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Auxiliary Machinery & Shipboard Systems • Sub-topic
Deck Machinery
The deck machinery volume: what the machinery has to do and how it is rated, electric and hydraulic drives, the anchor windlass, mooring equipment, cargo winches and derricks, deck cranes, hatch covers, lifeboat davits, maintenance and safety on deck.
Deck Machinery
Deck Machinery Topics
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01
What Deck Machinery Has To Do — Duty, Rating and Control
The deck is the one place on a ship where machinery is asked to stand idle for weeks and then work perfectly the moment it is wanted, in salt, weather and cold.
02
Electric Drives for Deck Machinery — Motors, Converters and Stalling
The electric drive is what most deck machinery uses, and the choice between the types of motor is decided almost entirely by two questions — how much torque is available at low speed, and what happens when the load overhauls the motor.
03
Hydraulic Drives for Deck Machinery — Fluid, Pumps and Circuits
Hydraulic power is the other half of the deck machinery story, and it is the drive of choice wherever the machinery is exposed, remote from the engine room, or sitting in a hazardous area.
04
Anchor Handling and the Windlass — Duties, Brake and Slipping Clutch
The anchor windlass is the piece of deck machinery whose failure has the most immediate consequences, because it is the machine that has to hold a ship off a lee shore.
05
Mooring Equipment — Winches, Capstans, Wire Rope and Tension Control
Mooring is the duty that has changed most, from a job for a dozen men on the forecastle to a job for two men and a set of automatic winches.
06
Cargo Winches and Derricks — Duties, Union Purchase and Slewing Rigs
The winch and derrick combination is the older half of cargo handling, and it is still the arrangement on a great many ships.
07
Deck Cranes — Three Motions, Level Luffing and Safety Features
The deck crane does the same work as a pair of derricks and two winches, but does it with three motions from one machine and no rigging to prepare.
08
Hatch Covers and Cargo Access — Types, Seals, Cleats and Surveys
The hatch cover is not strictly a machine, but it is a mechanism with hydraulics, seals, cleats and a maintenance burden that falls on the engine department.
09
Lifeboat Davits and Davit Winches — Gravity Lowering and Two Brakes
The davit is the one piece of deck machinery that exists purely to save life, and it is designed on a principle that is the opposite of every other winch on the ship — lowering is by gravity, and the machinery's job is to slow the boat down, not to lower it.
10
Maintenance of Deck Machinery — Intervals, Greasing and Overhauls
Deck machinery is maintained on a schedule rather than on condition, because it is idle too much of the time for condition monitoring to mean anything and too exposed for a fault to be found by casual inspection.
11
Safety on Deck — Stored Energy, Isolation and Hazardous Areas
Deck machinery kills people in a small number of well-known ways — stored energy in a rope, gravity in a hatch cover or a lifeboat, a machine that moves when nobody expects it to, and a brake that was not what it appeared to be.