Today was entirely spent on one task- draining and replacing the fuel oil in the ship’s two lifeboats. This needs to be done every 6 months. How could such a thing take a whole day? Well, I will tell you.
The whole morning was spent on gathering our supplies. These included many hoses (for fuel and air), many connections for these hoses (few of which fit), many more connections for these hoses (that we could actually work with), a pump on a stick (really a pump with a pipe attached to the suction side), an empty barrel (to transport the fuel oil between the lifeboat and the tank), full barrels (of good oil), life jackets (worn any time you’re working in the lifeboat), walkie-talkies, screwdrivers, pipe wrenches, the wiper (Josh), and 3rd engineer Todd, who will disappear the second you’re not looking, mysteriously move all the supplies around, and take 30 minutes and 3 people to find again.
After lunch we started the actual process. The tank where we were depositing the old oil was too far to reach with the hoses, so we had to use the barrel in between. The small pump on a stick was powered by ship’s service compressed air. Between completion of the 1st and 2nd lifeboat, a squall blew up. It was neat to see it coming over the ocean toward us, but luckily it was break time anyway, so we went down to the control room and ate cookies. By the time break ended the rain had gone.
We did get the oil changed eventually and now the boats are all good to go.
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