Ortech Marine A.Ş ensures vessels meet standards, preventing failures through clear documentation and inspections in English.
FAULTS ARISING FROM NOTHING
Istanbul 11.07.2026 Eng. Ömür Karataş
Ortech Marine Inc. equips ships and floating vehicles to withstand any deficiencies and extraordinary situations that may occur in and on the water. These processes are monitored with documentation, user manuals, and certificates indicating that these operations have been carried out.
Ships are controlled against unexpected faults during navigation with critical spare parts and planned on-site maintenance, along with information and inspections describing these operations. This certification and control process is written in English, the universal maritime language.
The instructions written in English are expressed in the interpretations and terminology of the nation that authored them.
The English instructions written by Germans may differ from those written by the English on the same subject. Furthermore, an Italian, Filipino, or Spanish reading these instructions in English may interpret them differently.
For this reason, the English expression used in the equipment of the ships is carefully written in simple and plain language that everyone can understand and interpret similarly. Clarity is provided through images, photographs, and drawings, leaving no room for misinterpretation.
Ship operating and management companies carry out technical and operational monitoring of the ships as a precaution against extraordinary situations, with the support of ship managers, captains, and chief engineers, under the supervision of inspectors or technical directors, to prevent unplanned downtime of the ships. Inspectors and technical directors are selected from experienced captains and chief engineers who have worked at sea. By identifying potential issues in advance, they eliminate situations that hinder the ships' navigation or operational movements with the measures they take.
Even if the construction drawings of the ships are approved by surveyor organizations, issues that may have been hidden during the preparation of the drawings, the installation of equipment during construction, and the shop tests and sea trials conducted by the surveyor can emerge unexpectedly, causing invaluable faults from nothing.
We dispatched a Ro-Ro ship, which had been completed in a German shipyard and had undergone sea trials, to Istanbul for its maiden voyage.
Due to it being the ship's first voyage, the ship was under the supervision of two German warranty engineers while sailing at a full speed of 21 knots in the Mediterranean. While off the coast of Sicily, one of the two main engines, the port main engine, stopped spontaneously without any alarms indicating the cause.
As the chief engineer of the ship, I asked the warranty engineers traveling with us to investigate the situation and report back.
Both of them first examined the alarm panel and past alarms. Then they opened the crankcase covers of the engine. They searched for mechanical damage. They reported that nothing negative was visible and said, 'It can happen; the engine can stop. We will restart it and check.' They pressed the start button of the main engine. The port main engine turned with the first starting air but did not run.
When the warranty engineer wanted to start it a second time, I intervened, saying, 'You cannot start the engine without resolving the issue.'
Responding quite harshly to my statement, they said, 'We are the warranty engineers of the ship; we can start it. The responsibility is ours.' When I replied, 'I am the chief engineer of this ship, and I do not allow it to be started without finding the fault,' they left the engine control room without responding to my statement.
They went up to the bridge and complained to the captain and the German shipyard managers. Calmed by the response they received from the shipyard, they returned to the engine room and asked, 'What are your observations? Why are you not allowing us?'
I explained that when the engine was first started, I was monitoring the turbine speed indicator and saw that the needle was not moving; therefore, the exhaust gas turbine was not turning. Laughing at me, they asked, 'Does a big turbine turn with the first starting air?' I replied, 'Forget the starting air; if you blow on it, it will turn,' and we removed the silencer (air filters) of the completely closed turbine to reach the compressor blades. We tried to turn the compressor blades with a small screwdriver, and it became clear that the turbine bearings were jammed, preventing the turbine blades from moving.
The warranty engineers, with astonished looks, reported the situation to the managers on the bridge for further instructions.
The ship continued on its way at a speed of 13 knots with the starboard main engine. The warranty engineers, having received instructions from the shipyard managers, came to the engine room and said they would remove the turbine lubrication pipes to check them. When they removed the pipes, small pieces of plastic protective caps placed at the inlet and outlet of the main engine oil filter came out.
These plastic pieces had broken off and blocked the orifice of the oil pipe leading to the turbine, causing damage to the turbine bearings and shaft of the engine, which had been running for 200 hours. During the installation of the engine, the protective cap of the engine oil filter burst due to the oil pressure in the filter, allowing the oil to circulate in the engine, and the plastic pieces mixed with the lubricating oil accumulated in front of the orifice of the turbine lubrication pipe, leaving the turbine bearings without oil and causing damage.
This negligence during the installation of the engine disrupted the ship's voyage schedule, and while the engine and turbine bearings were opened and inspected, the ship was out of service, causing indirect and direct invaluable damages to the shipowner and operations.
As the chief engineer on the ships I worked on, I would visit the ship captain on the bridge, wishing him well and wanting to ensure communication was not lacking, and I would want to address any potential deficiencies or issues.
The ship captain was a very experienced former employee of the company, but upon seeing me, he began to complain about the company and operations, stating that he had to navigate the ship in foggy weather with a single radar, that no service had been sent for the faulty radar for months, and that it had turned off by itself within the first hour after being turned on.
When I suggested, 'Let the ship's electrician take a look; maybe he can do something,' he replied, 'Everything is electronic; what does an electrician know? If you want, open it and see how it turns off immediately.'
Before supplying power to the supposedly faulty radar, I opened the control covers. I checked the panel filters and the surface of the cooling fans. The cooling fans were turning, but they were covered with dust, preventing them from cooling properly.
I cleaned the inside of the control panel and the cooling fans with a vacuum cleaner. I closed the cover and activated the radar. The radar worked for two hours. Despite the captain continuously saying, 'It will turn off soon,' two days passed, and I observed that it worked continuously throughout the entire voyage without interruption.
I thought that the tasks that should have been done with a simple maintenance instruction should not be neglected to the extent that they jeopardize the ship's navigation safety.
One night, while in deep sleep, I woke up around 3:00 AM to the alarm sound on my phone, seeing an email message from the ship captain to the shipowner and the company's general message address, saying, 'For God's sake, someone lift this ship.' As an inspector working for the maritime company, each inspector was responsible for five ships, but general messages were sent to all inspectors. I turned off the alarm on my phone, thinking, 'This ship is not under my responsibility,' and did not go back to sleep.
I got up and called the captain directly. 'What is happening? How can I help?' I asked, and he explained that there was a fuel pump failure in the main engine, and they were unable to resolve it. I requested to speak with the chief engineer and asked him to call me. An hour later, the chief engineer called me, and in the meantime, I opened the instruction book and carefully read how to manage the process in detail.
While the ship was en route from New York to Edinburgh, the fuel pump top cover of cylinder number five had cracked.
Although there were three spare pumps on board, he reported that they were also used without success, and all the top covers of the spares had cracked. I told him to remain calm and instructed him to prepare to suspend the fuel pump to continue sailing.
By monitoring all navigation movements until the ship arrived at the Edinburgh port, I ensured that the ship, with one cylinder suspended, reached the port safely in five days. The time lost here and the prolonged navigation period caused stress for the ship's personnel. If the important note in the machine's instruction book had been considered, stating, 'When changing the fuel pump top cover, the top cover and fuel pump must be heated for at least two hours with fuel circulation before starting the main engine,' the ship would not have been adrift for hours in the middle of the ocean during repairs.
Years later, I would understand whether being rewarded or punished for lifting the ship adrift in the ocean was a recognition of my intervention in resolving the issue.
Faults arising from nothing like this could have caused greater damages and accidents due to the ship's collision.
When small approaches that are neglected are carried out in a timely manner with accurate information, we can prevent faults that seem inexplicable from occurring at all. In the past, ship crews did not change much; even if they went on leave, the crew would return to their ship.
Since the ship was put into operation, the captain and chief engineer had been like the ship's fixed assets. Sometimes they would stay on the ship for two or three years without leaving.
I was joining the ship to which I was appointed as the second engineer for the first time. Looking at the crew list, I was the only new member. The others had been working on the ship for at least five years, while the rest were long-time crew members of ten years.
We set sail from Istanbul towards Argentina. We would only reach Buenos Aires in thirty days, and we had set out to bring 30,000 tons of Egyptian goods back to Istanbul. We had taken on board 500 tons of fresh water for use during the voyage. As soon as we passed the Dardanelles, the chief engineer called me, instructing me to close the water and not open it unless he said so. Every day, I sent one hour of fresh water to the living quarters and reported the reduced amount to the chief engineer.
The daily fresh water consumption was around 10-15 tons. Considering the amount of water we calculated to be used, it seemed impossible to consume that much, but water was being wasted. One day, while at sea, the chief engineer came to the engine room and instructed all the engine personnel to search for the water leak.
All the engine personnel searched for the water leak but found nothing.
Since I was new to the ship, the chief engineer's requests from me were superficial. The concern about where the water leak was also concerned me. I took a flashlight and began to follow the fresh water distribution diagram. I found the washing tap of the bilge separator left open and closed it.
The next day, when I reported to the chief engineer that the amount of water used was 1 ton, he shouted, 'Don't joke!' He quickly came to the engine room and checked the water tanks.
The actual daily consumption had indeed dropped to one ton. When he asked how it happened, I told him that water was going to the sea from the bilge separator. He could not believe it when I showed him how the washing tap of the bilge separator had been left open.
Years later, when I told my brother, who had worked on that ship, about this, he admitted, 'So we had been wasting water for years.'
On the first day of my duties on a container ship I had just joined, while starting the engine and departing from the port, I heard an abnormal sound from the engine and immediately pressed the emergency stop button to stop the engine and informed the ship captain. The captain calmly replied, as if he experienced it all the time, 'Okay, I didn't take the tow line from the tugboat; they will pull us and anchor us offshore, and you can check the fault.' Upon examining the fault, we found that the exhaust valve had broken from its notch, and we continued on our way after replacing the damaged main engine cover.
When I reported the situation, the general manager called me, stating that there were old valves on the ship, that they were kept as spares, and that he wanted these valves to be separated and scrapped. I separated and listed nearly fifty used exhaust valves for scrapping.
But that was not enough for me; I began to investigate what kind of force could cause the valve notch to break.
While mounting the spare cover on the main engine, the pipes connecting the exhaust valves to the cooling channel were sealed with silicone to prevent water leakage.
I found that the hot water, at around 80°C, was expanding like a balloon, blocking the water passage. I reported this to the company.
I requested that the use of silicone in machine repairs on the ships owned by the company be banned.
In my in-depth research, I learned that two sister ships had to replace their engines due to severe damage caused by the same issue.
The pipes cooling the exhaust valves also heated the engine while expanding the exhaust valve guide, ensuring easy opening and closing of the exhaust valve during the initial operation of the ship's engine. When the channel of the pipe isolated with silicone became blocked, it delayed the warming of the exhaust valve body, causing the exhaust valve spindle to heat up with combustion heat and become jammed in the cold guide, leading to the breaking of the exhaust valve notch and falling into the cylinder, piercing the piston head and causing severe damage to the engine, resulting in the crankshaft and camshaft being jammed.
When comparing the damage caused by the silicone material that led to the replacement of the engines on both ships with the time and rental costs lost by the company, it became clear that the costs of ordinary solutions were being paid in vain.
Faults arising from nothing can be eliminated with management systems that correctly evaluate knowledge and skills.
In companies that do not make knowledge and experience a part of their corporate culture, faults arising from nothing will turn into invaluable damages and lost time. The faults I shared with you and faced in my professional life are too numerous to fit into a book! The losses caused by faults arising from nothing that I encountered in both maritime life and industrial life showed me that my efforts alone would not be sufficient to prevent these damages. It will be necessary to share and evaluate measures with employees to find and eliminate the root causes of even small faults encountered in the company culture to prevent their recurrence.
Source: SeaNews Türkiye
