Fixing the Oosterdam

[AZjohn]

but do we really know it was the windings that burned?quote]

Hi Jim,

Your right, I don’t think anyone of use knows for sure. I’m just going from previous post. You make a good analogy with the airplane jets. Yes it can be done but also there is a redundancy design behind that incase one engine goes out. If you continue on one jet for a long time and that goes out…. oh my. But maybe because the worst thing that can happen to a ship is it just goes adrift, perhaps it’s not a huge safety concern. My gut feel is we may never be told any specifics about the failure but rather be told from HAL the azidpod broke down (unless anyone here at CC has some inside connections they would be willing to share).

One last thought, the only other thing I can think of that may have got hot and smoked could be a barring. But again I got to think the ship would have to go to dry-dock to pull the shaft off to replace the barring. Hope more will be revealed:cool: .

John

[AZjohn]

I may be wrong... I often am... but I think I have read that the Azipod consists of two sets of field windings with one shaft running through them. Essentially, two electric motors coupled end to end. If the burned windings are all within one set of windings and can be disconnected, the remaining set could be energized and run at 50% of the normal capacity. This is what happened to the drive motor on Rhapsody of the Seas during the inaugural season. It wasn't an Azipod, but it was tandem electric motors on a comon shaft.

 

Hi Grumpy,

Interesting, it makes a lot of sense to have redundant motors in the azipods (or is it spelled azidpods?). Because it looks like it is very hard to do any maintenance on them while under water. The only thing though is why would they pull the propeller off of it if was still operational (again, just going from previous post). Maybe my idea about the bearings could be the issue? If it’s like anything I read about the Celebrity ships, bearings would be dry-docking for sure:eek: .

John

[Atomica]

Hi Grumpy,

Interesting, it makes a lot of sense to have redundant motors in the azipods (or is it spelled azidpods?). Because it looks like it is very hard to do any maintenance on them while under water. The only thing though is why would they pull the propeller off of it if was still operational (again, just going from previous post). Maybe my idea about the bearings could be the issue? If it’s like anything I read about the Celebrity ships, bearings would be dry-docking for sure:eek: .

John

 

I could be wrong, but I believe the propeller was pulled off the port side pod due to drag: when the ship is in motion, it causes the prop to rotate, thus causing the shaft & internal workings to rotate, which limits the amount of work that can be done while the ship is in motion. I read a few posts back somewhere that the pods can be accessed from the engine room, or at least part of them is accessible.

[AWOL]

The thrusters that we have on some of our ships have the motor within the hull allowing it to be changed while under way. We also have some that can be drawn up into the hull allowing them to be repaired while under way

 

Regards

Roger

[Copper10-8]

I could be wrong, but I believe the propeller was pulled off the port side pod due to drag: when the ship is in motion, it causes the prop to rotate, thus causing the shaft & internal workings to rotate, which limits the amount of work that can be done while the ship is in motion. I read a few posts back somewhere that the pods can be accessed from the engine room, or at least part of them is accessible.

 

You are correct and there is access to the pods from inside the engine room - nice and crampt!

[heavenly]

While the 10/21 sailing is not a full-ship charter, there are 2 large and one medium sized groups onboard, so perhaps they decided making the H/M switch for 2 weeks made sense.

 

This was the schedule change information for the 10/21 sailing given to our group by HAL:

 

7-DAY MEXICAN RIVIERA SAN DIEGO - SAN DIEGO

 

# DAY PORT ARRIVE DEPART

 

Oct 21 SAT SAN DIEGO, CA, USA 17:00

22 SUN At Sea

 

23 MON Cabo San Lucas, Mexico 12:00 18:00

 

24 TUE Mazatlan, Mexico 8:00 18:00

25 WED Puerto Vallarta, Mexico 8:00 19:00

 

26 THU At Sea

27 FRI At Sea

28 SAT San Diego 7am

 

We have the medium group on board and this is the same information we received. Looks like our Cabo Surf excursion is cut in half....

[bonstersd]

We have the medium group on board and this is the same information we received. Looks like our Cabo Surf excursion is cut in half....

 

Heavenly, my husband is part of the surf group too...

[AZjohn]

The thrusters that we have on some of our ships have the motor within the hull allowing it to be changed while under way. We also have some that can be drawn up into the hull allowing them to be repaired while under way

 

Wow, I would love to see that sometime. Actually I could enjoy just hanging around the engine room for the whole day (though wife would kill me). Excuse me for my amateur dialog when talking about the ship’s propulsion system. I think thrusters is a much more appropriate term than my propellers:o . Sounds like you know what you are talking about Roger and maybe you can share more info if you can sometime.

Thanks,

John

[fcorey]

First of all, when the ship is cruising at 21 knots, it is NOT running at 100% of its capacity. The maritime safety boards would not let the ship sail if there was a concern that the other pod was being pushed beyond its capabilities. I'd be willing to bet that at least one of the engineers that came on board is representing the US Maritime Safety board, and is closely watching the performance parameters.

 

firstly you were quite correct about your description of the pod. They were unclear as to whether they could repair while underway. Obviously HAL wants to avoid a very costly drydock to pull the pod off the hull. Not easy considering its 200ton bulk. The problem with working on it while under way was the windmilling of the prop, and the extremely tight quarters down there. Its literally a manhole cover type access into the pod and while running it gets very hot down there. My understanding of the problem as relayed by the navigation officer was that the windings were actually melted, the company that manufactures the pod maintains that has never happened before.

 

However she can sail at 17+ knots on one pod, there was some increased vibration, very noticable in the vista dining room. With both pods running at 100% the ship would be able to achieve 25knots, possibly a bit more, but I doubt it.

[ZooCrew]

I'm aboard now. Itinerary above is similar to what we experienced. Great trip, most shore excursions happening, just rushed a little. FYI speed down to Cabo was around 19.2kts and returning was 18.7kts leaving PV, down to around 18.1 after passing Cabo. No word at all on the repairs. I'll try to check today.

[ZooCrew]

I'm aboard now. Itinerary above is similar to what we experienced. Great trip, most shore excursions happening, just rushed a little. FYI speed down to Cabo was around 19.2kts and returning was 18.7kts leaving PV, down to around 18.1 after passing Cabo. No word at all on the repairs. I'll try to check today.

[fcorey]

I'm aboard now. Itinerary above is similar to what we experienced. Great trip, most shore excursions happening, just rushed a little. FYI speed down to Cabo was around 19.2kts and returning was 18.7kts leaving PV, down to around 18.1 after passing Cabo. No word at all on the repairs. I'll try to check today.

 

thanks for the update, any news on repair? 19kts is darm good for one pod!

[Tinknock50]

While the 10/21 sailing is not a full-ship charter, there are 2 large and one medium sized groups onboard, so perhaps they decided making the H/M switch for 2 weeks made sense.

 

This was the schedule change information for the 10/21 sailing given to our group by HAL:

 

7-DAY MEXICAN RIVIERA SAN DIEGO - SAN DIEGO

 

# DAY PORT ARRIVE DEPART

 

Oct 21 SAT SAN DIEGO, CA, USA 17:00

22 SUN At Sea

 

23 MON Cabo San Lucas, Mexico 12:00 18:00

 

24 TUE Mazatlan, Mexico 8:00 18:00

25 WED Puerto Vallarta, Mexico 8:00 19:00

 

26 THU At Sea

27 FRI At Sea

28 SAT San Diego 7am

 

Thanks for the revised schedule.

 

It basically looks like Cabo is now similar to many other cruises as far as port time.....many cruises don't have much more than 6 hours there.

 

PV has the evening hours taken off, so it would not appear to effect day time excursions.

[Grumpy1]

Thanks for the revised schedule.

 

PV has the evening hours taken off, so it would not appear to effect day time excursions.

And I doubt that the bars will go broke on the business they lose from HAL cruisers because of the shortened evening...:D

[LAFFNVEGAS]

thanks for the update, any news on repair? 19kts is darm good for one pod!

 

It is amazing how well the azipods can perform when the are forced to.

[Tinknock50]

It is amazing how well the azipods can perform when the are forced to.

 

 

Thats just silly Lisa.....everbody knows there are two motors in an azipod.....you can't fool me!

[Tinknock50]

delete

[Old As Dirt Mom]

bumping this thread up, so that Tinknock's post will show up. Sorry for the interruption.

 

Karin

 

ps There you go, Sean, it worked again!

[Tinknock50]

bumping this thread up, so that Tinknock's post will show up. Sorry for the interruption.

 

Karin

 

ps There you go, Sean, it worked again!

 

That was weird, Karin.

What exactly happened?

[Old As Dirt Mom]

That was weird, Karin.

What exactly happened?

 

It's some recent glitch here at CC. Sometimes, when you're posting at the bottom of a page, and you get the "white screen of death" when you attempt to post, your entry becomes "pseudo invisible". From the main HAL board, I could see that you had entered the last post on this thread. But, when I went to read your post, it wasn't there in the thread. Hammybee noticed that when the next poster comes along, then the "lost" post reappears. It's very strange, and I don't know what causes it.

 

Karin

[Tinknock50]

It's some recent glitch here at CC. Sometimes, when you're posting at the bottom of a page, and you get the "white screen of death" when you attempt to post, your entry becomes "pseudo invisible". From the main HAL board, I could see that you had entered the last post on this thread. But, when I went to read your post, it wasn't there in the thread. Hammybee noticed that when the next poster comes along, then the "lost" post reappears. It's very strange, and I don't know what causes it.

 

Karin

 

Oh, I see. I was using my usual "back arrow" method when my post didn't show up, but I was surprised when it didn't show up after I refreshed on the main page. Usually avoids double post that way .....but not this time when it truly looked like it disappeared.

[bepsf]

Thats just silly Lisa.....everbody knows there are two motors in an azipod.....you can't fool me!

 

Um, no - we didn't know that...

Why should there be two motors in each pod?

[jtl513]

Um, no - we didn't know that...

Why should there be two motors in each pod?

 

Somebody earlier on this thread said there were two sets of windings on a single shaft, like tandem motors.

[Tinknock50]

Somebody earlier on this thread said there were two sets of windings on a single shaft, like tandem motors.

 

Thanks jtl513....that's what I based the joke on.

 

Brian, it was joke.....didn't think it was neccessary to include a techincal explanation...LOL :)

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Thats just silly Lisa.....everbody knows there are two motors in an azipod.....you can't fool me!

 

Sean, I guess you meant more like this...:D