This week we are getting ready for our ABS inspection. We were supposed to do this inspection a few months ago but it was canceled at the last minute due to Covid-19. We are now scheduled to leave here Saturday the 20th. The rest of the crew returned to the ship this week including the captan. For the last two months its just been me staying on the ship. We had to do a little bit to get things ready to sail again. First all the crew needed to get a Covid test done. So the university of Miami set us up with testing at their medical campus. We received the results the next day. Everyone came back negative for Covid. We also needed to have a small ABS inspection done before the ship was cleared to leave, because at this point the old one was expired. ABS sent one of their inspectors to the ship on Friday. We went through everything with them. They found no major problems so we were given a temporary pass. This pass was just for the trip to the yard in Tampa where they will to the full inspection upon arrival. We also cleaned, organized and made sure we had everything we needed for the yard period.
Category: MATE Blog Archive Page 36 of 89
Posts that were imported from the historical MATE blog at marinetech.org
This week we did a few different projects. We went through all the air conditioners and cleaned all the filters. We are also experimenting by spraying the ACs with vinegar to inhibit mold growth. We went through all of the ship’s spill kits. The ship has a chemical spill kit in the wet lab. We have it just in case there is a chemical spill it can be cleaned up right away. The wet lab is also the only part on the ship that the scientist used dangerous chemicals. The other spill kits are meant for oil and fuel spills. These kits are kept on the deck. The ship has 2 windlesses which are used to lift the anchors. We took them both apart and made sure there were no problems. We cleaned the parts, then added new grease and reassembled them. We also cleaned the bilge and AC sea strainer for the communications room. This room houses all the computers, and is where all the electronics connect to. It can generate a bit of heat. it is really important to keep cool so it has a separate AC system just in case the main one goes down.
This week wraps up the Alvin disassembly. The sphere has been removed from the frame, the implodable volumes are accounted for and put into storage, the mock sphere is almost done being set up. I’ve spent this week doing little odds and ends: finishing up on the implodables, tracking down serial numbers, cleaning hardware, and learning to tap holes. In order to mount parts into the mock sphere, we have to drill holes into the metal shelves. Once the hole is drilled, it is tapped to add threading. This allows for items to be directly screwed into the shelves instead of using nuts and bolts. Now that Alvin is no more, we continue to set up the mock sphere and then start work on maintenance.
A lot of this week has been spent doing more paperwork and filling out more green tags. One fun thing I did was help put together shelves which meant I put on a safety harness and got to climb all over the shelving unit. A less fun thing was cleaning hardware; the mechs had taken tubing off Alvin and wanted to keep the fittings on the ends. So I took them apart (got myself covered in oil in the process), cleaned them, and tried to sort them. It’s really difficult when the bins to store the pieces are labeled by part number which is not on the actual part. After that, I started hunting down all the implodable volumes that had been taken off the sub and all the spares wherever they had been stored (I’ve written about implodable volumes previous in week 14). There is a long list of all the implodable volumes and I’ve been given the job to track them all down and store them in one location. Every item has a unique serial number that has to match what is on the list. Finding the serial number on the part and matching it to what it should be is quite the endeavor.
The university sent two people from their medical campus that were in charge of health and safety to the ship. We gave them a tour and they gave us suggestions on how we can improve how we handle covid. They also checked our chemical lockers, wash station and fire fighting equipment. This was all done to start to prepare the ship for our ABS inspection as well as future trips. We may start doing trips again starting in July. At the end they gave us some good advice and a few small projects to improve things on the ship.
This has been a short week for me: Monday was a holiday, Wednesday was work from home (the mechs were offloading mercury, which is a hazard), Friday was another work from home day. On Tuesday I was inside the sphere. After finding the x, y, z for all the electronics, I would make a tag for them, help remove them, then send them to a lab where they’re installed into a mock sphere.
On Thursday, I went to the warehouse to find some boxes. That process was go to the storage van, pull everything out (because of course what I need is in the very back), find out they’re the wrong boxes, put everything back into the van, go to the next van, pull everything out, find what you’re looking for, put the rest of the stuff back, lay on the ground for 10 minutes because you’re covered in sweat and tired, bring the boxes back.
Since the sub is almost done being deconstructed, soon we’ll be starting on the maintenance of all the electronics.
It’s been a rainy week. There was flooding happening in downtown Miami. We decided to finish some indoor carpentry projects to stay out of the weather. We made some shelves, doors and a cover of an air conditioner unit. We also decided to test the emergency shower in the wet lab, but when we turned it on we could not turn it back off. We then needed to go to the maine water shut off valve for the shower but that was also not working so we had to shut down the ship’s entire fresh water system. We spent the day fixing the plumbing for the shower and fixed both valves. Now it’s working better than ever.
This week has been a lot of paperwork. Every certified item that comes off the sub needs a green tag and since I’m the intern I get to fill them out. It’s been a fun process of: fill out the tag, put the item away, oh wait there was a mistake, pull item out, fix mistake, put item away, oh wait this needs to be added, pull item out, fix tag, put item away. That for like 30 tags. After all that, I was able to help pull wire boxes off the sub. Even though they’ve been drained of their oil, all the wire attached still makes them super heavy. I also helped build a fence around the sub’s hatch so we can get in and out of the sphere safely. Once the fence was up, we started taking everything out from inside the sphere. The sub is starting to look real bare without any wires and with the foam blocks coming off.
We did another test and inspection of the safety equipment this week. We ran the fire pump and emergency budgie. We inspected the fire suppression systems for the engine rooms. We also went through and tested all the emergency lights. Testing the emergency lights is normally done by the deck crew but they have been away for a while now due to Covid-19 and the lights were due for an inspection. We found three lights that were not working properly. The emergency lights are wired so they stay off as long as the power is going to them but as soon as the power goes out they light up powered by either a 6v or 12v battery that is wired into each light separately. The lights that we discovered not working, each had a different problem. One light had a dead battery that just needed to be switched out. One had a problem with its test button. The test button normal temporarily shuts off the power inside the light when it’s pressed so you can tell if it is working properly. This light would not light up when the button was pressed but would light up when we shut the breaker for it circuit off. So that shows the light was functional all it needed was a new test button. The last light needed to be replaced with a new one. From our test it looked like its circuit board was fried.
So much of this week has me running around doing a million things. This week started off with building storage shelves. The task sounded easy enough at first, but then all of the metal bars were bent, the wood didn’t fit in place, there weren’t enough brackets so we had to make more. By the time we finally finished it was the end of the day. The rest of the week has consisted of pulling items off the sub and unraveling the wires. The wires were so much effort to try and pull them through tiny spaces. And of course right where you can just barely get to it is a zip tie you need to cut. One of the biggest things I did this week was helping with the penetrator removal. The penetrators allow for wires to pass from outside the sphere to the inside while maintaining a seal. They are very important and need to be handled carefully. After they are pulled out, I would take them, fill out a certified tag identifying the object and it’s serial number, after inspection they would be packed up. This week has been busy but I’m glad to be back at work.
