Answer; Spend all your time in a ship’s engine room!
Last month, staff at MAN Diesel & Turbo’s UK Ltd’s (MDT-UK) Headquarters in Hazel Grove were contacted by a customer on the Canary Islands concerning a problem with an engine on one of their high speed crafts on the busy Tenerife to Gran Canaria route.
MDT-UK Field Service Engineers Richard Roberts and Callum Baillie flew out to the Canaries and on examining the vessel, discovered that the crankshaft on the port outer main engine needed replacing.
With the vessel docked in Las Palma de Gran Canaria, the damaged crankshaft was lifted and removed, the bedplate inspected, a new crankshaft fitted and the crankshaft lowered back onto the bedplate.
The vessel then returned temporarily to service on three of its four engines.
At this point, Callum left the project to support an ongoing project in Taiwan and was replaced on site by Mark Hughes, another MDT-UK Service Engineer.
Meanwhile Richard continued to work late into the nights in the quiet fishing town of Agaete in order to rebuild the engine and complete the re-commissioning.
Once the work on the engine was complete, a series of sea trials were undertaken before the vessel returned to service – now with all four engines running smoothly – and left Las Palmas on Gran Canaria for Santa Cruz on Tenerife.