Day 47 ~ Sea Day ~ Engine Control Room Tour

February 26, 2022 

67 degrees ~ Beautiful blue sky, deep blue waters, and pitching decks!

It is the DH today.  RtWW is perfectly capable of explaining the technical things that we learned during our Engine Control Room tour, but she asked me to step in for a change of pace.  I hope you enjoy.

A couple days ago Aaron (our cruise director) announced that the captain and crew had graciously allowed passengers to take tours of the Bridge.  That one filled up in a hurry, and we are on a waiting list.  The next day they announced that there would also be tours of the Engine Control Room.  Dave and I jumped on that one, and we got on the list for the very first tour!  

We all gathered to meet the Chief Engineer on deck 1, and he escorted us down to Deck A.  As a passenger generally all we see is the elegance and beauty of the passenger areas.  To be able to pass through one of those doors marked "Crew Only" and see the working part of the ship was fascinating!

Chief Engineer and his Chief Assistant

Our Chief Engineer has over 47 years of experience as an engineer at sea.  He went to sea at the age of 17, and worked on various tanker and cargo ships.  He has been with Viking as Chief Engineer for 8 years.   The Chief Assistant said that he had over 20 years experience as an Engineer at sea.

All of the Viking ships use the same power plants and are of similar design, so the engineering crews can move between the ships without any retraining.  All of the information provided on the screens by the engines on every Viking ship is also being monitored by the manufacturer in Germany.  The chief assistant said that he will often get a call from the manufacturer instructing them to check some part, or change some filters.

RtWW asked a very good question about the epaulettes on his uniform.  The Chief Engineer said that as an engineer his epaulette shows a propeller with 4 bars showing us his rank.  An electricians would show a lightning bolt, and an engine tech has a wrench.  The Captains epaulette has a diamond indicating that he is trained in all areas.  (That made me wonder what the symbol is for the plumbing guys that are responsible for the vacuum waste system.)

We weren't able to see the actual engines, but these images showed us the engine room area.  There are cameras set up all around the engine room so that the engineers monitoring can see what is going on.

There are at least 3 people on duty in the Engine and Control Room areas at all times.  2 at terminals watching for warnings or alerts, and at least one roving in the engine room.  The roving engineer is available by radio, and can be sent wherever he is needed.  There are two screens showing various places in the engine room, and we would see the roving engineers as they worked around the area.

This screen was mounted along the wall, and is for general viewing.  The 2 engineers at the terminals had access to every screen and each camera so they could see each area in detail.

There are 4 primary diesel engines that are the sources of power for the ship.  These engines generate thousands of watts of power each hour.  The two main propellers are driven by electric motors which have their own monitoring screen.

As you can see, at the time of this picture all 4 engines were working.  The Chief Assistant explained that we were fighting a headwind at the time and in order to maintain 18 knots, all 4 diesels were needed.  Often they will only run 3 of the diesels, which gives them an opportunity to do routine maintenance on one (i.e. changing filters, etc.).

When we are in port, they will drop down to just one diesel engine.  At that time, they are able to do any heavy maintenance on the engine that is required.  This type of maintenance is never done while the ship is at sea.  

There is also a fail-safe engine on deck 9 that will start if everything else fails.  This engine supplies power only to critical systems.  They run tests of this engine every week to ensure that the fail-safe systems will work.

Dave asked if Viking would ever have a nuclear powered ship.  The Chief Engineer laughed, then said that the next generation of engines would be powered by natural gas.

In the center you can see the monitors for speed and the propellers.  RtWW asked if there are cameras underneath the hull so that they could see the propellers and shafts.  The Chief Engineer said that would be a very good idea, but was not currently available on the Star.

On the right there is a rolling display showing status and alerts in every area of the ship.  There are a lot of areas that indicate "Alert", but the Chief Engineer explained that these show where routine type maintenance or some switch setting is required. 

The control boards along the bottom allow the operators to set the appropriate switch, or drill down to look at a specific area.  There was a panel by the door where with one turn of a switch they turn off everything!  This was protected by a plexiglass shield to make sure that nobody bumped into it accidentally.  (They kept a watchful eye on Dave whenever he was close to this panel.)

This is where all of the smoke alarms and fire suppression sprinklers are monitored.  There are close to 10,000 fire and smoke alarms on the ship, and all of them feed into the control panels here in Engineering.

This control room also monitors the course and speed settings for the ship.  If there were any variations, the engineers would make the proper adjustments to maintain the settings from the Bridge crew.  

I was surprised at how small an area the engineering team occupied, since they control so many of the ships functions.  The Chief Engineer said, "Don't let that taxi driver upstairs fool you.  This is where the real control center of the ship is!"

To drive home that point, the Chief Engineer brought up a screen that showed each stateroom on the ship.  From here they are able to monitor the temperature, plumbing and vacuum system in each room.  One of the ladies on the tour said that the A/C in her room wasn't working.  They checked, and found out that it was 74 degrees in the room.  The Chief Engineer called to have a maintenance man dispatched there immediately.  

Just outside the control room was a corridor that the crew refers to as I-95.  This corridor runs from bow to stern of the ship (a little nautical lingo there). This is the busiest corridor on the ship, and they said that every cruise ship refers to this corridor as I-95.

As you can see these hallways are very short, and some of the crew members are really tall!  One of the crew told me that he has to tilt his head as he walks down the hall to keep from bumping his head on the sprinkler heads.

All the major crew areas of the ship are accessed off this corridor.  Our waiter said that just forward from the engineering area is the crew's mess on the right.  He also said that on the left is the storage area for all the food, freezers and refrigeration. These are all located close to the kitchens.

Looking aft, there was a lot of recycling that was bagged up and ready to go off the ship.  At various ports we have seen these big bags of recycling material taken off the ship and loaded onto trucks to be processed on shore.  

This is where all of the waste handling areas of the ship are located.  Viking is very environmentally conscious.  The only waste that is released into the ocean has been processed and comes out only as clean water.  Waste handling is another major process and system within the ship, but I don't expect that they will let us tour those areas.

Full disclosure - we took this tour the day before we arrived at our port of call in Cape Verde.  After everyone got off the ship there, the Medical Officer decided to cancel all further tours in case anyone carried Covid on board from Mindelo.  We don't want to infect our crew!  Hopefully these tours will begin again soon.  If we get a chance to tour the bridge, I will take some pictures there as well.

More soon ...