Crankshaft change out on a cruise ship

Here’s a pretty cool time lapsed video of a crankshaft exchange on the MS Zaandam cruise ship in Uruguay. The old crankshaft was replaced with a new crankshaft, weighing 7.5t, using jacking and skidding techniques. The old crankshaft was damaged from wear at the bearing points. The exchange took three days to complete following one week's preparation.

https://youtu.be/2drej_qeRSA

That was pretty impressive. So much planning involved, starting with the NA's design of the engine room.

My son is a chief engineer and tells me the fun part is changing a head or a valve cage at sea. He has unlimited horsepower steam, diesel and gas turbine endorsements and still prefers steam power over the others.

Wow. And I thought I was pretty SH because, back in the day, I could swap out a VW bus engine while hardly breaking a sweat.

You were SH! You, a buddy, a case of beer, and the bucket of EMPI parts you mail ordered could have it out and back in with a long day.

I wonder how much that costs?

That looks like a traveling crew, not the ships engineers doing most of the work.

A friend did this for GE turbines years ago. Flew around fixing steam turbines and related systems on ships.

These guys definitely earn their money.

Looks like Pielstick engines. Well known for crankshank issues on the PCV series. I have seen ships sent to the scrapyard because it was too expensive to change out the crank. But a cruise ship is so expensive to replace it must be economically feasible.
I would guess it is a factory team or at least a team led by a factory engineer.

I like the way they align the engine at the end of the video. It looks easier than me trying to get my Perkins lined up to the prop shaft!

BaltimoreLurker said:

Wow. And I thought I was pretty SH because, back in the day, I could swap out a VW bus engine while hardly breaking a sweat.

Click to expand...

We once changed a clutch on a VW bus in a parking lot in Ohio in January on a trip west to Colorado. Took 3.5 hours using a small box of tools we had for emergencies. We dropped the engine down and rolled the bus forward. The biggist challenge was finding a way to lock up the engine to get the big nut off holding the flywheel on. The rear bumper had been removed to get clearance for rolling the bus forward. I noticed that the mounting brackets for the bumper looked as if they matched the flywheel mounting bolts well. So, we bolted the bumper to the flywheel. You know the rest of the story.

Oh, the clutch had to be replaced because a seal failed creating a large oil leak which soaked and ruined the clutch. Seal replaced at same time.

Fletcher500 said:

That looks like a traveling crew, not the ships engineers doing most of the work.

A friend did this for GE turbines years ago. Flew around fixing steam turbines and related systems on ships.

These guys definitely earn their money.

Click to expand...

On his first deployment, my son was aboard a Navy frigate (USS McCluskey). It was powered by two gas turbines. One failed off Panama. They pulled into port and while a new engine was being shipped in the failed engine was removed. The job took four days. All work was done by sailors, no outside contractors. It was so hot in the engineering spaces that work was limited to 15 minute shifts. Now that, to me, was impressive.

BaltimoreLurker said:

Wow. And I thought I was pretty SH because, back in the day, I could swap out a VW bus engine while hardly breaking a sweat.

Click to expand...

This was my bible!