tug Seaway Guardian

[guest]

the photo of the seaway guardian i believe was taken in hamilton, ontario on heddle marines floating drydock.

[Mr Link]

Since my initial post, I did find this photo online of the tug on land. Taken by Nathan Jarvis on Sept 5, 2019. It does show anodes in numerous places on the outside of the cort nozzles, as well as on the hull. So there likely was a concern about one being "ingested" into the prop.

But I'm still curious how the vessel's monitoring systems know when an anode is loose and when one might possibly damage the prop and engine?

[Mr Link]

In an article in Professional Mariner's "American Tugboat Review 2023" it mentions that the Seaway Guardian, which was delivered in 2020 was taken out of service late last year because "a zinc anode loosened, causing an automatic port side engine shutdown".

I'm curious how the vessel monitors the status of zinc anodes. And why would a loose anode trigger an automatic engine shutdown? Unless the anode might strike the prop or wedge between the prop and any nozzle, it seems like an automatic engine shutdown is an overreaction to a loose anode on the hull.

The article also mentions that the tug was drydocked to investigate out of an abundance of caution. One would think a diver normally could repair a loose anode.

Does anyone have a better understanding of what happened, or what could have potentially happened?