Ferry Strip-Down Engineering Giants

'32,000 tonnes of steel.

'Seven decks, each the length of a football pitch.

'Four engines burning 2,500 litres 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 a ship

than we are here.

'Battered by the sea for 25 years,

'it's being taken out of 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.'

We're as far as any sensible person would 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 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 10,000 square metres of steel hull.'

-If this wasn't being done?

-The steel itself would just deteriorate.

'And we'll reveal what happens to these giants

'when they reach the end of their working lives.'

They're just getting 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.'

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 Wrigglesworth,

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.'

Pride of Bruges, we're coming to you now.

Karl, 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 most of the important parts of the ferry

'are under water.'

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 tonnes,

'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 manoeuvred

'into the dry dock facility at the A&P shipyard on the Tyne.'

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 Leckey

'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.

-OK.

-In accordance with its docking plan.

'The metre 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, would we have time to get out?

How quick a runner are you?

Pretty quick, but...

'Using water from the river next door, fed by gravity

'the dock is flooded with 133 million litres of water,

'equivalent to 53 Olympic-size swimming pools.'

Oh, wow.

Look at it come out.

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 cross wind.'

INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN OVER LOUD SPEAKER

This is quite a tense moment and it was the bit that they weren't sure

whether they were going to carry out tonight cos it was so windy.

Come back down on the starboard side.

'With the margin of error less than a metre,

'the ferry's attached by steel lines to winchers known as mules

'so that the ship can be precisely manoeuvred

'from a central control tower.'

Over, starboard. Out.

On the signal.

Just starting to drift back a little bit there now.

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.'

OK, a little bit towards Sean.

Any damage sustained to the ship on its way into the dock

could cost millions and set the whole schedule back days.

Sean, it's you, please.

OK, mate, it's on its go.

Alan, we're drifting back there now to starboard side,

we're about two metres to the port side.

'Finally, after two hours of manoeuvring,

'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 litres

'of water out of the dock.'

Each one pumps out 18,500 tonnes 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 a ship

than we are here.

And you can see the effect of the weight of this ship,

all 32,000 tonnes of steel, has had on these docking blocks.

It's very intimidating.

'With the Pride of Bruges now out of the water,

'for the first time in years,

'engineers including site manager John Leckey,

'can examine and begin to repair the most important part of the ship,

'its hull.'

So, John, now we're this close to the vessel,

it strikes me that 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 tonne, three tonne, four tonne.

When that displacement weight matches the weight of the ship

-it stops.

-Yes.

-Yeah, it floats.

-Sits there and floats, yeah.

'The shape of the ship's hull depends on the type of work

'it's designed to carry out.

'For speed, V-shaped hulls are best,

'enabling chips to cut through the water, minimising drag.

'For stability, a boxy, U-shaped, design like our ferry,

'is better, creating more cargo space and minimising rocking.

'But the shape of a ship's hull isn't enough on its own

'to ensure its stability and sea worthiness.

'A perfect level of buoyancy is also needed and, to make that happen,

'the ferry can pump up to 2,200 tonnes of sea water

'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 a classic ship shape.

-No. Ha-ha-ha.

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 boxes.'

Aye up, there's a man in there.

Is he a contractor or is he just dodging a fare?

'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'll clog up and the ship's got a problem.

So when the ship needs a drink, this is its mouth.

It is as it has to pull in cooling water all the time.

-Yeah, for the engine.

-And 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 round the engines

and there's lot 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 the tight access holes

'as they venture deeper into the ship's ballast tanks 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 life.

'Colin qualified as an engineer at the Ministry of Defence

'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.

-Part of the ballast tanks.

-Yeah, yeah.

-It's pretty pokey round here.

-Yup.

'The tanks are divided into a series of smaller pockets

'designed to prevent the volume of water,

'equivalent to an Olympic-size swimming pool

'from sloshing around the hull and making the ship unstable.'

So, Colin, now we're pretty much right down inside the forepeak now.

We're as far as any sensible person would go.

'Moving around inside these tanks is cramped and claustrophobic.'

As 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 machinery...

-That's where we are now.

-..and everything. Yes.

All the stuff up at height, the passengers going and the cars going

and all that stuff...

is cargo on the actual ship,

-even though it's a permanent part of it.

-Yeah.

This is the bit that has to do the work of getting from here

to there safely.

'And that safety depends on making sure that the hull sits

'at the correct level in the water.

'Too heavy a load

'and the ship could become dangerously low in the water

'and susceptible to swamping.

'So the simple horizontal line across the circle,

the Plimsoll Line, indicates the maximum load level.'

The other little marks there are indicators

for different particular conditions, which would be freshwater

-and saltwater or, you know.

-And is that because freshwater

and saltwater offer different buoyancies?

Different densities.

The saltwater is more buoyant, it's denser than freshwater.

And, similarly, cold water is more buoyant than warm water.

Cold water is more buoyant than warm water?

-I never I never knew that.

-That's correct. Yes.

'And the Bruges is designed to compensate for these variables

'by pumping water in or out of its ballast tanks.'

Oh, freedom.

'A part of this ship that I'm keen to get out of.'

I don't envy the guys that have to actually do their work down there.

Whooo.

Oh, that's hard work.

How's that, Colin? One of the perks of the jobs?

Wouldn't do without it. Love it! I wouldn't want everybody to know this

but it 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,

anything, internal combustion, anything that goes bang

and up and down and round and round and that's...

and the bigger the better.

'It's in the areas of the ship beneath the water line

'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 P&O's chief engineer, Hans Pronk.

'He was part of the team that took delivery of the Pride of Bruges

'25 years ago.'

-My roots are at sea, so seawater is in the veins.

-Yeah.

'Han's engineering team are about to run tests

'on a part of the ship that few passengers would even know exists.'

Hans, why is this little room so important to the passengers?

-Comfort. Comfort for the passengers.

-This controls comfort?

'The ferry is fitted with retractable fins,

'known as stabilisers which help limit the rocking motion at sea

'that can cause sea sickness.'

-So this is the actuator that pushes the stabiliser arms out?

-Yes.

So, and at the moment, in dry dock,

we get them out for repairs, cleaning, maintenance, whatever.

'During the tests, engineers will be checking

'that all the hydraulic systems are functioning correctly

'and that both stabilisers are perfectly synchronised

'to work together.'

These would 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 roll 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.'

Oh, it's high 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 bars.

-You wouldn't you wouldn't know you were at sea

if it wasn't rocking about all over the show, would you?

'Co-ordinating the maintenance of a machine this large

'is a massive task.

'The Newcastle engineering team are due to return the Pride of Bruges

'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 metres of steel,

'which is showing its age.'

Just try and keep a nice, even pattern.

'While at sea, the hull's steel surface

'has come under constant attack from marine life.'

I mean, if this wasn't being done...?

The steel itself would just deteriorate.

'Seawater is also corrosive and would have caused much greater harm

'were it not for these metal bars,

'currently being replaced by Ritchie Acheson.'

Ritchie, what is this piece?

-It's anode, sacrificial anode.

-Sacrificial anode?

-It protects the steel, basically.

-Yeah.

-Protects the steel.

-This is a new one, is it?

-This is the new one.

So these are put on the side? How many of them are on the ship?

On the ship, 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.

'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 we're replacing the steel is the wear and tear,

over the years, with the tracks that goes back and forth.

-The steel actually wears down?

-Oh, yeah, it wears down.

-Does it?

You've got to remember there's 18, 20 tonnes

travelling back and forth on trailers and stuff.

If it goes below a certain millimetre, it 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 trap machine which shoots

shot blast on to the surface to make it absolutely spotless.

Oh, it really does, doesn't it?

So that leaves the welders the clean surface to come along and...

-It's like filing it down before...

-Exactly.

'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 re-fit them to the new surface.'

-How big a piece are you adding on top?

-Six mil.

-Six mil more?

That should see it right for another ten years.

Oh, yeah, at least. Yeah, yeah.

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 metres of flooring needs to be re-laid

as part of the passenger deck's 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.

-'Come down on your line, down on your line.'

-OK.

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.

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 people, that's 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.

Sailing for two weeks on the ship and then 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 four-tonne anchors.

They need to examine their 329-metre 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.

It either hits something solid, which is undesirable...

-Unadvisable, yeah.

-..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.

-Yeah.

And there's a maximum wear allowed on them.

To accurately measure the wear on every single link,

all 329 metres of chain is released,

an operation rarely carried out on this ferry, except in emergencies.

You can see the rust flying off it

as the pressure of each link on those chains

goes through the teeth on the wheel.

It's just grinding it straight off.

Next, the team must carefully organise 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 lengths.

After they've loaded one length, 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, 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.

The anchor prevents the ship from drifting away

due to the currents or tide.

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, which is painted down.

-There's a back-up on everything.

-Yeah, of course.

That's there so it can't work its way out while nobody's looking.

And then you get your mightiest crewman.

With him, hit here, knock it out,

that pin goes through 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 the captain's last resort,

casting the ship adrift 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 Mears,

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.

How much would this weigh, roughly?

-27 tonnes.

-27 tonnes of engine?

-Yep.

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 suddenly...

-People on board,

residues of oil into the water, so...

Let alone the value of the ship, but you could destroy...

It would be a catastrophe.

That's it, it's down. Job done.

Engine safely out, the remaining hull is light enough

to be hauled up onto dry land to be cut up and recycled.

Effectively, we're just dragging it from the sea up here onto dry land.

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.

Stood 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,

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 principle'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? A couple of centimetres at max?

You just imagine how something as thin as this

can get ripped to shreds

if it came up 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-tonne hull,

ready to be recycled.

Our ship, the Pride of Bruges,

should be at least another ten years away

from this stage of its life cycle.

In Newcastle, the ferry's 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 or the aft of the ship,

the real business end, and down here is where the engines are

that power this beast of a vessel.

It's the heart of the beast. That's where all the action is. 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 can 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're able to see here and actually control

everything out in the engines, all the pumps, all the generators?

All the things will be displayed on a screen like this.

As you see, the controls over here are for pumps,

the controls for propellers, the controls for generators,

the control for main engine, clutching, declutching...

-The steering.

-Steering, everything.

Despite the noise and heat,

Hans 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?

Oh yeah, yeah. You definitely need a lot of ear protection.

At sea, all four engines will 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 drinks can.'

Now this piston here,

that's just been refurbished, has it, ready to be used again?

-Yes, you see it is all brand new.

-Yeah. I can see.

-But it's fit for use.

-How much would one of these cost new, roughly?

-About £7,000 for the top part. This has been split.

-Yeah?

Then you have the lower part, which is another £7,000, roughly.

-So around £14-15,000?

-Yes.

In addition to 30 pistons

costing £182,000, there are tens of thousands of valves, 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, Hans?

-Its 5,760 kilowatts.

The power output from an average car is what in kilowatts?

Ah...100 kilowatts, about.

-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 tonnes of diesel fuel.

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 in the refinery...

-It's what's left?

-This is kind of what's left.

-Looks like treacle.

So on a ship, it has to go through...

the fuel goes through three different stages

before it can be injected into the engine and burned.

The pipe-work you can see running through,

it's 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

they can start pumping through the fuel system.

So it gets thinned out by being kept warm?

Yeah, it gets thinned out.

But it's not ready to be burned yet cos actually, in this,

you've got all sorts of impurities, there's water in there as well

and they've a really clever system

for separating out the stuff 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,

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, denser stuff was thrown right out

and that's the sand, 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'll be the fuel oil on the ship,

which can then be tapped off and burned in the engines.

Very good.

At sea, 2,500 litres of this fuel

is burned 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 by these 130-metre long shafts.

This shaft 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 tonnes

would place too much weight in the stern of the ship,

making the ferry unstable.

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 metres in diameter

and weighing 14 tonnes each,

the two propellers on the Bruges can spin on 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...

-OK.

..and on the tips of the blades.

-OK.

-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's 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 shockwave

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 inspected at the moment?

It is. We will proceed with the polishing of the blades

-and the crack detection.

-So when you polish it,

what's the effect that will have?

-Efficiency.

-It'll improve the efficiency.

It will improve the efficiency of the blade

as regards the resistance within the water

-so therefore, it will reduce these fuel costs.

-OK.

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 cars, where the engine speed determines 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,

in 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 water's 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 while the shaft's still turning.

So this clever design makes the ship that much more manoeuvrable

with quicker response times

and is more fuel-efficient, making it much cheaper to run.

It's now only ten days before the Pride of Bruges

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 rudder's washers and bearings, known as bushes,

haven't worn down due to continual movement in the water.

You do get a wear factor on these

and sometimes you have to part the blade and the flap

-and renew these riding washers.

-What would be the situation

where you'd have to remove the whole rudder?

If we have a problem with the main trunk housing,

if the clearance is excessive,

then we have to lower the rudder, remove the rudder,

take the post out, then renew the bush.

So what's the danger of not spotting something like that

where you've got really high clearance?

If you have a high clearance, you could actually lose your rudder.

-At sea?

-Yeah. You'd lose the rudder.

-So these checks...

-They're very important. They're very important.

Housed directly above the four-tonne 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 centre. I want to find the bridge.

I've arranged to meet the most important man on the ship -

'its captain, Ari Kaniworf.'

Found the bridge.

-Ari.

-Good morning. Good morning, Tom, welcome.

-This is the bridge. I've found it.

-This the bridge, yes.

-It's hard to find.

-It's hidden behind closed doors...

-Seems to be.

-..for obvious reasons.

The main controls to manoeuvre 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 disposal.

Now these are just those little propellers...

-well, I say little, they're about six foot.

-Relatively little.

And I can move the bow basically sideways, yeah.

So you've got a rudder here.

Rudder, bow thrusters and both engines.

I thought you'd have a wheel. Thought there'd be a wooden wheel.

You want to see the wheel?

I think you'll be a little disappointed with our wheel.

-This is it.

-This has been modernised, hasn't it?

-This is it.

It isn't what I expected.

Well, the big steering wheels are getting smaller.

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 manoeuvrability is key.

Therefore, the vessel has been equipped with special rudders.

These are Becker rudders. They're a high manoeuvrability rudder.

You have a flap, as you can see, on the mechanism here. Becker flap.

What's the advantage of having this on the back of the rudder?

It increases the manoeuvrability 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 Becker flap to the rudder

is an ingenious yet simple way of getting extra manoeuvrability.

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 went "whoof"?

The ship will...list considerably.

-OK.

-Everything that's not secure will fall down.

Clearly, there's no way to see Ari manoeuvre 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 Zeebrugge crossing.

Between the two ships,

they ferry 400,000 holidaymakers and business travellers

between Britain and the Continent every year.

'On behalf of P&O Ferries, I would like to welcome you

'on board the Pride of York.

'This ship is now secure for sea and will leave the berth shortly.'

As dusk falls, we're offered a rare opportunity

to view the most challenging part of its journey from the bridge.

Alistair, why is it such mellow lighting in here?

All craft 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 and we wouldn't see those other ships.

-It's the same reason as in your car.

-Exactly the same.

If you have bright lights in your car,

you can't see what's outside the windows.

Captain Alistair McFadyen

shares the skipper role with his Dutch counterpart,

which means tonight, he's free to explain

how the crew manoeuvres the ferry through a narrow lock

on its departure from Hull.

All the navigation's going on at the other end of the bridge?

It is. Captain Rowley and the chief officer,

they're manoeuvring the vessel at the moment.

-So this is quite an intricate manoeuvre.

-It is.

We're trying to get this enormous ferry into that tiny little lock.

Into a pretty small gap, yes.

When we're in there, how much leeway have we?

You've got about 18 inches either side of the vessel as we move in.

It's a very tricky manoeuvre.

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

and nice and gently.

That is unbelievable!

From up here, I can't believe that's 18 inches,

it looks like it's about an inch.

HE LAUGHS

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 there not an argument economically

to have a smaller ship or a bigger lock, that you can be quicker

so 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.

-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 we'll be taking,

so we'll be on the starboard side of the channel.

We come all the way down to the sea reach.

Once we get to that point, we'll alter course

to a course of 124 degrees all the way down to Zeebrugge.

Today, ships are equipped with global positioning systems

that use satellites to fix the ship's location to within metres

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.

-Yeah, recognise those.

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 simply move them across the chart

-to transfer a position line.

-OK.

Very simple, very practical,

-and sadly, soon to disappear.

-Soon to disappear? How come?

Well, modern ships are now moving towards electronic chart displays

and that will be their main navigational source.

-So paper, pencil...

-So all these paper charts will disappear.

Alistair'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 his 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.

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 captaining a ship?

-Weather.

-Weather?

-Weather, weather.

Is that something 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 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 1,000 people on board.

This is such a gorgeous way to end a journey.

It's an incredibly civilised way

-to get across to the Continent, isn't it?

-Yeah, it really is.

Very civilised.

Our arrival in the Belgian port of Zeebrugge

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.

This is what ends up happening to ships at this scrap yard

without any respect for the work they've done.

They're just getting munched up by this shearer

and thrown up on the scrapheap.

And this is what the salvage team are after - steel.

Mountains and mountains of steel.

750,000 tonnes of steel is salvaged at this recycling yard every year,

ready to be shipped up the river to the ArcelorMittal 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.

5 million tonnes 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 tonnes of steel at a time.

METAL SCREECHES

I mean, that is a hellish noise to match.

Kind of hellish vision in a 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 1,650 degrees Celsius.

Wow.

So as they pour the hot metal in now,

it's just an incredible firework display.

220 tonnes of molten iron

being poured over 80 tonnes of scrap steel.

I mean, they should sell tickets for this.

Unbelievable.

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.

That extremely bright flame there

suggests that's the oxygen that's been 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 the more pure steel that we're looking for.

Once the converter has been emptied,

the purified steel must go through a number of processes to cool it

and mould it into usable sheets.

This is where they cool the ingots of steel down, using water

presumably from the local river or canal.

In Sheffield, they use the local river

and that causes the temperature in the river to rise by just enough

to allow fig trees to grow on the riverbanks of South Yorkshire.

Wow. That is so impressive.

And this is the 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. Its next thing,

it's 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.

Work's begun to cover the part of the ship's hull usually underwater

in a special paint designed to prevent the build-up 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 dragging 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 fuel costs.

I find it hard to believe

a few barnacles will cause a problem with 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 tonnes of fuel a day,

typically, if there was no anti-fouling on there.

Once you put the anti-fouling on,

you can reduce that down to between 40, 50 tonnes a day.

-If it was going in your pocket every day...

-Yeah, I'd lap that up.

Yeah, me too. I'd like it as well. We wouldn't have to work again.

The anti-fouling 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 metre 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.

It's the final day of the overhaul

and the Pride of Bruges is almost ready to bid farewell to Newcastle.

She's been well maintained

and I think it's the dedication of the ship's staff and all departments

that are keeping it in the condition it's in now.

Over four tonnes of paint now cover and protect the ship's exterior.

After 25 years, she's still in very good nick

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 have accomplished what we did.

It looks a lot better now.

Everything what should be working is working, which is 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 spick and span.

-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.

Re-floating 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.

That's where the ship's at its most dangerous,

from being on the blocks to becoming free floating.

How do you account for the fact

there's no passengers on it, there's no cargo on it,

-so it's at a dangerously light point?

-Yeah.

That's why we have to re-ballast before she lifts off the blocks.

-If we didn't, the chances are the ship would capsize.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-OK, so to prevent that...

-You have to put the ballast back in.

-Put the ballast back.

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 the signal to drop the gate.

'Are the gates on the bottom? Can the tugs come in?'

His team have a narrow window of just over an hour

to manoeuvre the ship into the river before the tide goes down

and it's left grounded.

Tugboats slowly tow the ferry from the dock

and Alan's work is done.

Not too bad. No, it was all right, yeah. Timed it nicely.

Thanks to the work of the Newcastle engineering team,

the Pride of Bruges should now be in service for another ten years.

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