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Update from the Engineering Dept – February
The end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007 has seen much activity from Endurance's Engineering Department. The trip to South Georgia for work period 2 saw the plant behave itself impeccably, but as the ship turned north toward the sunny climes of Brazil and a well deserved Xmas break, the port Bergen Diesel engine started to chew it's cogs and we ended up with stacks of bits in and around the oil in the sump. If that was not all, two days later and now with one engine down a small flood took out the other one! We limped the ship into Christmas and awaited help from home.
LMEM 'Chappie' Chappell with POMEA
'Penny' Penfold in the background
Out to the ship came CPO 'Hoppy' Hopkins, our new diesel tiffy and on arrival in the Falklands in January we saw CPO Daz Cass who runs the auxiliary sections. Also joining was Lt John Ball, the Engineer Officer 2. With these key personnel in place and the engines finally repaired, we set off for work period 3 and our encounter with Royalty. Unfortunately on HRH's arrival the encounter was oh so soon as our Chief Shipwright (CPO 'Chats' Harris) became involved with fixing the Royal toilet, which had malfunctioned, ably assisted by LMEM 'Chappie' Chappell. Knighthoods may follow!
In Rothera, the Engineers enjoyed a good winter break with walks round the base and a showing in the winter Olympics. Down below, trouble was brewing - our distilling plants were playing up and our fresh water stocks dwindling. Rumours abound around the ship - would we run out of water?
CPOMEA 'Hoppy' Hopkins
POMEA `Penny’ Penfold
CPOMEA 'Daz' Cass
Fortunately, the non-stop work by Daz Cass and his new sidekick POMEA 'Penny' Penfold sorted that problem out and we finally managed to make our tank levels rise without having to shut off the showers!
Meanwhile, en route, we continued Multibeaming using our Kongsberg suite. All seemed good on that front!
Repairs being made to the MS Nordkapp
In mid January we bade farewell to Lt Matt Liddell, off on a sojourn to South America and then secondment to Abbeywood until late March. Lt Ball took his place and by baptism of fire we were faced with the MS Nordkapp incident in Deception Island, details of which and our involvement are elsewhere on this site. Photo: Endurance Engineers at work on MS Nordkapp We arrived back in Mare Harbour one day late as a result of this and now sit alongside waiting for spares for our Parat Boiler before setting off on work period 4 into the Erebus and Terror Gulf.
WO2(MEA) `Slinger’ Woods
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