Ship board EPG systems, starting in the late 70's
- Thread starter Gunfighter14e2
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Oh, shoreside contractor?
Electrician or diesel mac?
Contractor, working Mains Prime & Electrical, as well as uncle consultant on black start EPG
I would say that probably 90 to 95 percent of the ships being built at Hyundai heavy industries in the past 20 years have some varition of the Kongsberg K-chief power managment system. I would be shocked if this ship doesn't. Other than some automation there is not going to be much to hack into. That is a slow speed diesel that is mostly controled from the ECR, and the bridge being a completly different system. Getting into a K-pos or what ever version of navigation system they are using and the K-chief at the same time if they are even connectoed to an outside network would be difficult.
There obviously was some wind that night.How strong we can only guess. Look at the trail of black smoke, when it starts rolling out the stack the smoke trail goes diectly off to the starboard side of the ship. Tells me the wind was basically coming from the port beam. Those ships have to maintain speed to be able to steer. if the prop stops turning, the sail area of a container ship like this one would do almost exactly as it did, being pushed to starboard.
I'm calling B.S on them being able to hack into this ship, and purposedly steer it into this bridge. I have never seen a ship yet that is tied into an outside server. Even if it is tied in it will only be for some condition based monitoring which just measures vibration on a couple major pieces of equipment, or if a critical alarm like oil mist detector shut downs or something like that, it will send an email to the office. It will have no control over anything. The navigation system on the bridge only really has control of the steering if they are in autopilot. They more than likely would have been in manual helm steering or NFU (non follow up) mode. Meaing the only way the rudder could be turned is from the helsman standing there at the wheel. They would have not been using GPS for anything other than a speed reference while manuvering in the channel. They would have been using the range markers or range lights to stay in the middle of the channel. Even if they completly lost the GPS it would be irrevelent.
Every ship has two seperate steering pumps and controls. The emergency power which this guy is talking about is the emergency generator. The emergency generator is supposed to come on in 45 seconds. but most of the time it is a seperate power supply to one of the main steering pumps. This ship is classed by ABS and they have to go through inspections every 2.5 years. No way any of these systems are not there. It doesn't look to me like the emergency generator come on. When the lights come back on everything come back. The emergency would have only been emergency steering. a couple of pumps to run the main engine and a few lights.
The black smoke rolling is curious to me. That smoke is definitly the main engine. This is more smoke than a normal engine start up to me. It would come from one of two things. Either they shifted to reverse and were trying to back hard to stop, or it would be a very ballsy move, pending on which way the rudder was facing. coming ahead hard they were trying to stop the swing of the bow. Without knowing what the rudder position was when this happened we are just making a wild guess.
I'm calling B.S on them being able to hack into this ship, and purposedly steer it into this bridge. I have never seen a ship yet that is tied into an outside server. Even if it is tied in it will only be for some condition based monitoring which just measures vibration on a couple major pieces of equipment, or if a critical alarm like oil mist detector shut downs or something like that, it will send an email to the office. It will have no control over anything. The navigation system on the bridge only really has control of the steering if they are in autopilot. They more than likely would have been in manual helm steering or NFU (non follow up) mode. Meaing the only way the rudder could be turned is from the helsman standing there at the wheel. They would have not been using GPS for anything other than a speed reference while manuvering in the channel. They would have been using the range markers or range lights to stay in the middle of the channel. Even if they completly lost the GPS it would be irrevelent.
Every ship has two seperate steering pumps and controls. The emergency power which this guy is talking about is the emergency generator. The emergency generator is supposed to come on in 45 seconds. but most of the time it is a seperate power supply to one of the main steering pumps. This ship is classed by ABS and they have to go through inspections every 2.5 years. No way any of these systems are not there. It doesn't look to me like the emergency generator come on. When the lights come back on everything come back. The emergency would have only been emergency steering. a couple of pumps to run the main engine and a few lights.
The black smoke rolling is curious to me. That smoke is definitly the main engine. This is more smoke than a normal engine start up to me. It would come from one of two things. Either they shifted to reverse and were trying to back hard to stop, or it would be a very ballsy move, pending on which way the rudder was facing. coming ahead hard they were trying to stop the swing of the bow. Without knowing what the rudder position was when this happened we are just making a wild guess.
There will not be any meaningful investigation.
Biden has declared that Fed Gov will pay for everything, so the ship's owners will not be relying on their insurance policy. Thus, no insurance company will investigate. The only investigation will be done by the forces of Fed Gov, so we already know the investigation will be a sham.
Isn't it interesting Biden and Company want to have Fed Gov handle everything instead of making a claim against the policy of the ship's owners?
Biden has declared that Fed Gov will pay for everything, so the ship's owners will not be relying on their insurance policy. Thus, no insurance company will investigate. The only investigation will be done by the forces of Fed Gov, so we already know the investigation will be a sham.
Isn't it interesting Biden and Company want to have Fed Gov handle everything instead of making a claim against the policy of the ship's owners?
The .gov doesn’t want a real investigation into it because they know it wasn’t an accident.
For those that don't know anything about a deep draft ship. There is only one shaft, and one rudder. the steering on these is an fairly basic electric over hydraulic system with 2 seperate pumps, and 2 of everything all the way down to where to rudder post is. Then it will be the same hydraulic cylinder or cylinders to actually turn the rudder. There are mulitple way of steering, autopilot, FU, NFU, manual helm, there are probably no less than 3 different places on the bridge to actually steer from. There will probably be emergency controls in the ECR (engine control room) and there will be an emergency steering station probably around the steering gear or in the steering gear compartment.
The main engine is a slow speed diesel. All the pumps required to run this engine are electric. There will be main sea water cooling, H.T (high temp) L.T. (low temp) cooling pumps. fuel pumps, lube oil pumps and depending on what system they have possibly a hydraulic pump. These engines are so big they don't have camshafts. they use hydraulic cylinders now to operate the valves. Some use lube oil as the means to operate the hydraulic cylinders some actually use hydraulics.
If the lights go out all of these pumps stop. The cooling pumps are not a shut down, the engine will have to run until it gets hot to be an issue. This didn't happen in the minute they were without power. The fuel pump shutting down is not a direct shut down but the engine under load will run out of fuel very quickly without a fuel pump running. Everyone of these I have seen have an emergency air driven fuel pump, that as long as there is air in the service air system it will supply enough fuel to keep the engine going for a bit. The lube oil pumps stopping would probably be the only direct shut down. However there should have either been a air operated emergency pump or an accumalator in the system to keep it running for a minute or so just for situations like this.
The only way to go from forward to reverse on one of these, is the engine has to be stopped, and someone in the ECR has to switch the cams into reverse and restart the engine. The bridge has no control of this.
The voyage data recorder failing is not supprising to me. It should have had a UPS or something simlar to keep it powered up, but on a FoC ship this is not a suprise.
Someone earlier mentioned water in the fuel. The lights going out then coming back on, then going back out does line up very well with water in the fuel. The generator that is on line dies. The motorman or asst engineer runs out and starts the standby generator before actualy figuring out why it went dead. The other generator get put online then a minute later gets a slug of the same water that shut the first one down. The timing lines up very well with that scenerio. We dont know this for sure though.
Without knowing what caused the generator to shutdown, either time, where the rudder was during this entire episode, and if and when the main engine actually stopped, then when they restarted it was it in forward or reverse, we are just making wild guesses. With the power out the bridge had no control of the rudder, also nobody from China can hack into it and control it either at this point.
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This ship is what the industry calls a FoC registry. Stands for flag of convience. Singipore is generally held in high standards, but it is still owned by someone else that is not in Singipore. Companies use the FoC to get around taxes, regulations, manning and stuff like that. Panama, Marshall Islands, Liberia, and Bahamas are the common ones. This had a full Indian crew. Indians will work for half of what a fillipino will work for. They are the cheapest labor in the shipping industry. I worked with a crew about 2 years ago in Malyasia that had a lot of Indians. My Indian motorman were working for 35 dollars a day. This was in 2022. They were all decent people but you had to hold there hand with everything they did. Sorry but you get what you pay for. Glad I never went back to that ship.
That was interesting and told me, they did not what a true investigation done. Its a known fact this so called leadership hates this country and would do anything to collapse it to the ground. I believe the only thing stopping them from completing their goal is a small select group that is keeping them at bay.
This bridge event is just a way of eating the elephant, somewhat faster. The effects of which are already starting to ripple thru the economy. As when you step back an look at everything that has transpired from 2008 on, the puzzle starts to become much clearer, even to the Stevie Wonder types.
Before the end of Jan next year the picture will be crystal clear.
I dont know anything about ship, but would they really have all the non essential stuff like lights and accessories all tied into one power source? Usually one would think the engine and main primary drive systems would have their own dedicated as well in the event of anything happening through out the ship that could affect or harm the system, short something, if so its system would be affected and the primary drive system would not be. ? Same as like if the primary drive went down, (engine and power system) you should still have a separeate system (secondary) to have lights to see and fix it. This described sounds like if my toaster shorted out it would take out the power plant and entire city. Nothing is set up like that.
@Gunfighter14e2 can you fix the Collapse in the title? S and P are switched.
Well it is kind of and kind of not. There will be 2 of everything. there are 2 generators, but both the main generators are suppling power to the same switchboard most of the time. The emergency generator will be seperate, be in a seperate space, have a seperate fuel and cooling system, and have a seperate switchboard. but the emergency generator will only supply emergency power for steering, usually 1 set of pumps to run the main engine and some lights. All of the pumps would be on an auto change over system. Meaing if one fails the other comes on automatically. There would be 2 of every pump, but the bulk of them would come from the same main switchboard. Only a few pumps are tied into the emergency
Most of the ships I have worked on we ran 2 generators in parallel so if one fails the other is already online and no chance of going dark, while we were in the channel or manuvering. Apperantly this crew did not do that.
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Maybe they hacked it via replacing the crew? Reports the Captain was Ukrainian?
That is relatively easy.
That is relatively easy.
That is the easiest way, but it only takes one guy, to hose up any system or plan. Plus if he should/would know what he is doing, it would take deep digging to prove it as well.
Small businesses apply for federal loans after Baltimore bridge collapse
A federal program offering loans to small businesses hurt by the collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge has received 500 applications.
apnews.com 
Dad was in the bridge building construction for a long time.
The “fish window” is a real thing.
“Cant be in the water this month”
“Next month you have to do 4 months of work in under 1 month” type of thing.
it’s nonsense. I always imagined the salmon would actually enjoy the change of scenery. Like a drive by zoo for the fish to see construction workers in their habitat.
When I was on the Constellation I remember once we entered the Straits of Juan de Fuca a helo dropped a Harbor Pilot off , he drove it through to Bremerton. Super beautiful seeing BC to port and Washington to Starboard . I got out before they turned her into CV 64 from CVA . Went on transit cruise in 98 from Bremerton through the Strait after a dry dock period back to North Island.
A Pilot took her back to the Pacific, helo picked him up , The old man took the helm.
Not many people onboard. I found a spot on the bridge , found a leaning back Captains chair , soaked the beauty in . On our way S to North Island , we passed the Independence heading to Bremerton. Her last trip forever.
We ate with the Old Man in his Cabin. I had no real clue how O’s got there asses kissed. He asked if there was anything special we wanted to do or see ? I asked if I could see the bridge , never did in the years I was on her before. He said Hell you want to take the helm ??
All of us former crew members got to take it for say 10 minutes or so.
My request , I went first !! They made us honorary Helmsmen , took our pix doing it ,
They had the certificates made and matted and framed. Definitely a high point in my life’s journey. Certificates are as cool as my Shellback certificate circa 73.
Great 4 day trip , zillions of forgotten memories and smells came back.
I DAMN sure didn’t ever want to see the brig at anytime. Our
cost was only $40.00 for the trip.
Saw more of her in 98 than ever before. Big mo fo ,many places not allowed other places didn’t want to go then or years later
Good way to say good bye though.Many of us might be shaving with her today, she’s still around.
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This will be a smaller version of all the PPP fraud. Every criminal across the US suddenly had a phantom small business losing money.View attachment 8388891
Small businesses apply for federal loans after Baltimore bridge collapse
A federal program offering loans to small businesses hurt by the collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge has received 500 applications.
The 3 most common groups of foreign ships crews are Fillipino, Eastern European, mostly Polish and Ukrainain then Indian or Malyasian. There are a lot of Ukrainian's working on ships.
To replace an entire crew you would have to replace them with people that know how to run a ship, or else they would have never even been able to get away from the dock. Ship officers have more paperwork and documents than an airplane pilot. The Captain, chief mate or chief officer second mate, third mate, chief engineer, first engineer, second engineer, and third engineer are all licensed positon's. Everyone of these guys will have a licnese issued from thier home country, then either a certificate of equivelance or an actaul license issued from Sinigapore. They have to have this to sail on a Singapore flagged ship. Every single person on board all the way down to the cook would have a seamans book issued from thier home country and Sinigapore. They get stamps in the seamans book everytime they depart the ship to prove sea time. Just about every country in hte world but the U.S. gives tax breaks to seaman who are out of the country 180 days or more. Get some perks on airlines ETC. When you travel the companies can get you a seamans ticket on the airlines. This shows up as a code and the airline can see it. Everytime yo clear customs traveling they will want to see your seamans book. Someone from the office would have emailed a crew list weeks in advance of arrival at every port. I guarantee that as soon as they arrived in Baltimore customs and immigration was on board checking the paper work. Wanting to see passports, seamans books and licenses. There was an 80 percnet chance a couple Coast Guard guys showed up at the same time to do a safety inspection and look at some of the same paperwork. To replace an entire crew and forge all that paperwork I guess it is possible, but not what I would call easy
This ship probaly has a Kongsberg navigation system and a Kongsberg power managment/alarm system. I will be shocked if it doesen't. Every single alarm and every command given to each piece of equipment would be in the history of that Kongsberg system. That alarm list will tell you more than the voyage data recorder ever will. If someone did something on purpose that is where you can find it. A Kongsberg tech could pull that list. there would be 2 seperate ones, bridge and engine room. I would love to see it myself, but never will I;m sure.
Baltimore Bridge Collapse: US Army Corps Of Engineers Says Channel Fully Reopen By End Of May | ZeroHedge
ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero
www.zerohedge.com 
Baltimore Bridge Collapse: US Army Corps Of Engineers Says Channel Fully Reopen By End Of May | ZeroHedge
ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero
I was going to post...
Sounds about right.
Now, how long to build the "Harvey Milk LGBTQ Rainbow Greta Thunburg EV-Only Shining Path Bridge?"
Sirhr
No news of this anywhere online, more info?
I can't see it, as I'm not disabling ad blocker or tracking, what is it about?
Given that nothing ultimately happened aside from a temporary loss of power and control , and is now under power steaming on its way,
''
Reports indicate that the container ship APL QINGDAO lost power while transiting the port of New York.Three tugboats were dispatched to assist, but three additional tugs were required to gain control. Eventually, the ship's electrical problem was resolved, and it anchored near the Verrazano Bridge.''
Track of movement is a bit unusual
''
Reports indicate that the container ship APL QINGDAO lost power while transiting the port of New York.Three tugboats were dispatched to assist, but three additional tugs were required to gain control. Eventually, the ship's electrical problem was resolved, and it anchored near the Verrazano Bridge.''
Track of movement is a bit unusual
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^^^ how often prior to the bridge falling did this sort of thing happen as a matter of routine and no one outside the industry took any notice?
Just asking before it becomes a conspiracy.
How many ships a year through suez and nobody gives a shit? But one idiot goes crosswise and the whole world economy collapses.
Since then no ships have gone sideways in Suez so apparently no one gives a shit any more.
But thousands of ships have gone through. What percentage have “issues” during the transit that no one pays attention to?
That’s the data that would be interesting.
It’s all too complex… and we run too much on luck now. Lucky a circuit doesn’t blow. A power station doesn’t collapse. The weather stays good. An idiot with a Semtex tuxedo doesn’t sho up somewhere that matters. Solar flare. Earthquake. DEI idiot trips the wrong switch somewhere. Wheat crop fails. “Real” disease jumps shows up in bush meat. Biden pushes big red button because he didn’t get ice cream…
Last 300 years we have been living in a geological and planetary Goldilocks Zone of serenity. And use that time to build up massive “civilization “ —if you can call it that these days — on a foundation of technological “innovation” that is beyond being a House of cards. One thing goes wrong and so much crashes down that billions die and recovering could take centuries.
All the knowledge goes away if it’s digital as well. Not just the stuff. And the people to fix the stuff. But the knowledge for the survivors to recreate the stuff.
And how much is now digital? Lose power for a while and it’s like losing the Library at Alexandria x billions of pieces of human learning. Fact… a handful of gamers playing a multi-role shoot-em-up now generate more information (measured in bits) than existed on the planet prior to 1940.)
Imagine it all going away. Not the gamers shit… but the recipe for penicillin. The plans to make a generator. How to extract fractions from petroleum. Removing an appendix. Making gunpowder. You name it. All massively specialized and handled in point factories… gone and no way to relearn it or rebuild the machine to make the machines to mak the machines… without decades or centuries.
Sunday morning fun thoughts. Ships in harbors and falling bridges are not the apocalypse. But they are harbingers of what will happen if the tiniest thing goes tits up. Complexity and specialization will kill us. Not some ship hitting a bridge.
Sirhr
Just asking before it becomes a conspiracy.
How many ships a year through suez and nobody gives a shit? But one idiot goes crosswise and the whole world economy collapses.
Since then no ships have gone sideways in Suez so apparently no one gives a shit any more.
But thousands of ships have gone through. What percentage have “issues” during the transit that no one pays attention to?
That’s the data that would be interesting.
It’s all too complex… and we run too much on luck now. Lucky a circuit doesn’t blow. A power station doesn’t collapse. The weather stays good. An idiot with a Semtex tuxedo doesn’t sho up somewhere that matters. Solar flare. Earthquake. DEI idiot trips the wrong switch somewhere. Wheat crop fails. “Real” disease jumps shows up in bush meat. Biden pushes big red button because he didn’t get ice cream…
Last 300 years we have been living in a geological and planetary Goldilocks Zone of serenity. And use that time to build up massive “civilization “ —if you can call it that these days — on a foundation of technological “innovation” that is beyond being a House of cards. One thing goes wrong and so much crashes down that billions die and recovering could take centuries.
All the knowledge goes away if it’s digital as well. Not just the stuff. And the people to fix the stuff. But the knowledge for the survivors to recreate the stuff.
And how much is now digital? Lose power for a while and it’s like losing the Library at Alexandria x billions of pieces of human learning. Fact… a handful of gamers playing a multi-role shoot-em-up now generate more information (measured in bits) than existed on the planet prior to 1940.)
Imagine it all going away. Not the gamers shit… but the recipe for penicillin. The plans to make a generator. How to extract fractions from petroleum. Removing an appendix. Making gunpowder. You name it. All massively specialized and handled in point factories… gone and no way to relearn it or rebuild the machine to make the machines to mak the machines… without decades or centuries.
Sunday morning fun thoughts. Ships in harbors and falling bridges are not the apocalypse. But they are harbingers of what will happen if the tiniest thing goes tits up. Complexity and specialization will kill us. Not some ship hitting a bridge.
Sirhr
This has all been fun to watch and monitor. I guess my last comment would be: "Well, this conspiracy theory isn't aging well." 
Power loss and blackouts happen a lot. Most of the time it requires a quick report to the harbour authorities and an incident report to the company and that's it.
A few years ago a gas truck got stuck under a low bridge, exploded and killed quite a few people. It is not he first time a truck got stuck, but it took a major incident for authorities to take note that the bridge is actually too low for the expected traffic.
Easy to blame a "third force". Should actually look at who made money when the bridge was built. Them's the people that should go to jail.
A few years ago a gas truck got stuck under a low bridge, exploded and killed quite a few people. It is not he first time a truck got stuck, but it took a major incident for authorities to take note that the bridge is actually too low for the expected traffic.
Easy to blame a "third force". Should actually look at who made money when the bridge was built. Them's the people that should go to jail.
You can just click on it.
Very well written summary of my thoughts on all the over-complication of everything. I just can't seem to put it into words. Bravo
Or the pavers who have added 12 x 1" layers of asphalt to fix the road over the past 30 years or so.... and noone thought to actually measure the closing gap between bridge and roadbed.
I can't imagine that's not a problem at some level.
Sirhr
When I first started shipping in 1990 it was fun. we had a good time and enjoyed traveling all over the world. It was all American crew, or European with fillipino unlicensed guys pending on what ship you were on. That slowly turned into a handful of American and European officers, then nobody but the Captain and Chief. Now with all the FoC ships floating around it is the cheapest labor they can find. APL which owns the ship that just had the incidnet in New York is a classic example. That used to be American President Lines, all the ships were named after U.S. presidents, all American crew. Then they sold out to Neptune orient and the decline has been steady going down hill since. I think they still have a handful of American flag ships to comply with Jones act, or get in on some MSC loads but it is just a shell of what APL once was. It is not just APL though this trend of shell compaines, with FoC ships not wanting to spend money on crew, maintenance or anything else is going to get progressivly worse.
APL (previously American Presidents Line) is owned by CMA CGM, oddly enough a "closely held French shipping giant". Net profits surged to 7.04 Billion in 2022. They paid a 3 Billion dollar dividend to the owners. Oh, nice, can I buy in? NO, company is privately held.
I'm sure they can't afford to pay for a competent crew, things are tight and all. They screwed up but fuckit, US taxpayers will fix this. Can't bother the "closely held French shipping giant".
It seems like you might think you are getting raped. It kind of feels like you're getting raped. Do a little digging. Yup. Getting raped.
I'm sure they can't afford to pay for a competent crew, things are tight and all. They screwed up but fuckit, US taxpayers will fix this. Can't bother the "closely held French shipping giant".
It seems like you might think you are getting raped. It kind of feels like you're getting raped. Do a little digging. Yup. Getting raped.
I see - apologies, should have thought deeper into it. This is very close to home, on roads I travel often. Saw the headline and just got me concerned. Didn't realize the power loss is a common thing on these ships. Carry on!
No apology needed… you got folks thinking! All good. Sirhr
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