Meet the Marine Engineer Who Trusts Isolate
Kelsey Barrion - My Audio World
Could you tell us a bit about yourself and what a typical day looks like working on ships, especially in loud environments like the engine room?
I’m an engineer, which means I work down in the engine room and machinery spaces most of my day. I’ve worked a lot of different ships – container ships, oil tankers, military vessels and even a cruise ship – but most days have the same general structure. The engineers meet for a few minutes in the morning and establish what everyone’s working on for the day, ensure there are no conflicts, and then head out to survey our jobs, gather tools and supplies, and align the systems so that we can shut down and work on a specific piece of equipment safely. Most of the work is done while the ship is moving, so even though I have a generator or pump shut down for maintenance, I’m often working right next to a running piece of equipment.
Marine engineers are a little bit jack-of-all-trades in order to keep the ships we work on running. We’re trained in welding, pipefitting, machinist skills, electrical circuits and controls, firefighting, and equipment repair, and duties often include everything from overhauling diesel generators to servicing purifiers that take out the water and sediment from our fuel and lubricating oils. There are usually only four or five licensed engineers on a given ship, even when it’s a thousand feet long, and another three to five unlicensed assistants who take care of some of the more basic tasks like cleaning and very routine maintenance.
How would you describe the noise you’re exposed to during a normal workday, and when does it feel most intense?
The noise is constant when the ship is moving, though some pieces of equipment are much louder than others – piston-type air and refrigeration compressors are also incredibly noisy. Turbochargers on diesel engines, especially medium-speed ones operating between 500-1500 rpm, make a consistent whine that’s occasionally over 110 dB, and gas turbines can also be quite loud. We aren’t supposed to be near them without double hearing protection, adding over-the-ear muffs to in-ear plugs, unless they’ve had a silencer containment installed. For the most part, the noise is actually comforting – some of the scariest moments of my career have been when all of the noise suddenly ceased!
The loudest single noise I’ve been subjected to was the air start on a particular brand of diesel engine that powered generators on one ship – pushing the start button made a deafening wall of sound move through you. One of the other ‘feel it’ noises that is unique to ships is being on the bow when the deck department drops anchor. Ten tons of anchor ripping down the hawsepipe followed by a dozen shots of bouncing chain whose every link weighs over a hundred pounds reverberates through the rest of the steel of the hull and drowns out even your inner thoughts.
What challenges come with working long shifts in loud environments, and how do they affect you over the course of the day?
Communication is the toughest. Most ships are powered by large diesel engines, so there’s a lot of noise and vibration all throughout the engine room. We have to wear hearing protection to leave the control room for any reason. We typically work solo, but on big projects we’ll have a few of us working together. I once had someone pantomime being a cat at me to indicate he was going to a specific generator in a different space.
A lot of ships still don’t allow listening to music while working because it interferes with your ability to hear something going wrong – the expectation is that you’ll hear an “off” sound and take action before it gets really expensive. We typically work at least eight and up to twelve hours a day, seven days a week when on board, so it’s a lot of time to repeat that snippet of song that got stuck in your head, and many of us talk to the machinery and/or ourselves.
ISOLATE®
How have Isolate earplugs helped you work more comfortably and confidently in tight, noisy spaces?
I got my first pair of Isolates over a decade ago, after outgrowing a pair of custom-molded earplugs provided by a previous employer. I didn’t want to have to spend hundreds of dollars and get fitted again, but going back to disposable foamies wasn’t a realistic option – my ear canals are small so they inevitably cause headaches from the pressure they exert. I liked how small the Isolates were; they don’t prevent me from putting my head into tight spaces when I need to see something, and when I have to wear muffs they sit underneath easily.
I made myself a tether to connect the pair that I tie into the bandanna I put around my long hair, so when I get back to the control room and want to have a conversation, I can just stash them in the folds and know they’ll stay put.
What advice would you give to someone working long shifts in a loud environment?
Find hearing protection that works for you and use it even when you might not feel like you need it. The exposure can add up, and it’s not a coincidence that a lot of older engineers have documented hearing loss. I had to argue with some of my supervisors about the Isolates because they seem small, but when I could show that the noise reduction rating was as good or better than what they were providing, I was allowed to wear them.
Sound is one of your best friends in industrial environments. It can tell you something is happening even before you can see it. Be curious about the sources of the sounds that make up your environment!
Quick Fire Round
Sound Affects
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A slow-speed diesel engine start. It’s a bit like listening to an old steam locomotive engine get going – they’re so big and so heavy that you hear the air hit the first piston, then another, and then it starts combustion and the next few cylinders pick up speed. For those of us whose job it is to keep the ship moving, it’s a sign of success, and as a bonus it usually means you’re leaving the dock to head to sea.
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I’ve woken up to the sound of things winding down to silence once or twice, and that’s always groan-inducing, but it’s usually recoverable (with a lot of work). Loud sudden bangs are more terrifying, but if you’ve survived that far you’re probably going to eventually get through that one too. My least favourite shipboard sound is the sirens we have in the carbon dioxide firefighting system. Except for testing, they are only powered by CO2, which means that if you hear one outside of an annual test, it means the engine room is actively being filled with a gas displacing oxygen and you have only a couple dozen seconds to get out – no matter how many levels of stairs down you are. It’s a very unique sound that gives most of us the chills.
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One of the return lines had a valve with a particularly loose disk that would chatter lopsidedly while the plant was running and I could hear it every time I walked to the port side of the boilers. I don’t know how, but it almost always managed to fit the clap pattern of Imagine Dragons’ On Top of the World. Every time I walked past it, I’d involuntarily start singing the song, and even though that ship has long since been scrapped, I still see that pipe segment every time I hear On Top of the World!
Products Mentioned
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