Question 1

Pilot burner overhaul

Accepted Answer

Overhaul pilot burners like small main burners: electrodes, nozzle, scanner and valves proved before the main flame lights. Lift with chief’s permission, isolate fuel and electrics, strip nozzle and electrodes. Clean and gap electrodes, clear the nozzle, prove the spark igniter throws a healthy arc. Rebuild with new gaskets, light the pilot first and prove the flame scanner holds before opening the main burner. Run waste oil only on a stable pilot with log entries in engine and oil record books. Surveyor follow-up: main burner lights but drops with the pilot cut — scanner, fuel or air, and what proves it?

Question 2

It is a device that really makes it possible to produce relatively more power at less cost by burning more fuel and recovering a major part of waste heat from exhaust gases

Accepted Answer

That device is the exhaust turbocharger: it turns waste heat into scavenge air, so more fuel burns cleanly for less cost per kilowatt. Exhaust drives the turbine and the blower forces extra air above atmospheric for full combustion. More air per cycle means more power from the same frame at lower specific fuel consumption. All its driving power is recovered waste heat — unlike shaft-driven superchargers that tax the crankshaft. Name it in the oral and move it to propulsion: surveyors file this wording under turbocharging, not medicine. Surveyor follow-up: same power wanted cheaper — more boost, more fuel, or both, and what limits the gain?

Question 3

Psychological and emotional factors, including stress

Accepted Answer

Stress is a fitness-for-duty issue: name the stressors, show the coping routine, and never sail unfit in silence. Workload, broken sleep, isolation, heat and conflict stack into fatigue, error and emotional snap. Cope by protected rest, exercise, meals, contact home and talking early to mates and the master. Watch for withdrawal, temper, mistakes and drinking — the team reports change, never gossip. STCW fitness rules back the unfit crewman standing down with treatment and repatriation, not punishment. Surveyor follow-up: watchkeeper tearful with broken rest before a night canal transit — relieve, encourage or log and sail?

Question 4

Types of burners and working

Accepted Answer

Boiler burners mist the oil for clean fire: pressure-jet simplex and plunger types plus rotary spinning-cup atomisers. Simple pressure jets force oil through swirl slots into a fine cone — output follows supply pressure squared. Plunger types uncover extra tangential holes as pressure rises, holding spray angle across the load range. Spinning cups feed low-pressure oil onto a cup at 70–100 rev/s, flinging a film shredded by primary air. Metering pump sets spinning-cup throughput while the fan sets air — mismatch either way and the flame smokes or lifts. Surveyor follow-up: flame smoky at low load but clean at full — pressure, cup speed or air register, and what do you prove first?

Question 5

More fuel can be burnt and more power can be obtained

Accepted Answer

That is the boiler answer: the firebed is the limit, so more fuel only gives more power while the bed can still burn it. More fuel can be burnt and more power obtained only while the boiler has the capacity to absorb the extra heat release. On a fixed-grate or moving-grate boiler the firebed area and the draught set the maximum rate at which fuel can be burnt. Past that limit the excess fuel is incomplete — it goes over the firebridge and out of the stack, so efficiency falls while fuel goes up. So more fuel is not more power beyond the point where the combustion can follow it; that is why draught and the grate are the real limits. Surveyor follow-up: fuel rate up 20 per cent with flue gas temperature and CO rising — which limit has been passed?

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