Ended last shift on a high. In recent days we’ve had a couple of problems which have arisen on the system which we’ve managed to resolve in a very satisfactory way. What’s been particularly gratifying is that, although due to the litigation that had gone on previously when we were unable to do work or even access the equipment, people have shown that their familiarity and in particular their diagnostic skills have not diminished. With the first problem we very quickly concurred on the probable cause, a faulty hydraulic valve, but due to operational restraints it was impractical to change it at that time. We quickly managed to figure out how to overcome the problem in the control software, with no impact on safety of the equipment. All told, from the fault occurring to being operational again was less than 90 minutes. I do feel that quality of the personnel we have kept that down time to a minimum with a problem that could have caused hours of lost time for people less familiar with the processes involved, particularly in the control side of things. The second problem was one that pleased me even more.. (or at least, the solving of it!) Ultimately we found a bug in the control software. A modification that had been done in the control for one piece of equipment, which had had an unforeseen knock-on effect on another piece of equipment. As the people who wrote the software are normally very good at avoiding this type of thing it was particularly gratifying to me to find the problem when, after reviewing it, they couldn’t find anything wrong. The ship had to run for port yesterday (which gave us the time to replace the faulty valve and restore the control fix we’d put in) but now we’re heading back out to sea. We’re just hitting the tail end of the storm and it’s still pretty rough, but it’s supposed to calm down later in the day, so we could be operational again tonight. With so much lost time due to the weather I think we’ll all be glad to actually get some of this project done!
