the gentleman is correct, the poor Dutch and the Germans must be doing it all wrong then.

I do the same! Doesn't it feel so relaxing! Just love the place.

I'm not a surveyor per Se.
I'm just an old ex. engineer (an ex. super' for over ten years.) I do surveys, usually for insurance or warranty claims, for someone who must be one of the most prolific surveyors in the Mediterranean, if not in Europe. He's 65, a busy chap, and doesn't like to get his cravat dirty. Some will know who I'm talking about.
(The 'surveyor' comment was to illustrate that I've seen a few engine rooms in the last couple of years.)

You show yourself as a 'Marine Engineer'. So I tried to send you a private message to save you the embarrassment of digging yourself a deeper hole, but I was rejected.

Now you have insulted me directly. You suggest in rather a cowardly fashion that I'm being dishonest or self aggrandising, or both.

So I will reciprocate simply by pointing out that your comment on gravity feed alone is positive proof to ANY actual marine engineer, experienced and rated, that 'you don't even know what you don't know'. While that is not, in itself a fault, it does make your insulting comments a bit embarrassing and pointless.

I am not here to teach you how to be an engineer. Nor to tear into the new breed of 'yacht builders' ..... or even the cynical nature of the industry.

I am simply shaking the tree to try to ginger up comment from other marine engineers or masters, similarly disenchanted with the way the market has driven rough shod over years of best practice and is now producing such shiny yet low quality and dangerous installations at such high prices for the naive. That's my 'rant' and, sitting here in my threadbare dressing gown, I'm not particularly ashamed of it.

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit so I'll assume it suits you.

Good. It's meant to be.
And 'F***kthebegrudgers' .. as we say in Dublin.

[QUOTE='roundthehorn]Rob, I don't think my feelings came out clearly. I was actually going for sarcasm, so you may not want to thank me. Sorry to mislead you into thinking someone was supporting you.[/QUOTE]

Now being semi-retired, I truly don't give a tinker's curse for 'support', particularly from non engineers or owners and their silly plastic 'jet-ski's-with-jakuzzis'. And sarcasm is still the lowest form of wit, but maybe it was unintended.

To be honest, I'm hugely enjoying using YF to get this crud off my chest.
I see you're a yacht owner, or you want to be.
Good for you. No doubt you are surrounded by honest God fearing old fashioned professionals who would never shirk from telling you the entire truth to your face. Yeah...right.

Having worked aft from the chain locker as a very young kid and apprenticed with some of the most professional and honest engineers in the business and on some of the best constructed vessels ever launched, I don't give much credence to the opinions of modern industry pundits or it's market driven attitudes. One is well aware of the extraordinary alignment in interests of yacht designers, the (profit based) MCA, builders, consultants, management companies, brokers, insurers, etc. to suck at the teat of naive 'owners'.

If some don't like what I have to say then, no doubt, they have that right.

But I'll wager a tick to a ton of coal that the ones that complain, or are too stupid to see the obvious when it's put in front of them, are the same one's that promote themselves as experienced to naive owners, but who wouldn't know an engine room from a donkey cart.

Tempted just to answer with something describing a donkey cart. But I won't. I'll give it one more go as I'm having so much fun.

OK...... 'Seaworthiness' of all systems in an E.R. is a fundamental contractual requirement of insurers ..... all insurers ..... as well as of common sense. (Bit like like having two wheel is pretty fundamental to being a bicycle.)

When you insure your bicycle, there's probably no mention on the available forms, of there 'having to be' two wheels on the thing. (The 'available forms' thing with MCA, Lloyds, Veritas, ABS, etc. is a more widely cynical element in this situation, but that would take too long here.)

Anyway, in the same way as the wheels for the bicycle, and for as long back as anyone can remember, (and if you don't know this you better just accept it for the moment ... or go ask some old Dutchman. ) it is a fundamental element of 'seaworthiness', just for one thing, that any compression ignition main engine injection pump system is pressurised by gravity when not running...ie. in practice, it must not lift it's own fuel along lines from tankage lower than the injection pump. The basic installation rule applies to any other supportive, non-redundant or safety related engine such as generators etc.

( The practical reasons become obvious if you just think about it. Clue: a) When a diesel truck stops, the engine remains stationary. When a ship's engine stops, it does NOT remain stationary. b) Fuel is affected by dynamic properties. c) Marine diesels, otherwise extremely reliable, don't like air in their injection systems....at all. )

This has been a fundamental requirement of installations for eons. One will NEVER find a quality vessel without a header tanks. (Day tanks or daily tanks.) They are even usually noted in any professional construction drawing.
And as there are also dozens of other practical advantages (or lack of the disadvantages of a 'sucker' system) it makes no sense to do anything else.

Reversed or asynchronous ventilation systems, wrongly-placed pumps and high direct air-ingress trunking are also just a few of numerous other things contrary to the fundamentals of seaworthiness (each an insurance claim killers.) but rarely mentioned or noticed by smart young MCA inspectors any more.

A fundamental contractual requirement does NOT mean it's easy to be seen in the rules, made obvious or even easy to find. Why would they?

But it's still a fundamental contractual requirement when a claim arises.

In the old days this stuff was published and updated progressively. Even then, one had to read between the lines.
Now it's been lost in the re-writing of the entire regulatory library of the MCA and Veritas etc. And Lloyds themselves make no real effort to publish their increasingly small print.
Management companies haven't a clue and, as a result, we have a generation that thinks it doesn't need these things any more...or even about what they do.

So we spend more money for more complex, less reliable, harder to maintain and more dangerous systems.

Happy story: I did on one occasion find a happy chap who was enthusiastically removing the header tank from a jewel-like Van Lent to provide space for an Italian built A.C.unit. (sic.)
If memory serves, I think I used a light 36mm wrench and was wearing my new Redwings at the time, but he still managed to escape almost uninjured.