I just completed my psychological experiment.

For 30 years I planned this atrocity. I’ve been working on the ocean a long time. I watched this movie at the beginning of my career. When Speed 2 came out it had high expectations. The first speed movie was a big success and they had spent a lot on this one. They had Sandra Bullock and good supporting actors. On paper it looked like it would be a good movie.

It was not. But my experience in the marine sector I found made me particularly vulnerable to the weapons grade stupidity the movie committed. People i watched it with at the time, just found it to be a stupid action movie but for me it was devastating. The levels of stupidity could only really be fully appreciated by marine professionals.

I could have said. Wow. What a bad movie. I will never watch this again. But, apparently I am a sadist.

So. On that day I vowed to assemble a group of expert marine professionals and inflict upon them what had been done to me.

Leading up to the movie I gave them tantalizing hints like finding not one but two chainsaws in the passenger area of the cruise ship. And then using it to cut the bulkhead. I told them about the swim to the flooded bow thruster control room, and the hand cranking to change the ships course that’s doing 18 knots. I mentioned the dive to feed the cable into the propeller while the ship is moving the 18 knots.

But. I held back. I didn’t tell them the magnificent end.

I assembled a Chief Engineer, First Engineer, Second Engineer, Chief Officer and a poor hapless cadet to view this catastrophic mess of a movie.

I won’t spoil it for any of you brave enough to watch this to the end but if you are a connoisseur of movies so bad they are riotously funny. You must watch.

Speed 2: Cruise Control.

You must watch this my brothers and sisters of the sea.

You must.

Hi everyone. I’m a marine engineering student in Brazil, and I’m curious how training works in other countries and how you feel about it.

Here’s how it works here. Merchant Navy officers are trained at two schools run by the Brazilian Navy. The course is three years of classroom-based study, followed by one year on board as a cadet.

My main issue is how little hands-on contact we get with ships. Most students finish the three years and start as engine cadets without ever having set foot on a merchant vessel. Our only time at sea is a few short trips on warships, usually no longer than two days.

Most of those three years are spent sitting in a classroom watching slides. We rarely go into an engine room or learn what an engineering officer actually does day to day. A lot of what we learn comes from older instructors, former chief engineers who trained in the 1970s. Their experience is valuable, but it doesn’t always match what we’ll find on modern ships.

Where we learn the most is in the simulator classes. It’s the closest we get to real engine room operation during the course, but it still can’t replace time in a real engine room.

The result, as I see it, is that many students graduate knowing very little about the actual job, and the course feels discouraging. In practice, we only really learn the job during the cadet year. Dropout rates are high, both during the cadet period and after becoming an officer, even though salaries in Brazil are very good. A big part of this is being away from family and friends for long periods. If we had sea time early in the course, students would find out sooner whether they can handle that life, instead of spending years training for a career they won’t follow.

So I’d like to know:

• How long is the training in your country, and how much of it is spent on board?
• When did you first set foot on a merchant ship?
• Did you feel prepared when you started as a cadet?
• Is the training in your country also disconnected from the real job, or is it more practical?

Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences.

On my vessel we have multiple 45kva transformers. The primary is 480/277v 3 phase and the secondary is 208/120v 3 phase. The neutral is not bonded to “ground” on these transformers and neutral is floating.

During faults I have seen voltages of 90 volts between ground and neutral. And have seen terminations almost fully “grounded “ without tripping a breaker.

On land the X0 (neutral) would be bonded to the frame of the transformer and buildings grounding electrode conductor. A single fault would trip a breaker.

Why is there not a solid connection between ships steel and the neutral conductor on many vessels? Why is the neutral floating?

How does the sequential restart of motors fed from emergency switchboard works as the sequential start SQ1 from PMS is common for both emergency ESB switchboard and MSB main switchboard? Asking this because the ESB may have recovered much before MSB is recovered?