Gigantic Ferry Overhaul | Engineering Giants | Free Documentary

32 000 tons of steel seven decks each the length of a football pitch four engines burning two and a half thousand liters of fuel an hour so when you're out at sea i can't imagine the noise that makes one massive feat of engineering the north sea ferry the pride of bruges wow can't get too much more up close and personal with the ship than we are yeah battered by the sea for 25 years it's being taken out the water for the biggest overhaul of its life as key parts are stripped down there's a unique chance to explore deep within its hidden features where as far as any sensible person could go every complex system must be rigorously tested and repaired before it can return to service if you've got a high clearance you could actually lose your rudder so these checks they're very important they're very important a 120 strong team of highly skilled engineers take on the challenge to replace all that is a massive job they must examine over a thousand separate parts and repair over ten thousand square meters of steel hull this wasn't being done the steel itself will just deteriorate and we'll reveal what happens to these giants when they reach the end of their working they're just lives munched up by this shearer and how in their death they're given a new lease of life wow it's just an incredible firework display this is engineering giants [Music] i'm rob bell i'm a mechanical engineer and i've always loved to get my hands on complex machines to discover how they work i'm tom wigglesworth i'm a trained electrical engineer with a passion for big machines and this is the pride of bruges the north sea ferry that's going to help us explore exactly how a ship works it's arriving in newcastle where it will spend the next three weeks being stripped down proud of bruges time pilot we're coming to you now god we're like a mouse coming alongside an elephant here look at this all the ship's key components including its engines propellers rudders and hull will require detailed checks and repairs the problem is that many of the most important parts of the ferry are underwater before any of the checks can take place the first challenge is actually to get this beast into the dock and that's no mean feat engineers won't know the extent of the work ahead of them until all 32 000 tons the weight of over 2 000 double-decker buses are safely out of the sea and to do that the ship must now be precisely maneuvered into the dry dock facility at the amp shipyard on the tine the job of all the guys here around the dock is to get this ship absolutely central and in exactly the right position in the dock on the bottom of the dock underneath the water are what's called docking blocks and they've been laid out in exactly the right position for the design of this ship the pride of bruges earlier today i met up with site manager john leckie to find out how his team was going to accomplish this engineering feat these blocks that the ship will sit on they've been put in particular positions for this ship okay in accordance with its docking plug the meter high steel bases are topped with oak blocks which cushion the immense weight of the ferry preventing damage to its hull while enabling engineers to work right underneath the ship once they're in place the team can flood the dock if by some means it started right now will we have time to get out a quicker runner are you pretty quick but using water from the river next door fed by gravity the dock is flooded with 133 million liters of water equivalent to 53 olympic-sized swimming pools at it come on it's absolutely flooding out that did not take long at all it takes another three hours before the water in the dock is at the same level as the river outside then the gate can be dropped engineers have calculated where the hull needs to be positioned in relation to the dock so that the ship ends up exactly above the blocks tonight this task is particularly challenging as there's a strong crosswind this is quite a tense moment and it was the bit that they weren't sure whether they were going to actually carry out tonight because it was so windy with the margin of error less than a meter the ferry is attached by steel lines to winches known as mules so that the ship can be precisely maneuvered from a central control tower [Music] it's such high precision work and with the wind coming across as well it's certainly not easy caught by a gust of wind the ferry is pushed perilously close to the edge of the dock any damage sustained to the ship on its way into dock could cost millions and set the whole schedule back days finally after two hours of maneuvering the team get the ferry into position and raise the gate next comes the most dangerous part of the operation if the ship is not in exactly the correct position above the blocks as the water is pumped out the hull could be badly damaged these three electric pumps will drain the 133 million liters of water out of the dock each one pumps out eighteen and a half thousand tons of water an hour after another four hours it becomes clear that the engineering team's measurements are spot on as the pride of bruges finally comes to rest on its blocks wow you can't get too much more up close and personal with the ship than we are yeah and you can see the effect at the weight of this ship all 32 000 tons of steel has had on these docking blocks it's very intimidating with the pride of brews now out of the water for the first time in years engineers including site manager john leckie can examine and begin to repair the most important part of the ship it's hull so john now with this close to the vessel it strikes me there's actually very little of it under the water the volume displaced by what's under the water equals the weight of the vessel in its entirety so there's actually quite a lot under the water especially with this type of ship so if you lowered it if you lowered it into the water as it started to enter the water it would displace one tonne two ton three tonne photon when that displacement weight matches the weight of the ship yes it stops it's yeah it flows the shape of a ship's hull depends on the type of work it's designed to carry out for speed v-shaped holes are best enabling ships to cut through the water minimising drag for stability a boxy u-shaped design like our ferry is better creating more cargo space and minimizing rocking [Music] but the shape of a ship's hull isn't enough on its own to ensure its stability and seaworthiness [Music] a perfect level of buoyancy is also needed and to make that happen the ferry can pump up to 2 200 tons of seawater into the network of ballast tanks that run throughout the lower part of its hull the ship is designed to sit at a certain depth in the water if the ship was empty carrying no load it would actually sit so high up in the water that it would appear unstable now this is a bit of an extreme example that's not classic ship shape we can make even this sit in the water with a good degree of stability if we put enough ballast in it and cause it to lower its buoyancy point like that while the dock was being drained the ballast tanks on the pride of bruges were emptied so that engineers could begin the filthy job of cleaning out the water inlets known as sea boxers hey up there's a man in there is he a contractor is he just a dodging affair engineer colin grant has the job of ensuring that this major overhaul runs smoothly guys are working up there cleaning the mud and everything that accumulates because eventually it would clog up and it's got a problem so when the ship needs a drink this is its mouth it is because it has to pull in cooling water all the time yeah for the engine put it out again exactly the forward end of the engine room has rows and rows of big pumps for different purposes some to circulate water around the engines and there's lots of engines in there and some to push the ballast water up when it's required right through the length of the ship once the sea boxes have been cleaned engineers will have to squeeze through tight access holes as they venture deeper into the ship's ballast tank system to inspect and repair their steel interior against corrosion the thing that makes this one stand out for me is that we have a great big ship here and you've got the daftest access to it you've ever come across in your place colin qualified as an engineer at the ministry of defense and has always been passionate about ships there are all sorts of plans of the ships but the one that we need for this exercise is this before colin's team can begin examining the ship's labyrinth of ballast tanks he first needs to check that they're safe and that no water remains inside them so normally when this when the ship's out at sea this would all be filled with water it would yes oh the ballast it's pretty pokey around here yep the tanks are divided into a series of smaller pockets designed to prevent the volume of water equivalent to an olympic sized swimming pool from sloshing around the hull and making the ship so call unstable now we're pretty much right down inside the four beat now where as far as any sensible person would go moving around inside these tanks is cramped and claustrophobic part of the check you'd have engineers coming down here to do what kind of maintenance the condition of the shell has to be checked it's steel it rusts and therefore it has to be monitored looked at all ships of this kind in effect are two things you've got the lower part that sits in the water and that's the real ship it's got all the machines and everything yes all the stuff of a height the passengers go in and the cars go in and all all that stuff is cargo on the actual ship even though it's a permanent part of it this is the bit that has to do the work of getting from here to there safely [Music] and that safety depends on making sure that the hull sits at the correct level in the water too heavier load and the ship could become dangerously low in the water and susceptible to swamping so the simple horizontal line across the circle the plimsel line indicates the maximum load level the other little marks there are indicators for different particular conditions which would be fresh water and salt water or you know and is that because fresh water and salt water are for different voices densities the salt water is more buoyant it's denser than fresh water and similarly cold water is more it's more buoyant than warm water cold water is more point than warm water i never i never know yes and the bruges is designed to compensate for these variables by pumping water in or out of its ballast tanks freedom a part of this ship that i'm keen to get out of i don't envy the guys i have to actually do their work down there oh that's hard work how's that calling one of the one of the perks of the jobs wouldn't do without it love it i wouldn't want everybody to know this but that is one of the attractions of the job i get to go places where normally nobody goes it's brilliant it's a real privilege to come along with you i went to become an engineer because i just any anything internal combustion anything that goes banging up and down and round and round and that's the bigger the better it's in the areas of the ship beneath the waterline that most of the important maintenance work over the next three weeks will take place this is where many of the ship's most vital components are located and where i found piano's chief engineer han prong he was part of the team that took delivery of the pride of bruges 25 years ago my roots are at sea so sea there is in the veins yeah hands engineering team are about to run tests on a part of the ship that few passengers would even know exists hands why is this little room so important to the passengers one form one performing passengers this controls comfort the ferry is fitted with retractable fins known as stabilizers which help limit the rocking motion at sea that can cause sea sickness so this is the actuator that pushes the stabilizer arms out yes so and at the moment in dialogue we get them out for repairs cleaning maintenance and whatever during the tests engineers will be checking that all the hydraulic systems are functioning correctly and that both stabilizers are perfectly synchronized to work together these will only normally be deployed in stormy weathers the flaps at the back are controlled and move up and down and they counteract the rolling of the ship from side to side as this flap goes up on the other side the flap will go down now the really clever thing about these is that they're controlled automatically by the ship through use of a gyroscope system such that when that gyro moves to one side because of the rock of the ship and the role of the waves this thing knows exactly what to do and it knows how far to turn because of how big those waves are clever stuff the pride of bruges was built in japan 25 years ago specifically to carry passengers and cargo 200 miles across the north sea up from here inside three freight decks can carry up to 850 vehicles above the freight decks are four more levels to accommodate over a thousand passengers and crew complete with two restaurants a nightclub a casino and a hotel with 350 cabins it's amazing it's just this massive almost like a town with all the yeah you wouldn't you wouldn't know you at sea if it wasn't rocking about all over the show would you coordinating the maintenance of a machine this large is a massive task the newcastle engineering team are due to return the pride of brews to the north sea in just 20 days time delays would be disruptive and costly working to a tight deadline the team's biggest challenge is to repair thousands of square meters of steel which is showing its age try and keep a nice even partner while at sea the whole steel surface has come under constant attack for marine life i mean if this wasn't being done the steel itself will just deteriorate sea water is also corrosive and would have caused much greater harm were it not for these metal bars currently being replaced by richie hsn richie what is this piece a download satisfaction landlord sacrificial anode it protects the steel basically yeah protects the scale this is a new one is it's the new one so these are put on the side how many of them are on the on the ship well they should be about 50 in total the sacrificial anodes are made of zinc a more reactive metal than steel which means corrosion attacks them first as their name suggests they sacrifice themselves to save the hull [Music] while engineers carry out repairs on the steel exterior of the ship inside work is underway to replace two steel floors each the size of a football pitch in the ferry's car decks it's incredibly noisy down here neil yes overseeing this complex engineering project is neil farquhar the reason was replacing the steel is the wear and tear over the years with the trucks and stuff that goes steel actually wears down oh yeah yeah we've got to remember this 18 20 times traveling back and forth and trailers and stuff if it goes below a certain millimeters has to be replaced to replace all that is a massive job to strip out the old decking would take months so engineers will be fixing a new level of steel above the old one saving time and money the blue machine on the left hand side is what we call a blast track machine which shoots shot blast onto the surface to make it absolutely spotless oh it really does isn't it so that leaves the welders the clean surface to come along it's not filing it down before over the next three weeks the team not only have to grind the old decking down but they also have to remove hundreds of manhole covers and fixtures and refit them to the new surface how thick a piece you added on top six mill six mil more that should see it right for another 10 years yeah at least yeah yeah yeah [Music] extending the life of the ferry is the major goal for this overhaul and a week into the process there's still much to do over 600 square meters of flooring needs to be laid as part of the passenger deck refurbishment the critical moving components that take the brunt of the forces at sea need to be checked and renovated and all four lifeboats must be removed these potentially life-saving vessels can carry up to 150 passengers each they'll be thoroughly examined along with the release mechanism that lowers them into the water part of our service is to make sure that they are working and functioning correctly yeah put them into the water check the release system and do the maintenance safety on the ship is paramount and the main focus for the newcastle engineering team they're being helped by key members of the ferry's dutch crew who have stayed on board to operate the controls and working parts of the vessel an old ship 25 years plus well maintained well looked after good crew on board who love the ship they do two weeks on two weeks off and obviously treat it as a home it's a good team we've got about 120 ish crew working together with all the people that's the most important thing that will help you through the two weeks the interaction is really great on this ship different nationalities and yeah that's why i love it training for two weeks on the ship and we're two weeks at home enough time to spend at home with your family no one knows the pride of bruges better than its crew today they're working with colin and the newcastle team to operate the ship's two 4 ton anchors they need to examine their 329 meter chains stored in lockers deep in the bow of the vessel for potentially lethal wear the anchors are the only brakes that the ship has right either hit something solid which is undesirable young advisory and the captain gets embarrassed or you hang on to what's down there the ship will not stand still what are we looking for in that inspection any defects that rubs on that yeah naturally that causes wear remember if they are actually anchored those things are working all the time and there's a maximum wear allowed on them to accurately measure the wear on every single link all 329 meters of chain is released an operation rarely carried out on this ferry except in emergencies you can see the rust flying off of it as the pressure of each one of the links of those chains goes through the teeth on the wheel it's just grinding it straight off [Music] next the team must carefully organize the chain along the bottom of the dock a potentially dangerous task that has crushed dock workers in the past they load the chain onto the ship in length after they've loaded one length on you can see they join it with a red link after one length they paint one link either side with white paint after two lengths these two links either side get painted white after three lengths three links so you can see at a glance exactly how much chain you've fed out [Music] the anchor prevents a ship from drifting away due to the currents or tide [Music] a common misconception is that it's the anchor itself that acts as the main weight to secure the ship in its position in fact it's the weight of the chain that holds the ship in place the anchor is merely there to keep the chain in the correct place on the seabed the final link in the chain is attached to a single pin deep in the bowels of the vessel you pull the pin there you just paint it down there's a backup on everything yeah of course pull that pin so that's there so it can't work its way out while nobody's looking yeah and then you get your mightiest crew with him hit him knock it out that pin goes through the the bitter end the last link of the cable so the last link of the chain is called the bitter end yes and the whole anchor and the whole chain is connected to the ship by the bitter end exactly more importantly the ship is connected to the anchor by the bitter end releasing the bitter end would be the captain's last resort casting the ship a drift in the sea you build a ship and you hope that will never be used except for normal anchor chain changes yes the anchor and its chain is 25 years old the same age as the ship and like many of the ship's 10 million components as it gets older it will require an increasing amount of maintenance and repairs in the end the pride of bruges will simply become too costly to keep running then it will end up at a ship breaking yard like this one in belgium the largest of its kind in europe here over 50 ships a year are plundered for spare parts and broken up it's the perfect place to look even more closely at how all ships are built there's all manner of activity going on here ships being sailed in to get cut up scrapped and it all gets loaded up and taken off to be recycled ships usually arrive at the yard in full working order looks like it's just been completely abandoned the salvage team led by mario mias then get to work removing any valuable components left on board that's a pretty massive engine a working engine could fetch over 50 000 pounds so how much of this weight roughly 27 dogs 27 tons 27 tons of engine the team must be careful removing a heavy engine while the ship is still afloat can weaken its thin finely balanced hull snapping it in half i mean that would be disastrous you've got people on board cutting and people on board residues of oil into the water so let alone the value of the ship as well that you could destroy it [Music] that's it it's down job done engine safely out the remaining hull is now light enough to be hauled up onto dry land to be cut up and recycled effectively just dragging it from the sea up here on to try that this mexican dredging vessel used to pump sand and silt off the bottom of south american ports it has a hull that follows the same principle and dimensions of our ferry just half the size stand in front of this perfect cross-section of a ship cut right through it just gives you a brilliant picture of the structure and what goes on inside i mean better than any engineering drawing could ever give you and whilst this is obviously built and designed to transport cargo and our ship people and cars the principal's very much the same the flat bottom hull and the ballast tanks on the side the other great thing about this cross section is it allows you to see how thick the hull is or in fact actually how thin it is that's probably what couple of centimeters of max can you just imagine how something as thin as this could get ripped to shreds if it came off against something solid like a rock it will take another two weeks for the salvage team to cut up the rest of this 2 000 ton hull ready to be recycled our ship the pride of bruges should be at least another 10 years away from this stage of its life cycle in newcastle the ferry is now halfway through its three-week overhaul and so far the engineering team are on schedule throughout the process one of its four diesel engines has been ticking over to provide electrical power to the ship's control systems i'm right at the back of the arc of the ship the real business end and down here is where the engines are the power this beast of a vessel it's the heart of the beast that's where all the action is it's it's alive it pumps the energy through the ship and you can feel it when you're in there you can't hear anything else but you feel it even with ear protectors on when the ship is at sea it's simply too loud in the engine room for engineers to work safely for long periods so while the ship is in dry dock chief engineer hans pronk and his team have just a few days to check the thousands of valves for any leaks and carry out important system checks on the engine's complex electronic controls so you you're able to see here and actually control everything out in the engines all the pumps all the generators all the things they'll be displayed on the screen like this as you see the controls over here are for pumps controls for propels the controls for generators the control for main engines clutching de-clutching steering steering everything despite the noise and heat hands is never more at home than when he's in an engine room when you're out at sea it's even more noisy than it is now down here yeah yeah yeah you definitely need a lot at sea all four engines would be running constantly driving the ship's two propellers as well as supplying the ship with hot water and enough electricity to power a small town i mean this really gives you an idea of the size of the engines and the pistons so the diameter of a piston inside the engine is that a piston in a regular car engine is closer to the size of a fizzy drink can ah this piston here that's just been refurbished has it ready to be used again yes you see it's all brand new yeah yeah i can see but it's fit for use it's how much wood one of these cost me roughly about seven thousand for the footpath you saw that it's been split yeah and then you have the lower part there's another thousand differently so around fourteen fifteen thousand pounds in addition to thirty pistons costing a hundred and eighty two thousand pounds there are tens of thousands of valve pumps and pipes all working together to supply the ship with the power it needs so what's the power that we've got on here enhanced it's five thousand seven hundred and sixty kilowatts the power output from average car is what in kilowatts but oh uh hundred kilowatts so that means this is about the same power output as about 58 cars yes in total the ferry's four engines generate a power equivalent to over 200 cars and on a 14-hour crossing of the north sea that means the pride of bruges will get through over 30 tons of diesel fuel [Music] back at the ship breaking yard in belgium a fuel tank has been split wide open revealing what the vessel consumed and how it consumed it the fuel they use on ships is one of the cheapest real heavy fuel oil you can get i mean look at it i mean this is kind of crude oil once you've taken off gas petrol diesel what's what's a refinery this is kind of what's left it's like treacle so on it on a ship it has to go through the fuel goes to three different stages before it can actually be injected into the engine and being burned the pipeline you see running through it's kind of like the heating element at the bottom of a kettle this is used to heat up the fuel so it goes from this really viscous thick sticky stuff into something more liquid that they can start pumping through the fuel system so it gets thinned out by being kept yeah it gets thinned out but it's not ready to be burnt yeah because actually in this you've got all sorts of impurities there's water in there as well and they've got a really clever system for separating out the stuff that we don't want so we get a fuel oil that is burnable and that system is called a centrifuge which i'm going to demonstrate with a bicycle and a bottle full of a mixture of sand water and oil to represent the ship's fuel and its impurities so i'm going to get this wheel spinning here uh-huh much as it would be on the centrifuge on a ship now as that spins the acceleration forces the heavier objects or the denser objects towards the outer edge of our bottle so let's have a look at what we've been left with wow with our little makeshift centrifuge so you can quite clearly see there the heavier density was thrown right out and that's the sand that's the impurities within the fuel on the ship yeah then you've got the water that represents the water in the fuel on the ship and up top you've got the least dense liquid in there and that's the oil and that would be the fuel oil on the ship which can then be tapped off and burnt in the engines very good at sea two and a half thousand liters of this fuel is burnt every hour on the pride of bruges generating over 40 000 horsepower most of which is used to turn the ship's two colossal propellers linked to the engines via these 130 meter long shafts this shot runs right from the transmission right out to the propeller yes absolutely yeah the shafts are so long because if the engines and propellers were next to each other their combined weight of over 200 tons would place too much weight in the stern of the ship making the ferry unstable [Music] the propellers work by pushing water in one direction causing the ship to be moved in the other the angle and speed of the blades affect the volume of water being moved and therefore the speed of the ship at four and a half meters in diameter and weighing 14 tons each the two propellers on the bruges can spin at 120 revolutions a minute they're in the process of being polished by engineer paul baker and his team an essential job they can only do when the ship is in dry dock once they've been polished then we will crack detect the areas that you crack detect are in the palm where the bolts are okay and on the tips of the blades okay this is purely to identify whether or not there is any surface imperfections or fractures within the blade material these surface imperfections can be caused by a phenomenon known as cavitation when the propeller is spinning the rapid changes of pressure in the water around the blades can cause cavities or bubbles to form the constant implosion of these bubbles as the liquid collapses into the void produces a shock wave which can damage the surface metal of the propeller if left unchecked cavitation could result in a ship losing a blade so this is being expected at the moment it is we will proceed with the polishing of the blades and the crack detection so when you polish it yes what's the effect that that will have efficiency it will improve the efficiency it will improve the efficiency of the blade as regards the resistance within the water okay so therefore it will reduce these fuel costs okay it's all about reducing fuel costs those costs are further lowered by the ingenious design of the propellers which enable the captain to control the pitch of the blades an invention that's best demonstrated by this replica model unlike in cars where the engine speed determines that how fast the car's going that's not necessarily the case in ships it's the angle of the blades in the water which is going to determine how fast you're moving so when the propellers are in this position now which they're quite flat it's pretty much like having a dinner plate slapped onto the end of the shaft so when it's spinning it's not giving you any forward thrust and when you start to change the pitch you start to get an increased amount of thrust and propulsion forwards on the ship if the captain then wants to reverse the ship what happens is he reverses the angle of these blades completely such that the waters being propelled in the opposite direction and the ship goes backwards and that means he doesn't have to slow down the propeller from the forward direction crank it in and then speed it back up again that whole process can be done whilst the shaft's still turning so this clever design makes the ship that much more maneuverable with quicker response times and is more fuel efficient making it much cheaper to run [Music] it's now only 10 days before the pride of brood is due to ferry passengers and cargo across the north sea and with time running out engineers must make sure that all the critical components usually underwater are in perfect working order any failures at sea would mean returning the ship to dry dock resulting in a huge financial cost and a cancelled service a faulty rudder would prevent the crew from being able to steer the ferry into port unaided so paul and his team must now check that the rudders washes and bearings known as bushes haven't worn down due to continual movement in the water you do get a weigh factor on these and sometimes you have to pot the blade and the flap and renew these riding washers and what would be the situation where you'd have to actually remove the whole rudder if we have a problem with the main trunk housing yeah if the clearance is excessive then we have to lower the the rudder remove the rudder take the post out and renew the bush so what's what's the danger of not spotting something like that where you've got a really high clearance if you've got a high clearance you could actually lose your rudder at sea yeah you'd lose a runner so these checks they're very important they're very important housed directly above the photon rudders are the hydraulic actuators that move them they're controlled electronically by the ship's steering wheel at the bow of the vessel i'm fascinated to know how you control a ship like this so i want to find the nerve center i want to find the bridge i've arranged to meet the most important man on the ship it's captain arie canyworth down the bridge harry good morning hey good morning tom welcome this is the bridge i found it bridge yes it's hard to find hidden behind closed doors it seems to be for obvious reasons the main controls to maneuver the ferry in close quarters are located on the bridge's wings that protrude beyond each side of the hull so that the captain can see along either side of the vessel we have the bow thrusters here at our uh disposal now these are just those little propellers well say little they're about six four relatively little and i can move the bow basically sideways yeah so you've got rudder here brother pow thrusters and in both engines um i thought you'd have a wheel i thought there'd be a wooden wheel uh you want to see the wheel i think you'll be a little bit disappointed with our view this is this is it this has been modernized doesn't it this is it it isn't what i expected while the big steering wheels are getting smaller the the ships and the rudders that drive them are getting bigger as a passenger and cargo ferry the ship is regularly in and out of port so maneuverability is key therefore the vessel has been equipped with special rudders these are becca rudders um they're a high maneuverability rudder there you have a flap as you can see on the the mechanism here becca flap so what's the advantage of having this on the back of the rubber she increases the maneuverability of the of the vessel water that's been driven through the propeller is diverted by the angle of the rudder changing the direction of the ship the addition of the becca flap to the rudder is an ingenious yet simple way of getting extra maneuverability because of its position this smaller flap has a bigger effect on diverting the water flow making tighter quicker turns possible so what would be happening if you're doing 18 knots top speed top speed clear day yeah and you just when the ship will list considerably okay everything that's not secure will fall down clearly there's no way to see ahri maneuver the ship while it's in dry dock but fortunately the pride of bruges has a sister ship the pride of york built in scotland to exactly the same specifications as its japanese sister the york also carries out the daily hull to zebra crossing between the two ships they ferry four hundred thousand holidaymakers and business travelers between britain and the continent every year the ship is now secured for seat and we will leave to birth shortly as dust falls we're offered a rare opportunity to view the most challenging parts of its journey from the bridge so alistair why is it so such mellow lighting all crafts are illuminated and we have navigation lights it's an imperative that we see those lights as soon as possible any background light on the bridge would spoil our night vision we wouldn't see those other ships it's the same reason there's a new car you should exactly the same exactly if you have bright lights in your car you can't see what's saying the windows captain aleister mcfadden shares the skipper role with his dutch counterpart which means tonight he's free to explain how the crew maneuvers the ferry through a narrow lock on its departure from hull all the navigation is going on down the other end of the interior captain rowley and the chief officer they're maneuvering the vessel at the moment so this is quite an intricate maneuver it is to get this enormous very into those tiny little rocks a small gap yes yeah so when we're in there how much leeway have we got you put about 18 inches either side of the vessel as we move in it's a very um tricky maneuver we use our own machinery main engines and bow thrusters and of course the rudders to get the ship in here and as you can see we do things very slowly yeah and nice and gently the smallest of errors could result in damage to the hull where many of the ship's most important components are housed but the york has been designed to the exact specifications of this particular lock is it not an argument economically to have a smaller ship or a bigger block that you can be quicker so you can you can get more ships through the bare fact is that the lock is built and if they'd built it twice as big we would have built a ship twice as big now the ship has to wait until the level of the water inside the lock reaches the same level as the river outside the whole idea of this dock basin is to maintain a certain depth of water all the time so any ships inside always have a guaranteed amount of water under their keel so they can work cargo throughout their stay in the port there we go opening up the crew now have to navigate the ferry 200 miles across busy shipping lanes in the north sea this is the route that we will be taking and so we'll be on the starboard side of the channel we'll come all the way down to the sea reach once we get to that point we'll alter course to a course of one to four degrees all the way down to zebruga today ships are equipped with global positioning systems that use satellites to fix the ship's location to within meters and an automatic identification system that then broadcasts the information to nearby vessels superimposing that information onto the english channel reveals how ships have to stick to lanes like traffic on a motorway but despite all the latest technology a captain must still be able to fall back on the charts like any prudent mariner you don't rely on electronics so we could take a bearing and distance from a point of land using the parallel rules here very simple tool very effective and it's used by lining up on the compass rows here and then you line up to whichever bearing required and then you can just simply move them across the chart to transfer a position like okay very simple very practical and sadly soon to disappear seem to disappear how come well the ships are modern uh ships are now moving towards electronic chart displays and that will be their main navigational source so these paper charts will disappear alastair's worked on ferries like the pride of york for 38 years and i'm keen to know if he has an emotional bond with these ships i think you do always develop a bond with the vessels you work on for any length of time it's not the ship the ship is just a vessel it's the people on it that really make a ship and you can have the best ship in the world with a rubbish crew and every day drags it's horrendous and you can have a really older ship with lots of challenges but with the right crew it's a pleasure to come to work fantastic what's the most challenging thing for you when you're capturing weather the weather whether where the weather is that something you you relish as a challenge i don't think i would ever say i relish the challenge of the weather because we are mere mortals and and i think you know from my experience the people that get caught out are the guys that relish the challenge the ferry has all the latest navigation technology to help while sensors located throughout the vessel give early warning signs of any engineering problems and hazards including flooding but it still needs the skills of its crew to sail this ship safely in all weathers across 200 miles of north sea with up to a thousand people on this is board a gorgeous way to end a journey it's an incredibly civilized way to get across to the continent isn't it yeah it really is very civilized our arrival in the belgium port of zebrugger gives us a chance to return to the ship salvage yard nearby to see what happens to a ship's carcass once it's been torn apart [Music] this is what ends up happening to ships at this scrapyard without any respect for the work they've done they're just getting munched up by this shearer and thrown up on the scrappy and this is what the salvage team are after steel mountains and mountains of steel three-quarters of a million tonnes of steel is salvaged at this recycling yard every year ready to be shipped up the river to the arcela metal steel plant where the next stage in its life cycle begins here containers the size of three-storey buildings carry molten metal through the giant production line it's just so impressive the size of the equipment and the temperatures involved five million tons of steel is produced here every year a quarter of which is made from scrap here we have just three days worth and it's all waiting to be recycled and turned into cars bridges and fridges the scrap steel is loaded into enormous containers the size of a bus and transported to the converter a vessel capable of producing 295 tons of steel at a time i mean that is a hellish noise to match kind of hellish vision in the way isn't it hot metal produced by melting iron ore in a blast furnace is then poured on top of the scrap metal the temperature inside the converter is now a scorching 1650 degrees celsius so as they call the hot metal in now it's just it's just an incredible firework display 220 tons of molten iron being poured over 80 tons of scrap steel i mean they should they should sell tickets for this steel is essentially iron with many of its impurities removed specifically the carbon which is weak and brittle to reduce the carbon the next stage is to add pure oxygen into the mix wow extremely bright flame there suggests that's the oxygen lamps being put inside they inject oxygen for about 15 minutes which helps take the carbon that's in the metal and turn it into carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide once that's extracted you're left with a more pure steel that we're looking for once the converter has been emptied the purified steel must go through a number of processors to cool it and mold it into usable sheets this is where they call the ingots of steel down using water presumably from the local river or canal in sheffield they use the local rivers and that caused the temperature in the river to rise by just enough to allow fig trees to grow on the riverbank of south yorkshire [Music] wow that is so impressive and this is a finished item a huge roll of steel what i must describe to you is how hot that thing is you can feel it from here it's searingly hot some of that once made up the ship that we saw floating on the ocean now it's been turned into this this next thing is going to be turned into your next car or washing machine it could even be used to build a ship in newcastle there are now just two days until the pride of bruges is due to head back into service works begun to cover the part of the ship's hull usually underwater in a special paint designed to prevent the buildup of marine life therefore improving the ship's fuel efficiency as paint quality inspector tim emerson explains once that growth attaches itself to the ship it slows the ship down it has a dragon effect on it yeah which obviously means that they've got to use more energy to drive the propellers to make the ship travel at the same speed which obviously is impacting on the on the fuel costs i find it hard to believe that a few barnacles is going to cause a problem of fuel efficiency yeah it can cause a huge problem the amount of fuel used to drive these vessels is huge typically you're looking at around 90 tons of fuel a day typically if there was no anti-foaling on there once you put the anti-fowling on you can reduce that down to between 40 50 tons a day if it was going in your pocket every day yeah yeah i mean i would like it as well yeah you know we wouldn't have to work again the antifouling paint is a technological marvel in its own right it's been cleverly designed to react to movement of the ship through the water by continually shedding microscopic particles of itself this means that marine life is unable to get a grip on the hull every last square meter of the ship above and below the water line has to be repainted and with the bruges already scheduled to carry passengers on the same day the overhaul is due to finish for the next 48 hours they have to work around the clock to get the work done [Music] [Music] it's the final day of the overhaul and the pride of bruges is almost ready to bid farewell to newcastle it's been well maintained and i think it's the dedication of the the ship staff and all departments that keep it in the condition it's in now over four tons of paint now cover and protect the ship's exterior after 25 years he's still in a very good niche so this is a major achievement and we'd like to keep her like this and try to maintain her as such the passenger levels have been refurbished yeah i'm proud that we accomplished what we did it looks a lot better now yeah everything what should be working as working which is very nice to know propellers have been polished and tested and the rudders have been serviced ready for inspection it's looking good isn't it it's looking spicky it looks very good yeah now the team have to get the ship back in the water engineers open the sluice gates to flood the dock refloating the ship is a risky operation especially in the critical moments when the ship lifts off the blocks as docking master alan webster explains it's a term that we call the point of criticality right that's where the ships are it's most dangerous from being on the blocks to becoming free-flowing how do you account for the fact that there's no passengers on it there's no cargo on it so it's it's a dangerously light point yeah that's why i have to re-ballast before she lifts off the blocks because if it didn't chances rather should be capsized really yeah okay so to prevent that you've got to put the ballast back into the ballast late in the evening the pride of bruges slowly lifts off its blocks and floats for the first time in three weeks once the level of the water inside the dock is at the same level as outside alan gives a signal to drop the gate his team have a narrow window of just over an hour to maneuver the ship into the river before the tide goes down and it's left grounded tugboat slowly tow the ferry from the dock and allen's work is done not so bad no it's all right yeah turned it nicely thanks to the work of the newcastle engineering team the pride of bruges should now be in service for another 10 years [Music] so you

Channel: Free Documentary

Views: 110,974

Rating: 4.8385196 out of 5

Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), engineering, engineering documentary, ferry, gigantic car ferry heavy maintenance, ferry engineering, ship engineering, ship overhaul, ferry overhaul, ferry documentary, ship documentary, ship parts, ship repair, ferry repair, Heavy Maintenance, ship maintenance, ship maintenance documentary, ship maintenance work

Id: Olm3brbJW5Y

Length: 59min 1sec (3541 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021