Thursday 05 February, 2004

Engine Room 101
Today was good and bad. For the Chirp team, Jenna and J.P., it was not good. They deployed the fish, and it didn´t work in the water (although it had worked on deck). After a several system reboots, they decided to pull the fish in to troubleshoot, and hopefully fix, the problem. It was about noon when the trouble arose. At this time, the rest of us were treated to a talk from the Chief Engineer, Paul Bueren, about Engine Room 101 and the history of the R/V Melville.

The R/V Melville is owned by the U.S. Navy and operated by Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) as a multi-purpose oceanographic research vessel. The Melville was built in Bay City, Michigan on the Great Lakes and first launched on July 10, 1968. It was named for George Wallace Melville, a pioneer arctic explorer, an engineer and Rear Admiral in the US Navy from the mid to late 1800´s through 1912.

In 1989 the R/V Melville was taken to a shipyard in Louisiana to be refitted. It was cut in half, and expanded by ten meters. The ship received a new engine room. Previously, there had been only one engine, it now has four. Also added was berthing space and main lab space, an analytical lab and a lab on the 01 deck (see ship´s diagram). The Chief, as Paul is known, shared photos he had taken of the refitting, including an impressive shot of the large crane raising the R/V Melville, which at the time weighed approximately 1,400 tons. The crane could actually lift 5,000 tons or about 3 Melvilles.

After the box has been removed, a meter long 15-cm (6-in) round piece of PVC pipe is slid into the mud. Next a clear rectangular box is placed in the core to collect sediment for x-rays that are taken of each core. Once cleaned, this rectangular "slab" is taken to the science lab/darkroom to be processed. John Crockett taught today´s lecture about sediment processes and at the end showed us a selection of x-radiographs from recent cores.

What´s Below?
Next, Chief gave us an overview of how the engine room works, and how power by the ship is used. Then, he took us on a tour deep into the bowels of the ship. We descended two flights of stairs reaching the 2nd Platform. There we entered the Engine Control Center, a highly technical room with a large control panel that allows the engineers to monitor the mechanical functions of the ship. Everything, such as the temperature and volts in the generators, engines, fire main, and refrigeration system, is monitored here. They also have the ability to take control of steering the ship should the Ship Control Center in the bridge, have an emergency. There is an anti-roll control system here as well. This controls a u-shaped tank with water in it that can be used to counteract the roll of the ship. It automatically starts working when the ship´s roll period is greater than 10.5 seconds. Chief was once aboard when the ship rolled 55�!

Next, we entered the engine room. Due to the loud volume of the engines and generators, it is necessary to have ear protection, so we were all given earplugs before the door was opened. As you enter the room, you feel as if you are crossing into a different world then life above in the labs and on deck. Here there is a yellowish glow from the large, yellow engines and generators that dominate the room. The walkways are narrow, and you feel a burst of hot air as you enter this loud, active environment. Energy in the room can be felt from the heat on your face, the dry air in your mouth and the loud sounds, although they are barely audible through the neon green earplugs you wear. The room was a tangible reminder of the power required to operate this large ship. We walked through the room and Chief pointed out things we had talked about: the large diesel generators, the blue evaporators which create fresh water from seawater, and the Oily Water Separator (OWS) which takes bilge water or any water with oil, removes the oil and places it in a tank to safely dispose when back on land; the clean water is returned to the ocean.

We then left the engine room and entered the machine shop. The machine shop has welders, a wide array of tools and lots of extra materials to enable the talented crew to fix and build things as needed while at sea. There is also a science hold located here � a storage area for researchers who will be returning to the ship several times within a relatively short period of time. Chuck Nittrouer, Andrea Ogston and Miguel Goñi´s teams are using this to store their equipment as they have several cruises this year on R/V Melville. Shipping and transporting equipment back and forth is both time consuming and expensive.

Our last stop was the winch and propeller room. The most striking feature here is the two large drums of wire; one holds 10,000 meters of wire and the other 9,000 meters. There are also two 1,500 horsepower motors that use power from the generators to operate the two rudder propellers, also known as stern thrusters.

Here are some fun facts about the R/V Melville:
The R/V Melville:

• is 279 feet or 85 meters long.
• has four engines, three large 16 cylinder engines and a fourth 8 cylinder engine. Approximately 2/3 of the power goes to running the ships propellers while 1/3 of the power goes to lighting the ship, keeping it cool, and running the winch and lab equipment.
• has no rudders. Instead of rudders, the propellers can turn 360� so in order to turn the ship, you just turn the propellers, similar to an outboard motor, but a lot bigger!
• carries 155,800 gallons of #2 diesel fuel.
• uses approximately 3,500 gallons of fuel during a 24-hour full steam with two engines running.
• is able to make 5,000-6,000 gallons of fresh water daily using two evaporators. The evaporators take seawater, heat it in a vacuum and condense the vapor into fresh water. This is treated with ozone to kill any bacteria that survived the evaporation process.
• has two, 60-ton plants to produce air conditioning (AC). To cool the ship every day, it takes the equivalent of 120 tons of ice melting in 24 hours. The AC takes fresh water, cools it to 35�-45� F. This cool water is then pumped throughout the ship and run across radiators that then cool the air.
• is equipped with sound powered phones to communicate during a power outage. A crystal vibrates when you talk, and you may talk and listen out of either end (mouthpiece or earpiece).
• has a pool built by the crew on the 01 deck. The pool runs off a pump in the engine room; water comes up to the pool and continually cycles through. In colder water, they are able to heat the seawater by using what would have been wasted heat from the engine turning the pool into a hot tub.
• The wire from the trawl winch descends at a rate of up to 60 meters (200 feet) per one minute. If you were deploying a box core in the deep sea at a rate of 60 meters/minute, how long would it take to reach the bottom in 7,500 meters? (Answer at the end of this log.)

Weather (Today's weather and location at 0900)

Air Temperature: 26.40°C (79.52°F)
Water Temperature: 29.54°C (85.17°F)
Salinity: 28.784
Barometric Pressure: 1009.6 cmbar
Precipitation: 6.3 mm (last 24 hours)
Relative Humidity: 86.44%

Location
Longitude: 8° 04.541' S
Latitude: 144° 21.258' E

Menu
Breakfast: Bacon, ham, eggs, potatoes, fresh fruit, coffee cake
Lunch: American goulash, macaroni and cheese
Dinner: Fresh wasabi grilled Spanish mackerel (by Chief), Chicken Parmesan, Shrimp Scampi
Dessert: Chocolate Cake

QUESTION: The wire descends at a rate of 60 meters (197 feet) per one minute. If you were deploying a box core in the deep sea, how long would it take to reach the bottom in 7,500 meters (24,606 feet) of water?
ANSWER: 2 hours 5 minutes or 125 minutes