Engine Room Watch-keeping Duties: Temperatures & the Sense of Touch is a very vital concept in shipping. It is a very important duty that helps the engineers in taking vital decisions about the ship. What it basically says it that relying on machines and their readings is good. However, we must also depend on the ability of a man to judge a situation and take a call depending on the sense of touch and temperatures.

For example when a component is over heated and by human touch we can feel so. We don’t need to wait for the readings to take a call. Perhaps judgement and experience can save us more time than machine generated data. There can be many reasons why a component may get heated very fast. The reason can be that it was not placed properly or there is something else that must be looked into. In these cases the presence of a human brain and mind can definitely help. Sometimes in the past due to overheating a lot of accidents and mishaps have happened. This is exactly why nowadays a great deal of importance is given to the temperature and the sense of touch.

Another example of this is a hot crankcase door this can happen if a bearing or an engine component has become too hot. The marine engineers and the deck cadets who are assigned various jobs must from time to time touch the various components. Take a walk down the bottom plates of the engine room and as a result they will surely be able to find out if there is any abnormal heating. The ship is huge. It is not possible for a single person to be held responsible for all the operations. Gone are the days when a lot of people were hired for a ship. Today partly due to cost cutting and partly due to lack of human force there is a serious cut in manpower.

All the shipping companies have been told that they inform the crew members the particular job they are responsible for. This division of labour will ensure that they are able to manage the job given to them better and also the ship is run effectively. Whenever the person assigned a particular job notices any case of abnormal heating or any other unexpected evens then they must inform their supervisors. There is no need to wait for the readings or the alarms to ring because it can happen that the alarms take a little longer to start and the damage is already done. The reliability on temperatures & the sense of touch of a human is much more than anything else.

Engine room watch-keeping duties are indeed very important as time and again it has been proved that it is human negligence and alertness that makes the maximum difference on a ship. We know that the ships today are fully loaded with all machines and techniques that are required to can help us a lot to understand if the ship is working fine. However, the experts and the experienced seamen do belive that no technology can ever replace human mind and vigilance. A good watch keeping is a very important job on the ships. Good watch keepers must visit the tunnels regularly checking for the bearing oil levels, any overheated bearing or component, the pipes and if the shaft is running correctly. A small negligence can lead to a big problem in a ship. The ship management is told that the job of watch keeping is of the most importance and it must be given to the responsible and the experienced ones.

The watch keeper should also go till the stern gland. A small splash of water should be flowing out of the stern gland all the time. This means that the cooling is normal and that gland is working fine. The pipes and the components in this area too must be touched and checked to ensure that the ship is operating fine. Overheating in this area can give rise to huge explosions. It is a critical job that must be given to the experienced few.

We hope we have been able to explain how important engine room watch-keeping duties are for the ship. Similarly how temperatures & the sense of touch of humans can be relied upon more than machines.

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