It is another story about the Chinese Spring Festival—the most important holiday in the hearts of the Chinese people.

As you know, the Chinese Spring Festival starts on 16th February 2026. It is the top priority among all Chinese festivals. There is an old saying: "Whether you are rich or poor, you must go home for the New Year." To be honest, as the festival approaches, most people start planning their holidays: returning to their villages to visit parents and relatives; enjoying a long vacation with family; relaxing at home with delicious food and movies; or heading out to the cinema or other fun activities amidst the crowds.

As ship repair technicians working away from home, we are also planning to return home to celebrate the Spring Festival with our families.

On 8th February 2026, we received an urgent order from our esteemed and long-term cooperation customer for the renewal of bilge well and water ingress system sensors (16 units or more). The job had to be completed within 7 days to avoid ship delay. We had no reason to refuse this order given their long-term support and trust. Even though we couldn't go home for the Spring Festival, we knew this sacrifice was worthwhile.

From our side, we made a detailed plan, fully considering the work scope, manpower, project execution environment, and technical support from the ship side, including relevant instruction manuals and the shipyard’s arrangements. Our team held a short meeting before commencing the work and formulated our joint principle: to fully utilize all permitted working time with all our hearts and souls, while maintaining good communication for quick troubleshooting and on-site sensor testing. Finally, we must do our utmost to fulfill the job on time and return home as early as possible.

We treat completing a customer’s order as a war. We must win this war to earn the privilege of going home and celebrating the Spring Festival. So, the time has come to fight and win.

In the following days, we ran our schedule with high autonomy and made full use of the allowed working hours:

1. Rising early with the stars, we left the ship after moonrise and the stars twinkled. We worked as long as possible to achieve high efficiency.
   
   
2. Arranging two teams for effective project execution: One person monitored the bilge well control monitor and water ingress system alarm panel in the ship's office, communicating with the other team via VHF. The other three (one electrical engineer and two hydraulic technicians) worked near each sensor location (inside the bilge well and each ballast tank) to complete the sensor testing and renewal procedure in one go. Based on alarm status notified by the office staff via VHF, the three would test the current old sensors to decide on renewal. Meanwhile, the two hydraulic technicians would assist in cutting rusted fixing bolts to remove the old sensors and install the new ones before the electrical engineer connected the cables, ensuring correct alarm indication in the ship's office, bridge, and engine control room.
   
   
3. Some working areas were soaked in residual bilge water and frozen solid. We asked the shipyard to arrange pumping out in advance. We also prepared thick winter rain boots and long, thin wooden boards to stand on for long periods, ensuring the renewal work could proceed without any delay. Headlamps on helmets ensured full battery recharge for working daily in such dark environments, as poor ventilation was also taken into account.
   
   
4. During testing, we found the No.1 ingress system sensor had a broken cable—we informed the ship side immediately. Meanwhile, the No.2 and No.3 ingress alarms showed pre-alarm faults, requiring a change of galvanic isolation barriers (2 units needed). For the bilge well sensors, 4 new supplied sensors were found to be the wrong size and needed to be exchanged with the supplier.
   
   
5. Finally, the spare parts mentioned in point 4 were delivered on board, and a full replacement was completed.
   
   
6. In total, it took about 6 days to complete all sensor replacements as requested by the customer, with their full satisfaction.
   
   

In this life, we never live merely for ourselves. We have families who love us, friends, and clients who trust us. What we need to do is actually quite simple: to live up to the trust of our friends and clients, and never miss the waiting and expectations of our families. That is what we regard as a successful life.

Truth be told, no one plays only one role in life — just as a skilled technician is proficient in more than one type of equipment or system.