Anyone Interested in Ships

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

The fuel pumps were one of those things that appeared intimidating in drawings, not helped by college lecturers and Sulzer's own video but they were an extremely clever design and very reliable.

Was the design similar to those on railway locomotive engines? Those are a very clever design too, with the spiral grooves and everything.

[The Stationmaster]

8 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Was the design similar to those on railway locomotive engines? Those are a very clever design too, with the spiral grooves and everything.

The Sulzer LD/LDA range of engines were specifically designed for rail.  Internally and technically the situation could have been more in line with their establihed practice for engines used in other applications

[St Enodoc]

1 minute ago, The Stationmaster said:

The Sulzer LD/LDA range of engines were specifically designed for rail.  Internally and technically the situation could have been more in line with their establihed practice for engines used in other applications

Understood Mike. I just wondered whether the fuel pump design was similar, apart from scale.

[jjb1970]

The standard type of fuel pump was a simple jerk pump with a groove and cut out to control fuel quantity sent to the injector by rotating the plunger. It was very simple and robust but it wasn't easy to adjust timing. Sulzer used a very simple plunger with no groove or cut out. Instead they had a separate inlet and outlet valve to control fuel delivery linked to the plunger with mechanical linkages. The big advantage was that as well as easy control of fuel quantity it was also easy to adjust injection timing. It allowed much more control and some of the advantages of electronic injection using purely mechanical technology.

[MarkC]

4 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

I always liked Sulzer engines, apart from the scavenge spaces of RND engines. Whoever had the idea of the scavenge access doors opening downwards with access from below had a great sense of humour. The RTA was an excellent engine. The fuel pumps were one of those things that appeared intimidating in drawings, not helped by college lecturers and Sulzer's own video but they were an extremely clever design and very reliable.  Once you had set a couple up it was pretty straightforward.

The slow speed engines I hated were MAN, not the modern ones which evolved from B&W but the true MAN slow speeds from Augsburg.  P&OCL had a lot of MAN KSZ engines and with the exception of the cross head design they were utter carp, Hitler's revenge.

I always found it interesting how different engines from different licensees were. MSE MAN-B&W engines always seemed a cut above others. Even in LR it was a pleasure to work with the MSE and DU (the big Sulzer license builder in Japan) people.

Totally agree with this - yes, opening RND scavenges was always amusing - unless you were the poor sod underneath! As for the RTAs - yes, for a first uniflow scavenge attempt they were pretty much spot on from the start.

 

I still have nightmares about the 2x 8 cylinder KSZs on the Table Bay - the cylinder head design was horrible. Sharp corners on mountings, leading to cracking due to stress concentrations - did they learn nothing from the Comet? We used to ask...  I subsequently sailed on 2 reefer ships with the previous MAN - the KZ. There it was scavenges that were the real disaster. Not only did you have to access the scavenges from below, so there was plenty of scope for getting covered in $h1t there - but the scavenge valves were circular plate type beasts - very prone to clogging up and the devil's own work to get out, clean and replace. I was glad I was the Frosty for one trip, and genny 3rd on the other. The poor old 4th was the scavenge valve man...

 

Funnily, I always thought that some of the MWM engines were Hitler's revenge (ah, Godwin...). The Medium speed Main Engine jobs on my first 2 ships in Gibsons were bad enough - they had water jackets as well as conventional cylinder liners, and were apparently sometimes used as U-Boat engines - so few, if any, ran long enough for major overhauls... and on the same ships, V12 1800rpm auxiliaries - reputedly sometimes used in tanks...

 

*goes off to lie down in dark room, having flashbacks...*

 

Mark

[MarkC]

3 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

The standard type of fuel pump was a simple jerk pump with a groove and cut out to control fuel quantity sent to the injector by rotating the plunger. It was very simple and robust but it wasn't easy to adjust timing.

AKA the Bosch type Fuel Pump. Still in use on a lot of applications today. Individual cylinder fine timing adjustment done by adding/removing shims to raise/lower the plunger in relation to the barrel. As you say, the Sulzer pump is easier to adjust, once you get your head round how it works.

 

Mark

 

[MarkC]

4 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Sorry to hear of further delay Mark but fingers remain crossed for something for you and your shipmates.  I read that one US cruise company is sending one of its ships across the Pacific from the US to drop off crew members at their various home countries as it goes.  Quite how reliefs would be arranged for the seafarers and engineers was not spelt out but clearly the 'hotel' crew are relatively easy to deal with and generally won't need reliefs - provided their home country accepts them.

Thanks, Mike. Yes, there's another of those cruise jobbies going eastbound too, I believe. Lots of Eastern European hotel staff to repatriate.

 

Have just had message from office - our charterer is 100% on board with trying to assist as much as possible too, but even they are limited with how much influence they can bring to bear on 'authority'. Still, every little helps, as the old lady said when she pee'd in the sea...

 

Mark

[Kris]

On 09/05/2020 at 19:15, The Stationmaster said:

There are 4 possibly 5 off Weymouth (Arcadia's IAS report is 14 hours old for some reason); four in Sandown IoW anchorage. three alongside in Southampton plus one in the Solent heading for ??; five alongside at Tilbury; and  three or four anchored in the Firth of Forth (one AIS signal is about 6 hours old) plus 2 crossChannel ferries alongside in Leith docks;   But in terms of numbers as nothing compared with what's in the general vicinity of the Bahama. An awful lot of tonnage lying idle but as yet none to have been sent towards the Fal.

 

Still no cruise ships in the Fal. Lots of tankers just of shore (10 I think) and these 2 car carriers hiding away. 

 

[JeremyC]

41 minutes ago, MarkC said:

AKA the Bosch type Fuel Pump. Still in use on a lot of applications today. Individual cylinder fine timing adjustment done by adding/removing shims to raise/lower the plunger in relation to the barrel. As you say, the Sulzer pump is easier to adjust, once you get your head round how it works.

 

Mark

 

My one memory of Sulzer fuel pumps is of setting them up as per the book and later in the same trip being shown by a Sulzer engineer a totally different method of doing it that took about half the time! (Unfortunately that was over 35 years ago and I haven't worked on Sulzers since 1985 so I can't remember how he did it.)

Edited May 25, 2020 by JeremyC

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Would anybody know what the last serving “deep sea” break bulk cargo vessel was? I always thought it was one of the  Hamburg Süd Swans of the South Atlantic. It might also be the MV George Buchner, pictured below.

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by Florence Locomotive Works

[New Haven Neil]

RND scavenge doors - yup, it was my job.....euuw.  Those reed valves were lethally sharp too.

 

Interesting comment about the quality of different licencees making engines, I thought the RND90 built by Mitsubishi was a finer device than the French Chantiers Dunqerque versions I  sailed on, and the Barclay Curle one was rough. In several ways!

 

Those Crepelles were 8 cylinder jobs of about 1,800Kw or so, can't really recall but with three sets of reliquifaction plant to run they were big alternators.  They were OK when new....for a year.  The reliq plants were Sulzer so never went wrong.  

[Bon Accord]

15 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Would anybody know what the last serving “deep sea” break bulk cargo vessel was? I always thought it was one of the  Hamburg Süd Swans of the South Atlantic. It might also be the MV George Buchner, pictured below.

 

 

That ship became a static training vessel as long ago as 1977 and there were still plenty of that type in trade after she finished and I'd imagine there are still a few stragglers about even now in the Indian Ocean and Far East.

In terms of the more traditional designs certainly as late as 2010 during a trip out to the Gulf I saw no less than three SD14s still at work, which was the last time I saw any of that once widespread class.

As for those last break bulk ships in a liner trade as opposed to tramping or otherwise then I suspect the accolade of "the last" probably falls to the four Bank Line ships which were engaged on a westbound round-the-world service until the global financial crisis saw that service discontinued and the ships scrapped in 2009. Those ships had 5 hatches, tween decks and deep tanks, carried just about everything imaginable (including 12 passengers) and were certainly one of the last of their type. Boularibank was the last of that class to go to the breakers.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Bon Accord

[Florence Locomotive Works]

5 hours ago, Bon Accord said:

 

That ship became a static training vessel as long ago as 1977 and there were still plenty of that type in trade after she finished and I'd imagine there are still a few stragglers about even now in the Indian Ocean and Far East.

In terms of the more traditional designs certainly as late as 2010 during a trip out to the Gulf I saw no less than three SD14s still at work, which was the last time I saw any of that once widespread class.

As for those last break bulk ships in a liner trade as opposed to tramping or otherwise then I suspect the accolade of "the last" probably falls to the four Bank Line ships which were engaged on a westbound round-the-world service until the global financial crisis saw that service discontinued and the ships scrapped in 2009. Those ships had 5 hatches, tween decks and deep tanks, carried just about everything imaginable (including 12 passengers) and were certainly one of the last of their type. Boularibank was the last of that class to go to the breakers.

Thanks for that, it was very interesting. I think the last break bulk steamer was a ex us navy Liberty Ship operating out of Hong Kong/Macau until the late 90s. There are pictures on the internet somewhere but I can’t find them. 
 

Edit I found a photo of it in 1973, in Shanghai, under the name Gang Lei.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Florence Locomotive Works

[MarkC]

21 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

RND scavenge doors - yup, it was my job.....euuw.  Those reed valves were lethally sharp too.

 

Interesting comment about the quality of different licencees making engines, I thought the RND90 built by Mitsubishi was a finer device than the French Chantiers Dunqerque versions I  sailed on, and the Barclay Curle one was rough. In several ways!

 

Those Crepelles were 8 cylinder jobs of about 1,800Kw or so, can't really recall but with three sets of reliquifaction plant to run they were big alternators.  They were OK when new....for a year.  The reliq plants were Sulzer so never went wrong.  

Some of the NEM built Sulzers were pretty grim, especially in the declining days of the works. Mind you, the Sulzer 4RTA58 as installed on "Teviot", built by Cegeilski, was, I'm sure, cast in very porous metal. The engine design was excellent, per an earlier posting of mine, but it oozed oil, and not from the joints...

 

The Crepelle gensets I sailed with on "Eildon" were 4 cylinder things - 150kW/cylinder. The cargo compressors were horizontally opposed 4 cylinder beasts - horrible to work on, and hellish expensive for spares...

 

Mind you, the worst cargo compressors I've had the misfortune to encounter were Linde. Very prone to having the pistons come adrift and escaping through the cylinder covers. Even taking the heads off every 250 running hours and checking the security of the piston crown nut didn't always work...

 

As for Sulzer cargo compressors - yes, they are the dogs' danglies...

 

Mark

[MarkC]

On 25/05/2020 at 16:04, JeremyC said:

My one memory of Sulzer fuel pumps is of setting them up as per the book and later in the same trip being shown by a Sulzer engineer a totally different method of doing it that took about half the time! (Unfortunately that was over 35 years ago and I haven't worked on Sulzers since 1985 so I can't remember how he did it.)

There was a Sulzer Engineer based on Tyneside who was our point of contact - to my shame I can't now remember his name - but he knew the engines - and the control systems - very well indeed. He taught me how to do them too - being a very young Chief, back in the early 90s, I was doing my utmost to soak up gen from him and his ilk, because I could see that 'old school' experience and knowledge was being lost - rapidly

 

Mark

[Bon Accord]

2 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Thanks for that, it was very interesting. I think the last break bulk steamer was a ex us navy Liberty Ship operating out of Hong Kong/Macau until the late 90s. There are pictures on the internet somewhere but I can’t find them. 
 

Edit I found a photo of it in 1973, in Shanghai, under the name Gang Lei.

 

I did a search online about that Liberty and found a larger picture of the one you attached and it presents  very curious picture. Her lifeboats are gone and she has additional supports on the port side of all three kingposts. On the starboard side of each are a single extra long derrick which would be just about the right length for the tall booms used during wartime to hang the torpedo nets overside, these were stowed upright and when lowered and in use projected perpendicularly from the ship. I therefore wonder if she'd been in Eastern hands since after the war. All the same, the other details suggest she was either in a very specialised trade or was being used as store or perhaps was some kind of transhipment vessel when that photograph was taken. She was certainly a real survivor by that point as all the other civilian working Liberty's had gone by the late 60s.

The Chinese of course operated many somewhat ancient ships whose existence only came to light on the rarefied occasion a tourist took a snap in places like Shanghai or when they ventured to HK. For example the Chinese operated the ex Cathay and Chitral of P&O (both steamers) until about 1996 and also the former Centaur of Blue Funnel lasted as late as 2006.

Steam powered general cargo ships were still in use by the US Navy into the mid 2000s, some in active service with the Military Sealift Command but a swathe of others were dragged out of mothballs and manned/operated by civilian companies to provide additional tonnage during the build up and aftermath of the the Iraq war. Most of the ships concerned dated from the late 50s and 1960s and indeed many of them are still in the US ready reserve fleet in various states of preservation and dereliction.

[Florence Locomotive Works]

4 minutes ago, Bon Accord said:

 

I did a search online about that Liberty and found a larger picture of the one you attached and it presents  very curious picture. Her lifeboats are gone and she has additional supports on the port side of all three kingposts. On the starboard side of each are a single extra long derrick which would be just about the right length for the tall booms used during wartime to hang the torpedo nets overside, these were stowed upright and when lowered and in use projected perpendicularly from the ship. I therefore wonder if she'd been in Eastern hands since after the war. All the same, the other details suggest she was either in a very specialised trade or was being used as store or perhaps was some kind of transhipment vessel when that photograph was taken. She was certainly a real survivor by that point as all the other civilian working Liberty's had gone by the late 60s.

The Chinese of course operated many somewhat ancient ships whose existence only came to light on the rarefied occasion a tourist took a snap in places like Shanghai or when they ventured to HK. For example the Chinese operated the ex Cathay and Chitral of P&O (both steamers) until about 1996 and also the former Centaur of Blue Funnel lasted as late as 2006.

Steam powered general cargo ships were still in use by the US Navy into the mid 2000s, some in active service with the Military Sealift Command but a swathe of others were dragged out of mothballs and manned/operated by civilian companies to provide additional tonnage during the build up and aftermath of the the Iraq war. Most of the ships concerned dated from the late 50s and 1960s and indeed many of them are still in the US ready reserve fleet in various states of preservation and dereliction.

That’s quite an unusual Liberty then. I was very surprised when I heard that centaur was still around in 2006, my grandfather remembered seeing it in Liverpool. It’s also possible that the Mv Glenogle of Glen Line still exists in the Far East, it only came off Lloyds List in 2002 and there is no record of its scrapping or wrecking. On the website with the photo of the liberty there was also a small Scandinavian built steamer, which operated until 1996, and was in quite a state at the end of its life.

MV Glenogle

The small steamer, Zhan Dou

[Florence Locomotive Works]

I wonder if it also could have been possible if she was an attempt to convert a Liberty into one of those attack transports that a lot of Victories where converted to?

[Bon Accord]

2 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

That’s quite an unusual Liberty then. I was very surprised when I heard that centaur was still around in 2006, my grandfather remembered seeing it in Liverpool. It’s also possible that the Mv Glenogle of Glen Line still exists in the Far East, it only came off Lloyds List in 2002 and there is no record of its scrapping or wrecking. On the website with the photo of the liberty there was also a small Scandinavian built steamer, which operated until 1996, and was in quite a state at the end of its life.

MV Glenogle

The small steamer, Zhan Dou

 

 

There was an attempt to locate either Glenogle or Glenfalloch in the early years of this century with the eventual aim of preservation in the UK, however it came to nothing. I did ask a fellow who worked for COSCO (their final owners) some years ago about those ships and he confirmed they'd gone to scrap circa 2000.

There were rumours of an older Bluey (probably an A class) languishing as a hulk up a river in China about 10 years ago, however that was never proven.

[Hroth]

My paternal grandfather "crossed the line" on the Blue Funnel steamship Menelaus in 1913.

 

 

I've just found his "certificate" attesting to this!

[New Haven Neil]

Mark, I was just thinking about those gas compressors, and something was bugging me!  The cargo gas ones were Sulzers, huge crosshead jobs, 400hp motors, but the four-bank R22 (showing my age...) jobs weren't Sulzers, but a name wouldn't come to mind.  It popped into my thoughts mid-shower this evening - Sabroe!  Faultless.

[MarkC]

1 hour ago, New Haven Neil said:

Mark, I was just thinking about those gas compressors, and something was bugging me!  The cargo gas ones were Sulzers, huge crosshead jobs, 400hp motors, but the four-bank R22 (showing my age...) jobs weren't Sulzers, but a name wouldn't come to mind.  It popped into my thoughts mid-shower this evening - Sabroe!  Faultless.

Sabroes for the R22 - good machines, as were Halls. However, Mycoms are much less bother - as the saying goes - you can't beat a good screw! (compressor, that is...)

 

Mark

[Florence Locomotive Works]

3 hours ago, Bon Accord said:

 

There was an attempt to locate either Glenogle or Glenfalloch in the early years of this century with the eventual aim of preservation in the UK, however it came to nothing. I did ask a fellow who worked for COSCO (their final owners) some years ago about those ships and he confirmed they'd gone to scrap circa 2000.

There were rumours of an older Bluey (probably an A class) languishing as a hulk up a river in China about 10 years ago, however that was never proven.

Shame to here about that, those types where the last of a great era, at least we have the the MS Cap San Diego to give people a vague representation of what they looked like.

 

Edit: Hopefully someone will get the nerve to possibly make a new build Fort Class or sometime for the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic, not exactly impossible with the way the new build steam scene is going, and the amount of triple expansion engines and boilers I’ve seen for sale.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Florence Locomotive Works

[Florence Locomotive Works]

2 hours ago, Hroth said:

My paternal grandfather "crossed the line" on the Blue Funnel steamship Menelaus in 1913.

 

 

I've just found his "certificate" attesting to this!

I always found that class interesting because of the shear number of ventilators around the funnel, most I’ve ever seen in one place on a ship. 

[Bon Accord]

18 minutes ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Shame to here about that, those types where the last of a great era, at least we have the the MS Cap San Diego to give people a vague representation of what they looked like.

 

Edit: Hopefully someone will get the nerve to possibly make a new build Fort Class or sometime for the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic, not exactly impossible with the way the new build steam scene is going, and the amount of triple expansion engines and boilers I’ve seen for sale.

 

We had an authentic Fort/Ocean/Park type in RAME HEAD, alas she was permitted to go to the breakers and was finally disposed of in 2010. The UK has been notably callous with it's merchant ship history - in stark difference to the likes of the Germans, USA and Nordic countries -  and unfortunately I doubt that'll change.