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AUS-EC2-L4.3

Casualty and damage control below

Every casualty in an engine room has the same structure. Something fails. You have seconds to a few minutes. What you do in that window decides whether it stays a defect or becomes a disaster.

Entry & progression

Blackout. Flooding. Fire. And the decision to stop the engine. This is what the AMSA oral is really testing. Not whether you know the theory — whether you know what you would do.

Blackout

Loss of all main power

  1. Confirm the emergency generator started and took the board. If it did not, start it manually. Know the sequence without the manual.
  2. Tell the bridge immediately. They have lost steering and propulsion and they do not yet know why.
  3. Establish what tripped and why before you restore. Restoring onto an existing fault gives you a second blackout and possibly a fire.
  4. Restore in order: essential services, steering, then propulsion auxiliaries, then start the main engines.
  5. Do not parallel onto a faulty bus. Prove the fault is cleared first.

The bridge's question will be how long. Give them a real number or say you do not know yet — never an optimistic one. They are making a navigational decision on your answer, and in a channel or a lee shore that decision is the ship.

Flooding

Water in the engine room is the fastest-moving casualty you will meet. It rises, it shorts the switchboard, and it takes the power you need to pump it out. Order matters.

  1. Sound the alarm and inform the bridge. Do not investigate quietly first.
  2. Find the source. Sea chest, seawater pipework, sterntube, shaft seal, hull.
  3. Stop the ingress if you can — isolate the sea suction, shut the valve, plug it, clamp it, wedge it.
  4. Pump. Bilge system, emergency bilge suction, and know where your emergency bilge suction valve is and how to open it under water.
  5. Protect the electrics. Switchboards and motors above the rising level are the difference between a wet engine room and a dead ship.

WARNING — The emergency bilge suction is the valve nobody has ever opened It is usually the largest suction in the space, taking from the main seawater pump, and it is usually behind something. Find it now. Open it now, in the dry, with a torch. Learn the handle, the direction and the number of turns. The first time you do it should not be with water above your knees and the lights out.

Fire

Engine room fires are overwhelmingly oil on a hot surface — a fuel or lube line failing onto an exhaust or a turbocharger. That is why hot surfaces are lagged, why lagging must be oil-free, and why you walk the space looking for weeping fuel lines.

Fire in the machinery space

  1. Raise the alarm. Inform the bridge.
  2. Attack it early if it is small and you can do so safely — one attempt, with the right medium.
  3. If it is not immediately controllable, evacuate and account for every person. The count is what everything else waits on.
  4. Stop the fuel — quick-closing valves, tank valves, pumps. Stop the ventilation — fans, dampers, skylights.
  5. Boundary cool.
  6. Release the fixed system only when the space is sealed and every person is accounted for. Then do not open the space. Let it cool. Re-entry into a hot, gas-filled space re-ignites the fire and kills the people who go in.

The decision to stop the engine

The hardest judgement an engineer makes. Some faults require you to stop regardless of where the ship is: oil mist detector alarm, crankcase relief valve lifting, bearing temperature runaway, loss of lubricating oil pressure. A crankcase explosion kills people, and it is preceded by a warning that engineers have talked themselves out of.

WARNING — Never open a crankcase after an oil mist alarm or a hot bearing Stop the engine. Stop the lube oil pump only per the manufacturer's instruction. Do not open the crankcase doors for at least twenty minutes — the standard figure is longer and you should know your manufacturer's. Opening admits air to an oil-mist-rich crankcase and produces the second, far larger explosion. Tell the bridge you have stopped, and tell them why. Do not negotiate this one.

Practice questions

5 questions
recallcore

recall · core

Following a blackout, before restoring power you must: (a) Restart the main engines as quickly as possible (b) Parallel the generators onto the bus to speed recovery (c) Wait for instructions from the bridge (d) Establish what tripped and why — restoring onto an existing fault gives a second blackout, possibly with a fire

recallcore

recall · core

When the bridge asks how long until power is restored, the correct answer is: (a) An optimistic estimate, to reduce their anxiety (b) Nothing until power is restored (c) A real number, or an honest 'I don't know yet' (d) A worst-case figure regardless of the fault

recallcore

recall · core

On discovering flooding in the machinery space, the first action is to: (a) Investigate quietly to avoid alarming the crew (b) Sound the alarm and inform the bridge (c) Start the bilge pump and see whether it holds (d) Isolate the switchboard

recallcore

recall · core

After the fixed fire-extinguishing system has been released into a sealed machinery space, you should: (a) Open up as soon as the fire is believed out, to ventilate (b) Keep the space sealed and let it cool; re-entry into a hot, gas-filled space re-ignites the fire (c) Send a two-person team in to confirm the fire is out (d) Restart the ventilation fans to clear the extinguishing medium

recallcore

recall · core

Following an oil mist detector alarm or a bearing temperature runaway, you must: (a) Reduce load and continue, monitoring the temperature (b) Open the crankcase doors immediately to inspect the bearing (c) Increase lube oil flow and run on (d) Stop the engine, and do not open the crankcase doors for at least the manufacturer's stated cooling period

AI-drafted catalogue content pending SME review. Sea service and course requirements change; verify with AMSA before relying on this for a career decision.

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