chengkp75

Interesting that there were problems, as the generators are set up to parallel themselves, automatically adjusting speed of the prime mover to put the frequency of online and incoming generators the same, and the sine waves in synchronicity. Only then will the breaker close, and the power is uninterrupted, and then the unwanted generator is taken off line. This happens every day, sometimes several times a day on every cruise ship. And, hotel power is not separated from other power, it all comes from a common bus that all the generators, whether gas turbine or diesel, feed in common. They should have been able to set the new generator up to match the gas turbine, but not close the breaker, to see that the synchronizing worked, before actually closing the breaker. There may have been problems with load sharing, as the two generators are different sizes, so load sharing is unequal, but proportional, but this is common among strictly diesel ships, as they will often have two different sized diesel generators, so should not have been a problem.

Frankly, I would not use anything that combines USB ports with power outlets. A strictly USB hub (up to 6 or 8 ports) will not be confiscated, whether it has a cord or not, since it is not a "power" extension cord (low wattage). If you need more power outlets, then a hard rubber "multi-outlet" (one male plug and 3 female outlets, no cord) should fit with a outlet adapter if the outlet is recessed. But, frankly, if you plug the USB hub into the 220v outlet, you will still have one or two 110v outlets for power use, without any multi-outlet, and a hair dryer should definitely not be plugged into one of these with anything else.

Okay, perhaps "reverse voltage" is not accurate. But let's say a power strip has MOV's as surge protectors that are rated for 150vac continuous duty (it will see 120v all the time without overheating). The MOV's "clamping voltage" (where it conducts to remove a surge) is say 800v. If a 220v or 440v circuit on the ship has a ground failure, that MOV will be exposed to 220v or 440v continuously, even in a limited current situation (only a partial, high resistance, ground), and that higher than rated voltage will cause the MOV to go into thermal runaway, even though the voltage is less than the clamping voltage. By "reverse" voltage, it means that the voltage on the ground leg is higher than the power legs, and higher than the rated voltage of the MOV.

It didn't fall off the blocks until the dock collapsed and sank. Well, there had been calculations done, and it was determined that the dock was not going to lift over its capacity, since the forward 1/3 of the ship was still being supported in the water, and the 2/3 being lifted was not lifting the entire aft end out of the water, just enough that the cofferdam walls would be above water. If I remember, there was still about 10-12' of water inside the dock, around the cofferdams. So, not all of the weight of the aft end was being carried by the dock. I think that the failure was caused by the dock being old (I believe it was at least 40 years old), and likely not surveyed as often as ships are.

A "ghost flush" is caused by the vacuum to your area of the system (could be one cabin, could be many) having a clog. When you press the flush button, it sends a vacuum signal to a controller, but if there is not enough system vacuum at your toilet, the controller will wait until there is. When the plumbers clear the clog, and vacuum is restored, the controller remembers that you pushed the button, and then initiates a flush. I don't believe, unless it was only your cabin affected, that the plumbers implied it was you. When a clog travels a few feet or many feet down the pipe before stopping, it can affect one cabin, two cabins, or hundreds of cabins, all caused by one individual. When your toilet doesn't work, generally you don't know that others are affected as well, unless you hear it from your neighbors. Of course it does. More toilets, more passengers, more opportunity for someone to flush something down that shouldn't.

They may, or may not. I personally have had my doubts about this product, and any of the ones that are "ship approved" (no cruise line has "approved" any power strip). This one in particular, when it first came out, claimed to be non-surge protected, yet their own advertising photos showed the back, with a "VPR" (voltage protection rating, or measure of how good a surge protector it is) molded into the plastic. The further problem is that "Cruise Only" does not make these, they buy them from another manufacturer, who makes both surge protected and non-surge protected devices. One problem with this is that most of the outlets on ships are recessed, so you would need an adapter for either the 110v or 220v outlet, and then unless the ship's outlet and the adapter are relatively new, this will "droop" and fall out of the outlet. Further, the outlets are usually close to the desk/vanity surface, so this may not have enough clearance to plug in. Again, not sure why these types are needed. You could use one 220v outlet with an adapter to power a multi-outlet USB hub (up to 6 or 8 USB ports), and still have two 110v outlets, and likely another 220v outlet for a laptop (220v) and a hair dryer (110v). Typically, a USB hub that does not have power outlets are allowed, it is the combination ones like above that are the problem.

Unless the ship involved is a high profile one like a cruise ship, you won't hear about it at all, especially when the ship doesn't take the people onboard, just stands by for the USCG, in case things go sideways. I would say that weekly at a minimum there's a "craft" intercepted in the Straits.

It looks to me like they've got about 2-3' of freeboard there. It's listing because they've all crowded to the side nearest the tender. That boat is high tech compared to some I've seen. Had to stand by until USCG arrived for 4 guys in a packing crate with a 1x6 for an oar.

They may need to process bilge water and sewage, and likely make water. Bermuda is always having water shortages

Not only did he notify the USCG, but he received clearance to take the refugees onboard from the USCG, this was not his decision alone. Very often, if the people don't look like they are in imminent danger, the USCG will have the vessel merely standby until a cutter arrives on scene. And, since the Breakaway is not US territory, there is no "dry foot" here, upon arrival in Miami, these people will be taken in custody by USCG and ICE and then returned to Cuba.

Well, the Star stopped going to Fanning in 2004, and the POA did not arrive in Hawaii until mid 2005, so was it POA or Pride of Aloha? Having worked these ships for 4 years, I can tell you that this was and is found to be the culprit in 95% of hot cabin complaints, that someone has left the balcony door open. And, if you have ever seen what passengers have flushed down the toilet, and how hard we had to work to get it cleared, you would not continue with this condemning of the "qualified" staff.

Since the crew are required to be paid at US wages, as negotiated by their union, and the foreign workers on the ship get paid the same as the US crew, wages and working conditions are not the biggest roadblock to staffing the POA, any more than it was back in 2004 when we crewed up the Pride of Aloha to start NCL's Hawaii operation. The problem is the training, certification and credentialing of the crew. The USCG has had delays in processing mariner credentials since Covid started, and May of this year saw a spike to 12,000 applications, up from 4000 just 4 months prior. I see that their backlog is diminishing, and processing times are getting better, but there are also delays in medical screening and training classes. And, lets be honest, the "peanuts" paid to foreign crew is only "peanuts" to developed countries, it is a very good middle class income in the countries where the crew come from. Those who have never traveled, or better still, worked, outside the US should not be commenting on wages for workers in foreign countries.

The kids "splash area" is divided into two sections on Oasis, Quantum, and Freedom class ships. The larger area is for potty trained kids only. The smaller area, separated by a glass partition, is for kids in swim diapers. If you are taking older kids, they are not allowed to travel from one area to the other, without showering in between, to prevent cross-contamination. There are, I think, a couple of Voyager class ships that have the swim diaper area added, and all other older ships do not allow kids in swim diapers.

Every Christmas, the ship has to deal with phytosanitary certificates, and certificates of sterilized soil for all the Poinsettias used to decorate the ship. All natural Christmas trees had to have a fire retardant certificate as well.

The problem with PPV events is that the charges are set by the promoters, not the satellite service provider, and even though the fight may only be shown in one location, the ship gets charged for every TV onboard, as a potential viewing site. I remember we looked into it on a tanker, and with 20 TV's it was going to be $10k.

While you are correct about this, the PVSA was passed long before aviation was even thought about. The Civil Aeronautic Act, is another cabotage law, and this applies to aviation, as the PVSA does to marine passenger, and Jones Act does for cargo. Trust me, I know quite a lot about both the PVSA and Jones Act.

This is not correct. The PVSA does not apply to airlines, that is the Civil Aeronautics Act that limits domestic flights to US carriers. because it applies to more than cruise ships, and protects the jobs, adds to the US economy, and protects the environment and safety of passengers on vessels in the US like ferries, water taxis, commuter boats, tour boats, dinner cruises, casino boats, and large charter fishing boats.

Yes, but the MOV's across the hot leads do not see reverse voltage, and so are not susceptible to thermal runaway.

First of all, there won't be any surges, simply due to the nature of the ship's electrical system. Lightning strikes don't affect the ship's electrical system, and voltages are stepped down through multiple transformers. As you say, the hull is ground, but so is the ocean, so there is in fact, a "ground". The problem comes because there is no intentional connection to ground like you have with the neutral wire in your house, a high voltage motor could start to fail to ground somewhere on the ship, and this will send high voltage on the ground wire, compared to the two power leads (hot and "neutral"), which is "reverse voltage" for the surge protector, and which can cause the MOV semi-conductors to go into "thermal runaway" (generating high temps even at low amperages), and melt the surge protector down and catch fire.

That's one Schuko (European 220v) plug adapter, and a 6 port USB charging hub. Still should have one 110v outlet available for the hair dryer.

I can only hope.

Insulation checks are done annually, at minimum, and we start to worry when it gets less than 400 Megohms (.001 milliamp), nowhere near the breaker tripping point.

Are they metal? Yes. Are they magnetic? Maybe. It depends on the thickness of the vinyl covering they use, and the strength of your magnets.

They already do. It comes in your boxes from Amazon. You think it's "packing material", but it's just that someone figured out how to sell you air.

If a motor insulation fails, there will be a path from one conductor to ground, and if it results in a serious enough ground fault, then the breaker will fail. However, it could be a partial failure of the insulation, resulting in a lower current flow than the breakers are rated for, but which would still introduce enough current to start electrolysis. However, since this is the only path from the ship's wiring system to ground, there is no interference with the wiring system, merely the introduction of electrolysis of metals in the hull. This is monitored by a "ground fault meter", which is a milliamp meter that is connected with a resistor between line and ground, providing the return connection from ground to the system. If current is detected, the meter indicates, and the engineers start looking for the circuit, and then the device that is grounded. There is only one power source on the ship, all generators generate 10k volt AC power, and feed a common bus. This bus supplies propulsion, hotel, and engineering power. And, as I said, wherever needed, the 10k volt power is stepped down in steps from 10k to 440v, 440v to 220v, and 220v to 110v. And, the propulsion motors, as well as the thrusters, and AC chiller motors are 10k volt motors, not 440v. Most major motors onboard (pumps, compressors, fans, laundry machines, galley equipment like ovens, ranges, refrigerators) are 440v as well. The SCR drives are 3-phase, as is all equipment that is 440v and above, so you have a bridge of 6 SCR's to control the frequency of the output AC. It's been a while since I did a deep dive into the circuitry, but I believe that zener diodes are used to filter noise spikes to neutral ( the generators are star wound with a neutral point, and the motors and everything else are delta wound). I don't know enough about semi-conductor construction to know, but I believe that MOV's have a limited amount of joules they can shunt, and even small overvoltages, over small periods (noise spikes), can "build up" in the MOV and cause eventual failure. That is correct. There is 60v between neutral and ground. This allows for determination of a ground fault on the neutral wiring, to prevent electrolysis. And, yes, all breakers are two pole. I just got into this with another poster on another thread, who said the "safest power strip for cruise ships has a 15 amp breaker and no surge protection". I countered with the safest power strip is as he described, but with a two pole breaker in the power strip, as consumer power strips only break the hot leg, and not the neutral. He didn't understand the nature of the "floating ground" (not connected to neutral). All of the power strips I've used on ships over the last decades have been "European" ones (rated 220v, but that's not important), that have a two pole breaker in them for just this reason. We also cannot use things like household or commercial UPS, since these look for 120v hot to ground as the "normal" condition, and when plugged into a ship that is producing 120v AC power (hot to neutral), but with only 60v hot to ground, it immediately goes into "power failure" and "battery mode". We have to use special marine UPS that recognize the floating ground.