The U.S. Coast Guard says it is at the scene of a disabled cruise ship in Buzzards Bay on Cape Cod on Friday afternoon.
The disabled vessel, the 376-foot Star Pride, is a luxury ship that was making a cruise from Iceland to New York. It was scheduled to make its maiden docking in Manhattan on Saturday.
There are more than 350 people on board, but none were injured.
The Fairhaven harbormaster said the ship lost power off Cuttyhunk Island.
"There was a strong vibration for about five or 10 seconds," said passenger Jose Kirchner. "Then we lost cabin lights, we lost forward power, so we slowly slowed down and we were basically adrift."
The ship was anchored while the Coast Guard and tug boats raced to the scene.
After 5:30 p.m., the Coast Guard said the ship had regained power. It remained anchored for some time, but Windstar Cruises, the company that operates the Star Pride, said around 9 p.m. that it was on the move to Newport, Rhode Island, where it will be inspected.
The ship's arrival in New York has been delayed.
"By and large most people are concerned about what are we going to do tomorrow," said Kirchner. "What about our flights, that kind of thing."
Windstar Cruises says the propulsion and auxiliary engines were shut down automatically after a loss of cooling water. After the power was restored, operations returned to normal and passengers were served dinner.
"At no time were the 191 passengers and 160 crew and ship at risk," the cruise line said in a statement. "During the time the ship was without propulsion, the Star Pride was on emergency generator power including power to navigational equipment and essential safety systems as well as basic comforts for the passengers and crew."
Different Types of Protections on a Ship’s Marine Engine
Basically there are four main types of protection systems used to safeguard propulsion engine:
1. Alarm: In case of deviation of engine parameters from a set value, an audible and visual alarm will sound which will give an early warning of the problem.
2. Slow down: It is the next stage of protection
when actions taken are not sufficient to control the ongoing problem;
hence engine slow down is done to counter the disturbed parameter.
3. Shut down: When there is a higher fluctuation
in the engine parameters which can harm other systems of the engine, the
shut down protective devices cut off the fuel supply and the engine
stops.
4. Starting Interlock: This will not allow the
engine to start from the stand-still condition if some important system
within the engine has not been operated or arranged properly.
Different Engine Slow Down Situations
In this situation the main engine will come to dead slow RPM i.e. below 30 RPM as the slow down protection gets activated. Following are different slow down situation for main engine:- Lube oil pressure falls to 1.5 bar
- Cam shaft pressure falls below 2 bar
- There is no flow of piston cooling media (water or oil)
- Oil mist detector or Main bearing sensors has been activated
- Lube oil temperature at the inlet of engine is high > 60 deg C
- Piston Cooling temperature is high > 75 deg C
- Jacket water Temperature is high > 88 deg c
- Engine cylinder exhaust temperature is high > 450 deg C
- Scavenge air temperature is high > 65 deg C
- Thrust block temperature is high > 75 deg C
- Low flow of Cylinder lube oil
- Control air pressure is low < 5.5 bar
Different Shut down Situations
- Lube oil inlet pressure to engine is very low <1 bar
- Cam shaft Lube oil pressure is very low < 1.5 bar
- Very high Jacket cooling water temperature >95 deg C
- Low Jacket cooling water pressure < 0.1 bar
- No flow of Cylinder lube oil
- Thrust block temperature very high > 90 deg C
- Lube oil inlet pressure for turbocharger is low < 0.8 bar
- Over speed of the engine which activates shut down at 107 % of Max. continuous rating MCR
Different Starting Interlocks are
- Turning gear engage interlock
- Auxiliary blower off interlock
- Lube oil and other important pump not running interlock
