Off my watch, today I am doing a once per year inspection of all the fire extinguishers
on our ship.
So let me just get changed, and get started..
It’s probably going to take me the whole day because including the spare ones, we have
about 100 extinguishers on our ship and we’ll have to check each and single one of them
Let’s get started First thing first
We go around the whole ship collect all the extinguishers into
a workstation
There are 3 type of extinguisher on our ship It’s what you’ll find in most ships these
days We have
Dry powder Foam
and CO2
Dry powder is for all purposes fire except oil fire
They work by smoldering the air around a fire to extinguish it
Foam for oil fires Generally in the galley and engine room
They sit on top of liquid, separating oxygen so that the fire will die out
Co2 is only for electrical fire Electrical equipment on a ship can be very
expensive so with CO2 there’s a chance to salvage whatever is
left You can image what kind of mess
foam or dry powder would do to a computer
Today the cadet is giving me a hand We first note if the tag is still on
The tag that’s strap to the safety pin tells us if it has been used or not
If the tag is gone then automatically we will either have to
refill it or replace it with a new one
First up we started with the CO2 extinguishers they are pressurized so we cannot just open
up to check inside All we do is put on the scale and make sure
its full
Next up are the Foam extinguishers A special tool to open it up
checking the rubber O ring and the weight The Foam is checked to make sure it is at
the right level and no weird coloring or smell
Then comes the biggest bunch Dry powder
One thing to note is that the ship is always vibrating from the big engines
and that makes the powder settle
sometimes even forming chunks of rocks becoming solid inside the suction tube
Just like the other ones we take out the cap tapping it lightly so that the powder
will drop down
This is perhaps one of the key thing to check you might be wondering whtats the big deal?
Well lets imagine when a fire happens and someone go and grab an extinguisher
only to find nothings come out because the tube is blocked
What could be a small fire can go out of control because of the time wasted
We give it a shake and flip it upside down for a bit so that the powder becomes more
fluffy and prevents any build up.
Once finished we return all extinguishers back to its location
It takes a while and its quite heavy
Fire extinguishers are usually the first response to a fire
As officers we must check each and single one thoroughly
so that when an emergency happen
We are ready
Now we finished the job Its almost 4 o’clock ima get ready and go
for my afternoon watch
Going up to the bridge for navigation watch Where are you going??
I am going navigation bridge Training my cadet in English Hehe
Training my cadet in English Hehe
Second Mate
One of the perks of being the 4-8 officer is that
At 5:30pm the chief mate he comes up to bridge and relief me for dinner
So I get about 30 minutes to go down, grab my dinner and then come back up continue my
watch
Hey!
Hi!
So in a way you could say I get paid to eat my dinner
because technically it is my working hours ;)
After dinner its usually pretty dark out We keep the bridge dim so we can see the outside
Ending the vlog here At night I usually just relax and watch a
movie or something before I go to bed Let me know in the comments below if you like
to see any topic on the ship
And make sure to go extinguish that like button And I’ll see you next time!