Simple card fix saves days of downtime

After a third party maintenance crew made a simple error, a vessel’s mission was stalled at the gate. A little remote troubleshooting had the problem solved and the vessel on its way within a few hours instead of a few days.

December 2012, Monday 21:00 (CET): North Sea off Norwegian coast

A vessel with a large MacGregor AHC crane had just embarked on a mission when problems charging the piston accumulator were detected. The MacGregor OnWatch team was contacted immediately as a fix was urgently needed to get the job on track.

22:00 The MacGregor OnWatch team downloaded log files and began analysing the problem. The crew was instructed to carry out certain tests.

23:00 The data trail led to the pumps where the measured pressures were inverted. The crew were instructed to swap the positions of two pump cards. Further investigation revealed that they had been mixed up during a third party service job.

1:00 The crane was operating correctly again and could start its mission, which was ultimately a success.

Without the proper support and satellite link, the owner would very likely have had to delay the mission and wait for a service engineer. That would have meant at least a two day delay with high associated costs, not to mention the loss of prestige since the problem was caused by incorrect maintenance.