Today is calamity day on STARSHIP. After weeks of constant pounding, the stress is starting to show on our fine ship. This morning around 0230 I was sitting in the salon half dosing, Martin was on watch. The familiar hum of the engine room alarm went off. Expecting to see a low voltage display, I headed up to the bridge to make a wise crack about the computer with a mind of its own.

As I reached the top of the stairs I heard something I had never heard before, Martin’s command voice - “Ring the bell” he said. The bell is STARSHIP terminology for a general alarm, translation - we have a problem, get everyone awake now! As I looked over the captains chair I was instantly wide awake, on the alarm screen was an icon representing a fire in the engine room and more disturbing was that camera that looks into the engine room was completely obscured. It took my brain less than a second to realize what the potential consequences of what I was seeing were, my first thought was that the halon fire suppression system had automatically discharged. I was down the stairs ringing the bell and seconds after that, hammering on cabin doors, no doubt shocking my crew mates instantly out over whatever dreamland bliss they were experiencing. Martin shut down the engine and Corinne was on her way down the stairs. In a crisis situation, when the adrenaline turns on, time slows down. The moments of realization to waking everyone as a memory feels like many long minutes, in reality it was less than 60 seconds. Fire at sea is very dangerous business.

Corinne working her magic on the air conditioning system.
[ photo - James Frankham ]

What set the smoke detector off and the obscured the engine room camera was not smoke but steam. When we opened the engine room door STARSHIP turned into an instant sauna, even the windows on the bridge fogged up. Our engine cooling system failed and the temperature spiked. We were lucky that Martin caught it as soon as he did otherwise we would have been faced with a seized and useless engine. As it was we were stranded in the Med without navigation ability for over four hours while Corrine, assisted by Martin, restored function to the engine. Corinne worked most of the night to get us moving again. The engine failed because a part wore out. The protection system designed to shut the engine down when the temperature spiked also failed, we are lucky the engine still runs.

We are now in Ibiza after making the rest of the run with reduced engine RPMs. It looks as if there is engine damage but we won’t know to what degree until we are secured against a dock and Corinne can open the inspection plates and take a detailed look at the crankshaft.

As we arrived and headed into our berth the hydraulic system failed, causing us to lose our bow and stern thrusters. These are almost essential. Once Martin realized we had a failure, he demonstrated his mastery of seamanship by manoeuvring STARSHIP’s 100 tonnes out of a very tight situation and back to the outer harbour where we sat at anchor. Corinne worked like crazy to repair a seized cooling water pump. As if that was not enough our air-conditioning system has also decided to pack it in. You know what they say about Murphy’s law ... the one thing we are thankful for is that all these problems decided to manifest themselves today. If we had a problem with the main engine while in the rough weather of the Atlantic we could have been in real trouble.

Yacht in Ibiza.
[ photo - James Frankham ]

Corinne will get it all fixed, she always does. This is one of those plain bad luck moments, things wear out and after so many miles it is amazing STARSHIP has held up so well. This is all to be expected and all to be taken in stride. Such is the reality of using technology to its limits.

At around 1800 today we should be safely alongside, Corinne has been able to restore partial power to the bow thrusters. Tonight we shall go ashore for some very long overdue R&R. Michael is back today with guests who we shall introduce you to tomorrow. All the problems we have had today should be of no concern to anyone else within just a few hours - that is the nature of seafaring.

Fair winds, calm seas

Brady

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Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Trust - www.chimprehab.com
Senegalese Fishing Cooperative - www.enda.sn/cyberpop