Tanker Inspection: Fill & Download for Free

First off, I expect these brave men to get destroyed no matter how much of a fight they put up.Now, to answer this beast!With the Bundeswehr approaching fast with some of the best tanks man can offer, I need to think tactically. A Leopard 2A7 is no joke my friends, so we’re going to need some firepower. Thus I introduce to you the warrior of the east, the KV-2!(Soviet tankers inspecting their vehicle)This bad boy has a 152mm M-10 Howitzer capable of destroying concrete fortifications. The Leopards may make it to see another day, but not after I do some damage! I’ll order my tanks to fire on a single tank at a time to maximize damage among the approaching German forces. Hopefully, this will buy time for my personnel to evacuate the base and call for support from friendly forces.They’ll use their HE shells against the German combatants to hopefully disable the mobility and firepower capability of the Leopards, two of it’s most dangerous assets. With at least 2 of the leopards destroyed before an ammo rack explosion from a sabot round destroys my force, I’ll call it a tactical victory for forces lost. With my actual up-to -date force in the rear with supporting infantry close behind, we’ll finish off the remaining leopards after the KV-2s all explode or get destroyed.Thanks for reading!Sources:Kliment Voroshilov tank - WikipediaLeopard 2 - Wikipedia

Short story about tankers. I had been sent to Corpus Christi, TX to inspect a tanker for suspected hull damage in the No. 3 cargo hold/tank. This was a small product tanker hauling naptha and the company advised me the hold had been cleared and cleaned and was ready for inspection. Even after cleaning, the holds smell, so I wasn’t too concerned as I began my descent. About a quarter of the way down the ladder I heard what sounded like someone walking across the deck and I chanced a look up. Fumes were distorting the air around the hatch. It took me no time at all to get up to the hatch and out on deck.My company had their information wrong. The tank had not been cleared. It hadn’t even been completely evacuated. One small spark from any source would have resulted in an explosion that would likely have ruptured the coffer dams at both ends of the hold and a monumental fire would have been the result. Tankers carrying crude oil are nowhere near as dangerous as product tankers when it comes to fires and explosions, but even they follow procedures such as grounding anything that will be inserted into a hold. When we must enter a hold for any reason, we wear clothing that does not build up static, carry no unprotected metal that might create a spark, and, at the minimum, we have a gas mask with us in the off chance a tank has not been cleared completely. Product tankers frequently carry a variety of petroleum products and most of them are volatile.

I guess this question is aimed at tankers, as cargo ships have holds, not tanks.A tanker (my experience is with VLCC) that has been carrying crude oil and needs to inspect one or more of her cargo tanks would naturally empty them first at the discharge port. As the cargo is being discharged, “COW-ing” is carried out (COW=Crude Oil Washing) where a portion of the discharge stream is diverted to the ship’s fixed tank cleaning guns. The resultant high velocity streams of crude wash the sludge off the tank sides. Another line draws this mixture off the bottom of the tank and it is discharged with the cargo stream. Once that’s done, the tank is full of a mixture of crude vapour and inert gas (from the ship’s inert gas system), plus not very much oil left on the bottom.Once the discharge is over the ship sails back to the loading port. The dregs of oil in the tank are now stripped out using the stripping system. After this the tanks are now washed again, but this time with a water wash. One of the cargo pumps is used to draw from the “Clean Slop Tank” and discharge to the tank cleaning guns down the same line as the COW was performed. This washes the tank walls and bottom with clean water. The cargo eductors then draw off this mixture and discharge it to the “Dirty Slop Tank”, where the oil/water mix is allowed to settle out. A slops “decanting line” is then used to take the settled clean water overboard via an OCM (oil content monitor) set at 15ppm/nautical mile.I did a calculation on one FPSO project I was on, where it turned out that there was surprisingly little oil carried over to the dirty slop tank - about 80m³ from cleaning all the ship’s tanks, which was only a few cm in the top of the tank, so the cargo stripping system had done its job well. This oil is skimmed off via a skimmer and returned to one of the other cargo tanks.The tank in question is now clean (relatively), full of inert gas, and the process of aeration to dispel this inert gas commences. The atmosphere in the tank is checked for both hydrocarbons and oxygen content, and when the former is below a certain level (which I have forgotten) and the latter around 19% (20.9% is the oxygen content in air) the tank is opened up for inspection, though there are still safety checks and Breathing Apparatus is used for initial tank entry. Large aeration fans are used to thoroughly ventilate the tank before allowing anyone in without BA. Any build up of sludge in corners are treated with caution in case they give off VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) and can be washed off with hand washing guns if necessary (usually only if hot work is to be carried out). The tank inspection team then carries out the inspection.It’s obviously a task that requires some planning and execution, but things do sometimes go wrong -