Anyone Interested in Ships

[Kris]

The Scillonian was delayed in returning to Penzance on Friday due to a distress call. https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/isles-scilly-ferry-scillonian-iii-7165234?fbclid=IwAR3dRZFbgxBPQKD0MBRVAa2XgzuivjL22EHEN4OmDniaT5vrP0AFGNJK2dU

[johnofwessex]

1 hour ago, MarkC said:

Very easy bunkering - I like it. I suppose that it can be done with road wagons nowadays...

 

Yes, operating costs of turbine plant against internal combustion reciprocating plant will be a big issue; also the costs involved with maintaining/replacing marine boilers are a factor. There's also the matter of steam certification for crews these days - there aren't many steam qualified seafarers about any more.

 

Also, with coal you have the fact that it's regarded as the root of many ills too - as we know only too well in the UK when it comes to both power generation and our beloved steam locomotives...

 

Interestingly enough she's not Turbine but an 'Up and Downer' although its a Skinner Unaflow fully enclosed poppet valve job, very common it seems in the USA

 

https://www.asme.org/wwwasmeorg/media/resourcefiles/aboutasme/who we are/engineering history/landmarks/191-ss-badger-carferry-1952.pdf

 

unlike the UK where turbines were the standard from the 1900's

 

Edit, having just read the paper, the boiler pressure - 500psi is greater than the turbine driven 1955 Manxman, 350psi & 1965 Ben My Cree, 415psi both superheated to 650F rather than the 700F of the Badger.  I have been allowed down below in both and on the controls of Manxman.

Edited June 5, 2022 by johnofwessex
add extra text

[KeithMacdonald]

Did someone leave the gas stove on?

 

Quote

Superyacht sinks in Torquay harbour after large fire

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-61617224

 

Looks like a Princess.

[MarkC]

4 hours ago, johnofwessex said:

 

Interestingly enough she's not Turbine but an 'Up and Downer' although its a Skinner Unaflow fully enclosed poppet valve job, very common it seems in the USA

 

https://www.asme.org/wwwasmeorg/media/resourcefiles/aboutasme/who we are/engineering history/landmarks/191-ss-badger-carferry-1952.pdf

 

unlike the UK where turbines were the standard from the 1900's

 

Edit, having just read the paper, the boiler pressure - 500psi is greater than the turbine driven 1955 Manxman, 350psi & 1965 Ben My Cree, 415psi both superheated to 650F rather than the 700F of the Badger.  I have been allowed down below in both and on the controls of Manxman.

Ooh, interesting indeed - a reciprocating engine in a 50s built ship. Wow.

 

Was this the maritime "Steam's last gasp" engine? Certainly sounds like it. Some serious superheat levels there too - you don't mess with that sort of steam...

 

Thanks for the gen, John.

 

Mark

[johnofwessex]

2 hours ago, MarkC said:

Ooh, interesting indeed - a reciprocating engine in a 50s built ship. Wow.

 

Was this the maritime "Steam's last gasp" engine? Certainly sounds like it. Some serious superheat levels there too - you don't mess with that sort of steam...

 

Thanks for the gen, John.

 

Mark

 

I had a squeaky bum moment the first time I did a 'Stop' on Manxman & the pyrometer banged up against the stop at 1200F

 

 

[J. S. Bach]

I could not watch all of this:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/227906157419828/?multi_permalinks=1991816077695485&ref=share

[Rivercider]

Last week we were staying in Bideford and walked along the Tarka trail to Instow and back, as well as old railway archaeology there was some maritime interest along the Torridge.

 

A number of old barges or sailing vessels are rotting along the river bank, 26/5/22

 

The preserved Freshspring is moored at Bideford. 26/5/22 

 

cheers

 

 

[Rivercider]

Further along the Torridge heading towards Instow and the estuary there are a number of vessels moored along the bank as house boats,

The Cannis has an interesting history recorded online, and was formerly the Enticette on the River Medway. Last time I saw her she was moored on the opposite bank in a small cove. 26/5/22

 

The Appledore Shipyard is back in business, and contained a dredger that normally works in the Shoreham area.

AI Avocet in Appledore Shipyard, 26/5/22

 

cheers 

[johnofwessex]

I worked as a volunteer on Freshspring when she was in Bristol in the 80's

 

A copy of an article I wrote about my experiences is below - it wont let me do it as an attachment

 

Tales Too Ticklish To Tell

 

A personal account of Freshspring’s time in Bristol and the joys of being an amateur marine engineer

 

Quite how I got involved with Freshspring when she was in Bristol in the early 1980’s is lost in the mists of time, but as one of my earliest memories is of being taken on the paddle steamer Bristol Queen by my father, followed by trips on my own on Balmoral in P&A Campbell days, membership of the Navy section of the Combined Cadet Force at School, and spending time in the engine room, including being allowed to take the controls of the SS Manxman, perhaps it was only natural that I would find myself on Freshspring at some stage.

 

Having given it some thought I decided that the best way to put my thoughts on paper would be to take you on a tour of the ship and recount some of the things that happened in those parts of the ship, introduce some of the characters involved and talk about what happened whenever the ship moved.

 

Hopefully the Statute of Limitations should protect all of those involved.

 

The People

 

There are three people who I remember by name from this time, others came and went.

 

The owner was Oswald Burgess, I gather that he had bought Freshspring with a ‘businessman’ who had then had to sell his share to Oswald after a problem with his business. Oswald (Oz) had been a marine engineer, serving both at sea and in Ship Repair – it paid better than ship building both were ‘casual’ but shipbuilding jobs lasted longer than ship repair ones. He had worked for two employers in one day. Like many engineers in Bristol he ended up in British Aerospace.

 

The engineering side of things was looked after by Dan Hayman, another retired British Aerospace engineer, he was also a keen cyclist & youth hosteller who didnt own a car. The YHA in Bristol, Hayman House is named after him. Dan had started (I think) at Cammell Laird before going to sea in WW2 then ending up in Bristol and working on the Brabazon, including time as the flight engineer. He certainly both knew his stuff and how to teach muppets like me.

 

Sadly both are now long gone.

 

The last name I remember was Tig. Unlike the others, Tig was a woman in her late 20’s (?) (The question is about her age, not gender) Her previous job had been breaking 2CV’s for parts but then she had decided, much to the annoyance of her by now ex husband to join the Merchant Navy as an engineer officer. To the credit of the college they decided that her one and only ‘O’ level – in Art would at least mean that she could read drawings. Like Dan & Oswald she was a skilled practical engineer.

 

Moving the Ship

 

If you are of a nervous disposition, I suggest that you go and make yourself a nice cup of tea before skipping to the next piece in the magazine

 

Freshspring was normally moored in front of The Industrial Museum in Bristol, I believe that as a ‘Historic’ vessel she got free moorings and in exchange was occasionally opened to the public. From time to time she had to be moved, or on at least one occasion it was decided to take her for a spin. With a crew that were not as practised as might normally be expected, in the confined waters of the City Docks this was not without its moments.

From memory the first time I was aboard her when she moved I brought a friend with me, who was not overly impressed at having to ‘walk a plank’ to get aboard.

 

As we got ready to sail, a youngish couple walked past with their father/father in law, who was down from Fleetwood to help with the decoration of their new house. He was also something of a ship enthusiast having seen the deep water fishing fleet based in the town. After showing an interest Dan invited them aboard. We then set off down the docks.

 

Dad had a ‘peg leg’ and would have made a perfect Long John Silver. He climbed to the foredeck and promptly took over dealing with the ropes in the bow. The young couple simply stood on the main deck looking about as happy as a vampire at a Garlic Festival.

 

The plan was to sail down the docks and turn off the Underfall Yard where the docks are quite wide. I had recently passed my boatmans licence which included a pilotage exam for the City Docks. While the docks are dredged, the area by the Underfall adjacent to the Baltic and Gefle Wharfs has always been rather shallow and when timber ships discharged there they had to moor away from the quay. As we headed towards the Underfall Yard I shouted to the bridge ‘Oswald it gets rather shallow here’ ‘Dont Worry John, its fine’ ‘Oswald we are getting very close to the Barge moored in front of the Yard’ ‘Hang on everyone, somebody has mucked about with the piston valve on the HP Cylinder, we cant put the engine astern’ CRASH and we piled into a WW2 vintage concrete barge moored in front of the Underfall Yard. By this time things were back to normal in The Great Hall of Technology and we went astern and turned without further ado. No concrete barges were damaged in this little jolly.

 

I don’t know if it was on this trip or another one but while turning opposite the Industrial Museum Freshspring went broadside across St Augustines Reach – the stretch of water that leads up to The City Centre. The Captain – not Oswald put her astern and we ended up colliding with the ‘Lochiel’ an ex McBrayne ship that ended her days as a floating pub in Bristol. This was during Sunday Lunch and livened things up no end.

 

Anyway Dad made a great job of tying us up – not a simple task as most of our mooring ropes were to say the least short. He went off with a spring in his step while his son and daughter in law simply seemed glad to be alive.

 

On another occasion we had to move Freshspring from the top of St Augustines Reach by the Watershed back to the front of The Industrial Museum. The first job was to turn her using a spring. This took some time and provided a welcome spectacle on an otherwise wet and windy Saturday and a free coffee from the grateful owners of a nearby sandwich shop who had benefited from the resultant crowd. Now facing the right way, unusually Oswald had the con, usually he had a retired Deck Officer take command but this time he was enjoying the perk of ownership. Normally my role would have been in the engine or boiler room but he asked if I could take the wheel. This led to my conclusion that power steering is never a good idea, why? Well, Freshsprings steering engine is in the wheelhouse and fills it up with Steam……………

 

Waverley had been due to go to Lundy Island that day however the trip had been cancelled due to the weather, instead she had sailed back from Penarth to Avonmouth and buses had then taken passengers into Bristol to enjoy the sights. Several of Waverleys regulars were enjoying the rare sight of a steamship moving in the City Docks. As we headed to our berth, we saw that the Birmingham Navy had occupied part of it despite clear notices not to moor. There was little we could do other than moor, and Oswald made a good job of a bad situation to bring her in, catching the offending cabin cruiser with the stern. This caused hilarity amongst the Waverley passengers who identified me on the wheel.

 

Later I was told that despite not causing any visible damage, the impact had ripped out all the internal bulkheads in the offending craft. However because it was moored in a ‘no mooring’ area there was no claim against ‘Freshspring’

 

But seriously folks, moving the ship didn't always result in disaster, steaming slowly through the docks on a real steam ship was delightful. I only saw her under way in the docks once – I had had to leave to go and work an evening trip on The Docks Ferry. We were astern of Freshspring as she sailed gracefully through Prince Street Bridge – yes, it WAS open! Before tucking neatly into a berth just upstream to make way for a Harbour event.

 

Oh and the marvellous Navy Siren – whoop whoop whoop, if you get the chance blow it!

 

A Tour of The Ship

 

As it was in my days……………

 

Right in the bows was the focsle with the crew accommodation. In those days there were wooden bunks – I seem to remember blankets on them and there was at least one rather nice traditional coal burning stove. There were also some steam heated radiators, and I seem to remember an electric heater.

 

On deck there was the windlass which did work, except that we never seemed to have a length of rope long enough to use with it!

 

Moving aft you then came to the cargo tanks. Now for reasons I don't fully understand these were filled with drinking straws, something I think was to do with Oz’s ‘Experiment’ more of which anon.

 

Then there was the Captains Cabin with the Bridge on top. The bridge was very simple by todays standards with the only thing run by electricity being the lights. Unlike most ships where the steering gear is in the stern, Freshspring’s steering engine is in the wheelhouse, and the valves are of the ‘outside admission’ type – what the uninitiated need to know is that they leak steam. The ‘rod and chain’ mechanism was long obsolete by the time she was built and Dan suspected that when the Merchant Navy steering orders were reversed in the 1930’s so that when the order was given to put the helm to port the wheel steered the ship to port – previously it was the other way round as if you were using a tiller the makers simply put the steam and exhaust the other way round rather than redesign obsolete equipment.

 

It was possible to con the ship from the open bridge above the wheelhouse but we weren’t entirely convinced about the condition of the deck so she was always controlled from the wheelhouse.

 

Moving aft was the Galley. This was the site of the fabled ‘Experiment’ Oswald was interested in developing a way of stripping insulation from scrap electrical cable. The cable went into a furnace , heating it ‘burnt off’ the insulation the resultant gas was then collected and burnt in the furnace to heat the cable. The ‘experiment;’ also generated quantities of a rather dubious liquid which was then dumped into the ships fuel tanks, and then burnt, the consequences of which could be ‘interesting’

 

On the boat deck above the galley was the Diesel Generator – OK it isnt a Diesel really the Thermal Cycle is much closer to the British Ackroyd-Stuart engine. This had been installed by Oswald to provide power when the ship was not in steam although we never seemed to run it and generally power was only available when we had steam up.

 

The last space I entered at the stern was the shaft tunnel. I spent an ‘amusing’ day in it with Dan trying to adjust the clearances in the plummer block, the intermediate bearings that supported the propeller shaft.

 

Now on the Manxman it was a doddle, the blocks were mounted on screw wedges to allow for adjustment. Whoever designed Freshspring must have hated marine engineers with a vengance, the only way to adjust the clearance was to jack up the propeller shaft, then put a shim under the block. This was a process that could result in the lucky souls given the task going through Rogers Profanisaurus from A to Z

 

(Rogers Profanisaurus is a Lexicon of Language frequently used in times of excitement or stress, from the publishers of Viz Magazine)

 

The Great Hall of Technology (AKA The Engine & Boiler Rooms)

 

With Instructions on How to Make the (Insert Profanity of Choice) Ship Go

 

 

 

So, lets start in the boiler room. Walking into the boiler room, my eyes fell upon a notice ‘Instructions for Engineers and Others using the Wallsend Howden Oil Fuel System’

 

Basically what happens is that fuel is pressurised by steam driven oil pumps, then heated to its flash point by steam oil heaters before passing into a burner in the furnace. Air for combustion is provided by a steam fan at the base of the funnel.

 

It went on to list all the things we should know about the system, starting with the flash point of the fuel. Well, there was some sort of flammable liquid in the tanks but what it was, let alone what the flash point was was unknown. More importantly however there wasn’t a temperature gauge in the system anyway.

 

Now you may well have spotted a complication from my description of the system – all the boiler services were powered by steam. In the old days starting a ship would probably mean getting a tug alongside to provide a steam supply or as she was an Admiralty vessel get a stationary boiler alongside. Now in 1980’s Bristol no such facilities existed so we had to resort to an auxiliary heater worked by a paraffin blowlamp and a hand operated pump. Later an electric pump was added to help things, but it wasn’t always there. With 45 tons of water to be raised to about 40psi before any of the main systems would start that's quite a job.

 

The other issue with Freshspring’s boiler is that Scotch boilers have fairly poor circulation, this means that you have to heat them through slowly, otherwise you can find that you have 180psi of steam ‘on the clock’ and the bottom is stone cold. This means of course, part of the boiler has expanded but the rest of it hasn't so there are significant expansion stresses set up. One Friday evening I turned up to help raise steam only to find that we had 80psi on the clock, already, steam heat and electricity was on. Basically the boiler crew had just ‘got on with it’ and Oswald had just given birth to a large litter of kittens.

 

Anyway one day it fell to me to help raise steam. Climb into boiler room & nearly blow myself up lighting the blow torch. Open the suction valve from the bunkers and the return to suction on the port side - basically to allow the fuel to circulate as it warms up. With the heater on, start the electric pump & heat the fuel through. After 10 minutes or so shut return to suction, light my torch – rag wrapped round a heavy gauge wire, dipped in parrafin & lit, open the inspection port, oil on and ignite. Bang, fuel ignites, remove torch & flame goes out. I’m about to reinsert the torch when the fuel ignites from burning fuel on the furnace wall, Bang!! Smoke billows out round the smokebox doors. Burner then goes out, reignites etc etc – and the furnace is between me and the exit.

 

Anyway this goes on and on, clouds of black smoke emerge from Freshsprings Funnel. The wind carried it all the way up St Augustines reach, across the Centre and as far as Electricity House on the far side of The Centre. The following day I was away on the Steam Specials for the 150th Anniversary of the GWR, but it seems that someone called the Fire Brigade. Later the oil burners were removed from the Port Furnace and replaced by a rudimentary grate with angle iron fire bars. This allowed steam to be raised using coal which is much simpler, possibly something that might be considered for the future.

 

One rather interesting exchange I had with Oswald was that when we were packing up after a move, he said’ I hope you went easy on the Starboard Furnace John, there’s a mark on the furnace and we don’t know if its a crack or a tooling mark’ ‘Thanks Oz, so I could have been sharing the stokehold with 45 tons of boiling water…….’

 

This of course makes me wonder, did the ship possess a boiler certificate in her Bristol days? I was certainly never aware that the necessary work for an inspection had been done.

 

But when steam was up and the oil burners running there wasn't a lot to do in the boiler room, just have an occasional look at the water level & pressure gauges. Given the size of boiler and the fairly modest demands placed on it it could easily cope with the demands from the engine. If only the generator and auxiliaries were running, once pressure had got to 80psi or so they could run for an hour or so before the burner needed re-lighting.

 

Certainly compared with the engine room, once steam was up the boiler room could be a quite peaceful place as you just kept an eye on everything and listened to the distinctive thump of the main engine.

 

One tip I must give though is make sure the gauge glasses are drained over the winter, one winter they froze and smashed flooding the boiler room.

 

So having got 40psi on the clock what next? Well, one day, admittedly we were only running the machinery at our berth but Oswald asked me to take charge of the machinery so I can go through the procedure from start to finish.

 

Before you start touching the machinery, make sure that all the vents are open and facing into wind, also open the Engine Room skylights – once it gets hot you will never manage to cool the place down so best to stop it getting hot in the first place.

 

To start with everything needs to be oiled.

 

In a car engine its fairly straightforward, as there is no water running around (OK in theory, inspection of the crank case of a Morris Minor once suggests otherwise) In a steam engine however the lubricating oil has to deal with water flying everywhere.

 

Most of the parts will need lubricating with ‘Steam Oil’ The old saying ‘Oil and Water Dont Mix’ was clearly written by someone who had never eaten Mayonnaise. Steam Oil, like Mayonnaise forms an emulsion, ie oil and water mix which retains its lubricating properties which other oils wont. Look on the Morris Lubricants website for more details.

 

From memory the Duplex (up and down) pumps are an ‘oil can’ job. The rotary auxiliaries need Steam Oil in the cylinder lubricator (The little thing driven by a belt) and a crank case oil – in the crank case – there is a dip stick to check.

 

There is no cylinder lubrication on the main engine. The Steam is saturated so lubrication is provided by the water condensed from the steam. If you use superheated steam, like a railway locomotive you have to lubricate the cylinders. On a ship this causes a major problem, as the steam is condensed then reused in the boiler you have to get the oil out again.

 

On the top platform there are a number of small oil reservoirs, these feed into oil pipes via Worsted wicks. You will need to fish these out of the reservoir and put one in each pipe before filling the reservoir up.

 

The oil pipes lead down either to bearings, in the case of the crankshaft bearings, or drip into various oil cups on the wiggly bits.

 

I suggest that you need to spend a bit of time filling all these little cups up, squirt oil onto the crosshead slippers, valve and piston glands etc. Also I have been told that you should turn the engine over at some stage, there is gear to do it by hand, and at the bottom of each crank stroke, check that you can get your hand under the Big End In the good old days junior engineers were expected to check the temperature of the bearings by putting their hand on them – while the engine was running. If there wasnt enough clearance you could lose your fingers.

 

Lubricating an engine like this is called ‘Total Loss’ lubrication, having stood between the main engines of Shieldhall in her working days as she headed towards the dumping grounds at full speed and experienced the joys of being showered in what looks like watery mayonnaise I can fill you in on where the ‘Total Loss’ goes.

 

So with everything oiled, lets get things going…………….

 

The first job is to go and open the ship side valve that is connected to The Circulating Pump, the Atmospheric Valve that connects the Condenser to air, and the drain from the Condenser to the Hotwell Tank.

 

Then you need to go on top of the boiler to open the stop valves, at this stage you only need the auxiliary open a turn or so but you may want to open the rest while you at at it. There is a stop for the main engine that must be fully open and there is also a deck line that supplies the windlass and steering engine.

 

The easy way to open the stops is to lift the hatch at the base of the funnel if you havnt done it already, raise the grating then open them with a wheel spanner. Be warned, you wont get frostbite doing it. If you are of a more masochistic disposition there is a walkway, well crawlway over the top of the boiler. Just dont kneel on the metalwork as it will burn you through your clothing.

 

So, with steam on go into the engine room and open the drains on the auxiliary steam line. These are the brass taps attached to the line. This will drain any water in the line into the bilges. When you stop getting water through it you can close them. The ship is now coming to life!

 

Now, this is the important bit, steam is a gas which can be compressed – squeezed. Water however is a liquid & incompressible. What that means is that if water gets into the steam side of the machinery it can cause damage – for example cracking cylinders. So, before you start any of the auxiliary machinery you need to make sure the drains – the small brass taps are open to clear any water. You will know if they are open as you will see steam & water coming out of the attached pipes.

 

Because you are on a ship, the steam exhaust doesnt go to atmosphere instead it goes to the condenser where it is turned back into water. When the main engine is running it creates a vacuum in the condenser so that means that all the auxiliaries have a stop valve n the exhaust side to prevent air being drawn through them into the condenser when they are not running. So when you start anything you will need to ensure that this is fully open.

 

The next thing is to start the circulating pump, then in no particular order oil units & heater, boiler fan and dynamo (unless you want to be stuck in the dark)

 

The oil pumps are pretty straightforward, they are duplex (Non Rotating) and steam is applied throughout the stroke. Open the drains, then the valve to the exhaust, then crack the steam line open. If it doesnt go, stick the bar in it. The bar, there should be one with each pump allows you to trip the auxiliary shuttle valve which should get it moving. What you then do is gradually open the steam valve until it is running at the required speed. When water stops coming out of the drains you can shut them.

 

Next thing is to start the rotary pumps, fan and dynamo.. As they are single cylinder they wont ‘self start’ Open the drains then the exhaust valve. Crack the steam valve open and you should get water blowing out of the drains. To get the thing going you will need to turn it over. The fan engine has a handwheel on the end of the crank shaft – easy. The sea water pump has a special spanner that you put on the flywheel and give it a spin but the Dynamo has a bar that goes in the flywheel get it turning and hopefully dont get whacked by the bar as it flies out when the engine starts.

 

So with everything ticking over and steam rather than water coming out of the drains turn the steam up – a bit! Again what will happen is that you will get more water coming out of the drains which will eventually clear. Now you can go on deck & look over the starboard side to check that water is coming out of the condenser discharge. If it is, you can close the atmospheric valve so that the exhaust goes into the condenser and is turned back into water.

 

If the Atmospheric Valve is opened, steam is exhausted up the large pipe at the rear of the funnel. I was looking at a painting in the Gallery in Plymouth, I think it was The Lighthouse Newlyn by Alexander Stanhope Forbes from an internet search, although memory tells me that rather than two fishermen it was a man and a woman in the rowing boat. Anyway behind them is a trawler with steam coming out of the exhaust from the Atmospheric. My then Girlfriend was decidedly unimpressed when I pointed this out.

 

So when everything is ticking over nicely close the breaker and put the generator on the board. Let there be light. You may need to adjust the voltage using the field regulator which is located on the ships side by the dynamo – its the box with a handwheel on it sited conveniently in a place where you cant see the voltmeter……….. While it didnt happen on Freshspring, the dynamo is able to start generating current thanks to residual magnetism in the machine. So far so good, but if here is insufficient residual magnetism you cant ‘Excite’ the machine so dont get any volts. I did see a Scottish Stoker – think Dave Lister (Red Dwarf) crossed with Rab C Nesbit attempting to excite a dynamo with a stream of profanity, and a few indecent gestures but it didnt work. You can however connect any battery – the larger the better to the field windings and it should do the trick.

 

The other three auxiliaries are The Cargo Pump and General Service pump on the starboard side forward and the Fire and Salvage Pump aft on the port side.

 

I have never seen the Cargo Pump run, I have however used the General Service (GS) Pump. As its name suggests that GS can pump many things. There are bilge and sea suctions, so you can pump water out of the bilges and over the side, or you can pump from a sea suction and then deliver the water either to cool the condenser, or into the Starboard Fire Main. Anyway, Oz came down into the engine room ‘John, please can you start the GS pump, and connect it to the fire main so we can wash the deck.

 

Sea Suctions open, check, delivery to fire main open – check. Pump started and warmed through. It was just ticking over nice and slow, a few strokes a minute, job done. I emerged on deck. ‘John, please turn the pump off, NOW!’ Some poor Sea Cadet was being blown around the deck by an out of control fire hose. It was clearly a bit more powerful than I thought.

 

On one occasion I was asked to start the fire and salvage pump, there was a Royal Visit coming up and Oz had been offered a monitor – fire fighting water jet, as fitted to tugs and fireboats, that he thought could use water from the fire and salvage pump to make a display. Water on, check. Discharge to starboard fire main, check. Firemain open, check. Open exhaust valve, drains open, crack steam line open and apply bar to start the engine. When water stops coming out of the drains, open the main steam valve a further turn. More water starts coming out of the drains so wait until they run clear again, repeat. With the engine now warmed up I fully opened the steam valve and listened to the whirr as the pump accelerated to full speed.

 

So far, so good, but Oz didnt like the auxiliary stop fully open. As the pump accelerated the lights went out and all the other auxiliaries stopped in the same way way that the lights all go out when you start a car as the pump took all the available steam. The noise of the pump was drowned out by the protests of the crew who I had plunged into darkness.

 

 

 

The Main Engine

 

OK, lets look at the main engine.

 

First you need to get permission from The Bridge to start the engine – even if you are doing a few RPM alongside the ship will start to strain at her moorings and shift.

 

Then check that the propeller is clear of obstructions – there isnt half a treetrunk stuck under the stern or something.

 

So with that done, the stop valves open, and the oiling done the first thing to do is to open the drains, the small handwheels under the cylinder block.

 

Next job is to pull a little spring loaded pull over the air pump, this clears any water above the pump so it doesnt fracture and close the drain from the condenser into the hotwell, this will allow a vacuum to be created once the engine starts working.

 

Next, there is an auxiliary steam range located rather conveniently over your head where you cant read the valves by the controls. Three valves – the Impulse which puts high pressure steam into the low pressure cylinder, more of which anon, the reverser steam – if you dont set it up right it will take your arm off and the Silent Blow Off.

 

Now if ever there was a misnomer, its ‘Silent Blow Off’ The first time I was let loose on the controls I was trying to turn on the Impulse and set up the reverser, instead I opened the ‘Silent Blow Off’ As Marvin The Paranoid Android would have put it, it is a meaning of the word ‘silent’ I am not familiar with. Imagine blowing steam at 100psi into a large metal box, silent it isnt.

 

Now some of you may have been lucky enough to have driven a steam railway locomotive. Most locomotives have two cylinders, cranks at 90 degrees to each other taking steam direct from the boiler. So, as soon as you open the regulator and steam starts to flow into the cylinders they go.

 

Freshspring on the other hand has the standard marine 3 cylinder triple expansion engine, cranks at 120 degrees. So far so good, but unlike a railway locomotive the steam flows sequentially from the high pressure cylinder through the intermediate pressure then into the low pressure cylinder before exhausting into the condenser.

 

So, when you open the throttle it wont necessarily start…………………

 

So, it hasnt started, grab the trigger that controls the impulse and give it a squirt of HP steam in the LP cylinder, still wont (insert profanity of choice) go, try, and believe you me on Freshspring it isnt the simplest of jobs moving the expansion links with the reversing engine.

 

Bear in mind that there is no manual for this and I was relying on what I could remember of watching the engineer on watch on the Bristol Queen as a three year old twenty odd years ago. Eventually the thing will start, even though its layout and controls are rather different.

 

Leave it running slowly for about half an hour or so and it should be nicely warmed through.

 

After about 10 minutes you can shut the drains but its worth just going along the engine after another quarter of an hour and just opening each one for a few seconds to clear any accumulated water.

 

So now its nice and warm, and believe you me, the engine and boiler rooms will be very warm by this stage, you will be ready to move ship.

 

Its worth at this point having a chat with the bridge to see if they know what their first engine movement will be, ahead or astern so you can be set up for it.

 

You will need to turn the engine over so that the crank on the High Pressure cylinder – the smallest one at the forward end of the engine is in the 3 or 9 o’clock position so when you open the throttle the engine turns.

 

The orders come down from the bridge via telegraph, the Captain moves the telegraph handle and the lucky soul on the controls gets the engine turning in the direction and speed the bridge wants.

 

Now the joy of being in the Great Hall of Technology is that its warm and dry, BUT you cant really see out, all you get is a series of orders – which of course as I am more accustomed to driving a desk I never got to be really used to doing. Usually they come through nice and slow but sometimes when they are coming down thick and fast it can be obvious that all is not well, sometimes confirmed by a jolt and a crash.

 

When its all over, turn the burners off, make sure all the valves are shut, take out the trimmings in the lubricators and that's

it.

 

Well, thats how to do it, I never thought that I would stand on Freshspring’s bottom platform again with steam up and the ship ready to move under her own power but now it sems that it may well happen. My consultancy rates are modest – decent Earl Grey and plenty of it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MarkC]

8 hours ago, johnofwessex said:

I worked as a volunteer on Freshspring when she was in Bristol in the 80's

 

A copy of an article I wrote about my experiences is below - it wont let me do it as an attachment

 

Tales Too Ticklish To Tell

 

A personal account of Freshspring’s time in Bristol and the joys of being an amateur marine engineer

 

Quite how I got involved with Freshspring when she was in Bristol in the early 1980’s is lost in the mists of time, but as one of my earliest memories is of being taken on the paddle steamer Bristol Queen by my father, followed by trips on my own on Balmoral in P&A Campbell days, membership of the Navy section of the Combined Cadet Force at School, and spending time in the engine room, including being allowed to take the controls of the SS Manxman, perhaps it was only natural that I would find myself on Freshspring at some stage.

 

Having given it some thought I decided that the best way to put my thoughts on paper would be to take you on a tour of the ship and recount some of the things that happened in those parts of the ship, introduce some of the characters involved and talk about what happened whenever the ship moved.

 

Hopefully the Statute of Limitations should protect all of those involved.

 

The People

 

There are three people who I remember by name from this time, others came and went.

 

The owner was Oswald Burgess, I gather that he had bought Freshspring with a ‘businessman’ who had then had to sell his share to Oswald after a problem with his business. Oswald (Oz) had been a marine engineer, serving both at sea and in Ship Repair – it paid better than ship building both were ‘casual’ but shipbuilding jobs lasted longer than ship repair ones. He had worked for two employers in one day. Like many engineers in Bristol he ended up in British Aerospace.

 

The engineering side of things was looked after by Dan Hayman, another retired British Aerospace engineer, he was also a keen cyclist & youth hosteller who didnt own a car. The YHA in Bristol, Hayman House is named after him. Dan had started (I think) at Cammell Laird before going to sea in WW2 then ending up in Bristol and working on the Brabazon, including time as the flight engineer. He certainly both knew his stuff and how to teach muppets like me.

 

Sadly both are now long gone.

 

The last name I remember was Tig. Unlike the others, Tig was a woman in her late 20’s (?) (The question is about her age, not gender) Her previous job had been breaking 2CV’s for parts but then she had decided, much to the annoyance of her by now ex husband to join the Merchant Navy as an engineer officer. To the credit of the college they decided that her one and only ‘O’ level – in Art would at least mean that she could read drawings. Like Dan & Oswald she was a skilled practical engineer.

 

Moving the Ship

 

If you are of a nervous disposition, I suggest that you go and make yourself a nice cup of tea before skipping to the next piece in the magazine

 

Freshspring was normally moored in front of The Industrial Museum in Bristol, I believe that as a ‘Historic’ vessel she got free moorings and in exchange was occasionally opened to the public. From time to time she had to be moved, or on at least one occasion it was decided to take her for a spin. With a crew that were not as practised as might normally be expected, in the confined waters of the City Docks this was not without its moments.

From memory the first time I was aboard her when she moved I brought a friend with me, who was not overly impressed at having to ‘walk a plank’ to get aboard.

 

As we got ready to sail, a youngish couple walked past with their father/father in law, who was down from Fleetwood to help with the decoration of their new house. He was also something of a ship enthusiast having seen the deep water fishing fleet based in the town. After showing an interest Dan invited them aboard. We then set off down the docks.

 

Dad had a ‘peg leg’ and would have made a perfect Long John Silver. He climbed to the foredeck and promptly took over dealing with the ropes in the bow. The young couple simply stood on the main deck looking about as happy as a vampire at a Garlic Festival.

 

The plan was to sail down the docks and turn off the Underfall Yard where the docks are quite wide. I had recently passed my boatmans licence which included a pilotage exam for the City Docks. While the docks are dredged, the area by the Underfall adjacent to the Baltic and Gefle Wharfs has always been rather shallow and when timber ships discharged there they had to moor away from the quay. As we headed towards the Underfall Yard I shouted to the bridge ‘Oswald it gets rather shallow here’ ‘Dont Worry John, its fine’ ‘Oswald we are getting very close to the Barge moored in front of the Yard’ ‘Hang on everyone, somebody has mucked about with the piston valve on the HP Cylinder, we cant put the engine astern’ CRASH and we piled into a WW2 vintage concrete barge moored in front of the Underfall Yard. By this time things were back to normal in The Great Hall of Technology and we went astern and turned without further ado. No concrete barges were damaged in this little jolly.

 

I don’t know if it was on this trip or another one but while turning opposite the Industrial Museum Freshspring went broadside across St Augustines Reach – the stretch of water that leads up to The City Centre. The Captain – not Oswald put her astern and we ended up colliding with the ‘Lochiel’ an ex McBrayne ship that ended her days as a floating pub in Bristol. This was during Sunday Lunch and livened things up no end.

 

Anyway Dad made a great job of tying us up – not a simple task as most of our mooring ropes were to say the least short. He went off with a spring in his step while his son and daughter in law simply seemed glad to be alive.

 

On another occasion we had to move Freshspring from the top of St Augustines Reach by the Watershed back to the front of The Industrial Museum. The first job was to turn her using a spring. This took some time and provided a welcome spectacle on an otherwise wet and windy Saturday and a free coffee from the grateful owners of a nearby sandwich shop who had benefited from the resultant crowd. Now facing the right way, unusually Oswald had the con, usually he had a retired Deck Officer take command but this time he was enjoying the perk of ownership. Normally my role would have been in the engine or boiler room but he asked if I could take the wheel. This led to my conclusion that power steering is never a good idea, why? Well, Freshsprings steering engine is in the wheelhouse and fills it up with Steam……………

 

Waverley had been due to go to Lundy Island that day however the trip had been cancelled due to the weather, instead she had sailed back from Penarth to Avonmouth and buses had then taken passengers into Bristol to enjoy the sights. Several of Waverleys regulars were enjoying the rare sight of a steamship moving in the City Docks. As we headed to our berth, we saw that the Birmingham Navy had occupied part of it despite clear notices not to moor. There was little we could do other than moor, and Oswald made a good job of a bad situation to bring her in, catching the offending cabin cruiser with the stern. This caused hilarity amongst the Waverley passengers who identified me on the wheel.

 

Later I was told that despite not causing any visible damage, the impact had ripped out all the internal bulkheads in the offending craft. However because it was moored in a ‘no mooring’ area there was no claim against ‘Freshspring’

 

But seriously folks, moving the ship didn't always result in disaster, steaming slowly through the docks on a real steam ship was delightful. I only saw her under way in the docks once – I had had to leave to go and work an evening trip on The Docks Ferry. We were astern of Freshspring as she sailed gracefully through Prince Street Bridge – yes, it WAS open! Before tucking neatly into a berth just upstream to make way for a Harbour event.

 

Oh and the marvellous Navy Siren – whoop whoop whoop, if you get the chance blow it!

 

A Tour of The Ship

 

As it was in my days……………

 

Right in the bows was the focsle with the crew accommodation. In those days there were wooden bunks – I seem to remember blankets on them and there was at least one rather nice traditional coal burning stove. There were also some steam heated radiators, and I seem to remember an electric heater.

 

On deck there was the windlass which did work, except that we never seemed to have a length of rope long enough to use with it!

 

Moving aft you then came to the cargo tanks. Now for reasons I don't fully understand these were filled with drinking straws, something I think was to do with Oz’s ‘Experiment’ more of which anon.

 

Then there was the Captains Cabin with the Bridge on top. The bridge was very simple by todays standards with the only thing run by electricity being the lights. Unlike most ships where the steering gear is in the stern, Freshspring’s steering engine is in the wheelhouse, and the valves are of the ‘outside admission’ type – what the uninitiated need to know is that they leak steam. The ‘rod and chain’ mechanism was long obsolete by the time she was built and Dan suspected that when the Merchant Navy steering orders were reversed in the 1930’s so that when the order was given to put the helm to port the wheel steered the ship to port – previously it was the other way round as if you were using a tiller the makers simply put the steam and exhaust the other way round rather than redesign obsolete equipment.

 

It was possible to con the ship from the open bridge above the wheelhouse but we weren’t entirely convinced about the condition of the deck so she was always controlled from the wheelhouse.

 

Moving aft was the Galley. This was the site of the fabled ‘Experiment’ Oswald was interested in developing a way of stripping insulation from scrap electrical cable. The cable went into a furnace , heating it ‘burnt off’ the insulation the resultant gas was then collected and burnt in the furnace to heat the cable. The ‘experiment;’ also generated quantities of a rather dubious liquid which was then dumped into the ships fuel tanks, and then burnt, the consequences of which could be ‘interesting’

 

On the boat deck above the galley was the Diesel Generator – OK it isnt a Diesel really the Thermal Cycle is much closer to the British Ackroyd-Stuart engine. This had been installed by Oswald to provide power when the ship was not in steam although we never seemed to run it and generally power was only available when we had steam up.

 

The last space I entered at the stern was the shaft tunnel. I spent an ‘amusing’ day in it with Dan trying to adjust the clearances in the plummer block, the intermediate bearings that supported the propeller shaft.

 

Now on the Manxman it was a doddle, the blocks were mounted on screw wedges to allow for adjustment. Whoever designed Freshspring must have hated marine engineers with a vengance, the only way to adjust the clearance was to jack up the propeller shaft, then put a shim under the block. This was a process that could result in the lucky souls given the task going through Rogers Profanisaurus from A to Z

 

(Rogers Profanisaurus is a Lexicon of Language frequently used in times of excitement or stress, from the publishers of Viz Magazine)

 

The Great Hall of Technology (AKA The Engine & Boiler Rooms)

 

With Instructions on How to Make the (Insert Profanity of Choice) Ship Go

 

 

 

So, lets start in the boiler room. Walking into the boiler room, my eyes fell upon a notice ‘Instructions for Engineers and Others using the Wallsend Howden Oil Fuel System’

 

Basically what happens is that fuel is pressurised by steam driven oil pumps, then heated to its flash point by steam oil heaters before passing into a burner in the furnace. Air for combustion is provided by a steam fan at the base of the funnel.

 

It went on to list all the things we should know about the system, starting with the flash point of the fuel. Well, there was some sort of flammable liquid in the tanks but what it was, let alone what the flash point was was unknown. More importantly however there wasn’t a temperature gauge in the system anyway.

 

Now you may well have spotted a complication from my description of the system – all the boiler services were powered by steam. In the old days starting a ship would probably mean getting a tug alongside to provide a steam supply or as she was an Admiralty vessel get a stationary boiler alongside. Now in 1980’s Bristol no such facilities existed so we had to resort to an auxiliary heater worked by a paraffin blowlamp and a hand operated pump. Later an electric pump was added to help things, but it wasn’t always there. With 45 tons of water to be raised to about 40psi before any of the main systems would start that's quite a job.

 

The other issue with Freshspring’s boiler is that Scotch boilers have fairly poor circulation, this means that you have to heat them through slowly, otherwise you can find that you have 180psi of steam ‘on the clock’ and the bottom is stone cold. This means of course, part of the boiler has expanded but the rest of it hasn't so there are significant expansion stresses set up. One Friday evening I turned up to help raise steam only to find that we had 80psi on the clock, already, steam heat and electricity was on. Basically the boiler crew had just ‘got on with it’ and Oswald had just given birth to a large litter of kittens.

 

Anyway one day it fell to me to help raise steam. Climb into boiler room & nearly blow myself up lighting the blow torch. Open the suction valve from the bunkers and the return to suction on the port side - basically to allow the fuel to circulate as it warms up. With the heater on, start the electric pump & heat the fuel through. After 10 minutes or so shut return to suction, light my torch – rag wrapped round a heavy gauge wire, dipped in parrafin & lit, open the inspection port, oil on and ignite. Bang, fuel ignites, remove torch & flame goes out. I’m about to reinsert the torch when the fuel ignites from burning fuel on the furnace wall, Bang!! Smoke billows out round the smokebox doors. Burner then goes out, reignites etc etc – and the furnace is between me and the exit.

 

Anyway this goes on and on, clouds of black smoke emerge from Freshsprings Funnel. The wind carried it all the way up St Augustines reach, across the Centre and as far as Electricity House on the far side of The Centre. The following day I was away on the Steam Specials for the 150th Anniversary of the GWR, but it seems that someone called the Fire Brigade. Later the oil burners were removed from the Port Furnace and replaced by a rudimentary grate with angle iron fire bars. This allowed steam to be raised using coal which is much simpler, possibly something that might be considered for the future.

 

One rather interesting exchange I had with Oswald was that when we were packing up after a move, he said’ I hope you went easy on the Starboard Furnace John, there’s a mark on the furnace and we don’t know if its a crack or a tooling mark’ ‘Thanks Oz, so I could have been sharing the stokehold with 45 tons of boiling water…….’

 

This of course makes me wonder, did the ship possess a boiler certificate in her Bristol days? I was certainly never aware that the necessary work for an inspection had been done.

 

But when steam was up and the oil burners running there wasn't a lot to do in the boiler room, just have an occasional look at the water level & pressure gauges. Given the size of boiler and the fairly modest demands placed on it it could easily cope with the demands from the engine. If only the generator and auxiliaries were running, once pressure had got to 80psi or so they could run for an hour or so before the burner needed re-lighting.

 

Certainly compared with the engine room, once steam was up the boiler room could be a quite peaceful place as you just kept an eye on everything and listened to the distinctive thump of the main engine.

 

One tip I must give though is make sure the gauge glasses are drained over the winter, one winter they froze and smashed flooding the boiler room.

 

So having got 40psi on the clock what next? Well, one day, admittedly we were only running the machinery at our berth but Oswald asked me to take charge of the machinery so I can go through the procedure from start to finish.

 

Before you start touching the machinery, make sure that all the vents are open and facing into wind, also open the Engine Room skylights – once it gets hot you will never manage to cool the place down so best to stop it getting hot in the first place.

 

To start with everything needs to be oiled.

 

In a car engine its fairly straightforward, as there is no water running around (OK in theory, inspection of the crank case of a Morris Minor once suggests otherwise) In a steam engine however the lubricating oil has to deal with water flying everywhere.

 

Most of the parts will need lubricating with ‘Steam Oil’ The old saying ‘Oil and Water Dont Mix’ was clearly written by someone who had never eaten Mayonnaise. Steam Oil, like Mayonnaise forms an emulsion, ie oil and water mix which retains its lubricating properties which other oils wont. Look on the Morris Lubricants website for more details.

 

From memory the Duplex (up and down) pumps are an ‘oil can’ job. The rotary auxiliaries need Steam Oil in the cylinder lubricator (The little thing driven by a belt) and a crank case oil – in the crank case – there is a dip stick to check.

 

There is no cylinder lubrication on the main engine. The Steam is saturated so lubrication is provided by the water condensed from the steam. If you use superheated steam, like a railway locomotive you have to lubricate the cylinders. On a ship this causes a major problem, as the steam is condensed then reused in the boiler you have to get the oil out again.

 

On the top platform there are a number of small oil reservoirs, these feed into oil pipes via Worsted wicks. You will need to fish these out of the reservoir and put one in each pipe before filling the reservoir up.

 

The oil pipes lead down either to bearings, in the case of the crankshaft bearings, or drip into various oil cups on the wiggly bits.

 

I suggest that you need to spend a bit of time filling all these little cups up, squirt oil onto the crosshead slippers, valve and piston glands etc. Also I have been told that you should turn the engine over at some stage, there is gear to do it by hand, and at the bottom of each crank stroke, check that you can get your hand under the Big End In the good old days junior engineers were expected to check the temperature of the bearings by putting their hand on them – while the engine was running. If there wasnt enough clearance you could lose your fingers.

 

Lubricating an engine like this is called ‘Total Loss’ lubrication, having stood between the main engines of Shieldhall in her working days as she headed towards the dumping grounds at full speed and experienced the joys of being showered in what looks like watery mayonnaise I can fill you in on where the ‘Total Loss’ goes.

 

So with everything oiled, lets get things going…………….

 

The first job is to go and open the ship side valve that is connected to The Circulating Pump, the Atmospheric Valve that connects the Condenser to air, and the drain from the Condenser to the Hotwell Tank.

 

Then you need to go on top of the boiler to open the stop valves, at this stage you only need the auxiliary open a turn or so but you may want to open the rest while you at at it. There is a stop for the main engine that must be fully open and there is also a deck line that supplies the windlass and steering engine.

 

The easy way to open the stops is to lift the hatch at the base of the funnel if you havnt done it already, raise the grating then open them with a wheel spanner. Be warned, you wont get frostbite doing it. If you are of a more masochistic disposition there is a walkway, well crawlway over the top of the boiler. Just dont kneel on the metalwork as it will burn you through your clothing.

 

So, with steam on go into the engine room and open the drains on the auxiliary steam line. These are the brass taps attached to the line. This will drain any water in the line into the bilges. When you stop getting water through it you can close them. The ship is now coming to life!

 

Now, this is the important bit, steam is a gas which can be compressed – squeezed. Water however is a liquid & incompressible. What that means is that if water gets into the steam side of the machinery it can cause damage – for example cracking cylinders. So, before you start any of the auxiliary machinery you need to make sure the drains – the small brass taps are open to clear any water. You will know if they are open as you will see steam & water coming out of the attached pipes.

 

Because you are on a ship, the steam exhaust doesnt go to atmosphere instead it goes to the condenser where it is turned back into water. When the main engine is running it creates a vacuum in the condenser so that means that all the auxiliaries have a stop valve n the exhaust side to prevent air being drawn through them into the condenser when they are not running. So when you start anything you will need to ensure that this is fully open.

 

The next thing is to start the circulating pump, then in no particular order oil units & heater, boiler fan and dynamo (unless you want to be stuck in the dark)

 

The oil pumps are pretty straightforward, they are duplex (Non Rotating) and steam is applied throughout the stroke. Open the drains, then the valve to the exhaust, then crack the steam line open. If it doesnt go, stick the bar in it. The bar, there should be one with each pump allows you to trip the auxiliary shuttle valve which should get it moving. What you then do is gradually open the steam valve until it is running at the required speed. When water stops coming out of the drains you can shut them.

 

Next thing is to start the rotary pumps, fan and dynamo.. As they are single cylinder they wont ‘self start’ Open the drains then the exhaust valve. Crack the steam valve open and you should get water blowing out of the drains. To get the thing going you will need to turn it over. The fan engine has a handwheel on the end of the crank shaft – easy. The sea water pump has a special spanner that you put on the flywheel and give it a spin but the Dynamo has a bar that goes in the flywheel get it turning and hopefully dont get whacked by the bar as it flies out when the engine starts.

 

So with everything ticking over and steam rather than water coming out of the drains turn the steam up – a bit! Again what will happen is that you will get more water coming out of the drains which will eventually clear. Now you can go on deck & look over the starboard side to check that water is coming out of the condenser discharge. If it is, you can close the atmospheric valve so that the exhaust goes into the condenser and is turned back into water.

 

If the Atmospheric Valve is opened, steam is exhausted up the large pipe at the rear of the funnel. I was looking at a painting in the Gallery in Plymouth, I think it was The Lighthouse Newlyn by Alexander Stanhope Forbes from an internet search, although memory tells me that rather than two fishermen it was a man and a woman in the rowing boat. Anyway behind them is a trawler with steam coming out of the exhaust from the Atmospheric. My then Girlfriend was decidedly unimpressed when I pointed this out.

 

So when everything is ticking over nicely close the breaker and put the generator on the board. Let there be light. You may need to adjust the voltage using the field regulator which is located on the ships side by the dynamo – its the box with a handwheel on it sited conveniently in a place where you cant see the voltmeter……….. While it didnt happen on Freshspring, the dynamo is able to start generating current thanks to residual magnetism in the machine. So far so good, but if here is insufficient residual magnetism you cant ‘Excite’ the machine so dont get any volts. I did see a Scottish Stoker – think Dave Lister (Red Dwarf) crossed with Rab C Nesbit attempting to excite a dynamo with a stream of profanity, and a few indecent gestures but it didnt work. You can however connect any battery – the larger the better to the field windings and it should do the trick.

 

The other three auxiliaries are The Cargo Pump and General Service pump on the starboard side forward and the Fire and Salvage Pump aft on the port side.

 

I have never seen the Cargo Pump run, I have however used the General Service (GS) Pump. As its name suggests that GS can pump many things. There are bilge and sea suctions, so you can pump water out of the bilges and over the side, or you can pump from a sea suction and then deliver the water either to cool the condenser, or into the Starboard Fire Main. Anyway, Oz came down into the engine room ‘John, please can you start the GS pump, and connect it to the fire main so we can wash the deck.

 

Sea Suctions open, check, delivery to fire main open – check. Pump started and warmed through. It was just ticking over nice and slow, a few strokes a minute, job done. I emerged on deck. ‘John, please turn the pump off, NOW!’ Some poor Sea Cadet was being blown around the deck by an out of control fire hose. It was clearly a bit more powerful than I thought.

 

On one occasion I was asked to start the fire and salvage pump, there was a Royal Visit coming up and Oz had been offered a monitor – fire fighting water jet, as fitted to tugs and fireboats, that he thought could use water from the fire and salvage pump to make a display. Water on, check. Discharge to starboard fire main, check. Firemain open, check. Open exhaust valve, drains open, crack steam line open and apply bar to start the engine. When water stops coming out of the drains, open the main steam valve a further turn. More water starts coming out of the drains so wait until they run clear again, repeat. With the engine now warmed up I fully opened the steam valve and listened to the whirr as the pump accelerated to full speed.

 

So far, so good, but Oz didnt like the auxiliary stop fully open. As the pump accelerated the lights went out and all the other auxiliaries stopped in the same way way that the lights all go out when you start a car as the pump took all the available steam. The noise of the pump was drowned out by the protests of the crew who I had plunged into darkness.

 

 

 

The Main Engine

 

OK, lets look at the main engine.

 

First you need to get permission from The Bridge to start the engine – even if you are doing a few RPM alongside the ship will start to strain at her moorings and shift.

 

Then check that the propeller is clear of obstructions – there isnt half a treetrunk stuck under the stern or something.

 

So with that done, the stop valves open, and the oiling done the first thing to do is to open the drains, the small handwheels under the cylinder block.

 

Next job is to pull a little spring loaded pull over the air pump, this clears any water above the pump so it doesnt fracture and close the drain from the condenser into the hotwell, this will allow a vacuum to be created once the engine starts working.

 

Next, there is an auxiliary steam range located rather conveniently over your head where you cant read the valves by the controls. Three valves – the Impulse which puts high pressure steam into the low pressure cylinder, more of which anon, the reverser steam – if you dont set it up right it will take your arm off and the Silent Blow Off.

 

Now if ever there was a misnomer, its ‘Silent Blow Off’ The first time I was let loose on the controls I was trying to turn on the Impulse and set up the reverser, instead I opened the ‘Silent Blow Off’ As Marvin The Paranoid Android would have put it, it is a meaning of the word ‘silent’ I am not familiar with. Imagine blowing steam at 100psi into a large metal box, silent it isnt.

 

Now some of you may have been lucky enough to have driven a steam railway locomotive. Most locomotives have two cylinders, cranks at 90 degrees to each other taking steam direct from the boiler. So, as soon as you open the regulator and steam starts to flow into the cylinders they go.

 

Freshspring on the other hand has the standard marine 3 cylinder triple expansion engine, cranks at 120 degrees. So far so good, but unlike a railway locomotive the steam flows sequentially from the high pressure cylinder through the intermediate pressure then into the low pressure cylinder before exhausting into the condenser.

 

So, when you open the throttle it wont necessarily start…………………

 

So, it hasnt started, grab the trigger that controls the impulse and give it a squirt of HP steam in the LP cylinder, still wont (insert profanity of choice) go, try, and believe you me on Freshspring it isnt the simplest of jobs moving the expansion links with the reversing engine.

 

Bear in mind that there is no manual for this and I was relying on what I could remember of watching the engineer on watch on the Bristol Queen as a three year old twenty odd years ago. Eventually the thing will start, even though its layout and controls are rather different.

 

Leave it running slowly for about half an hour or so and it should be nicely warmed through.

 

After about 10 minutes you can shut the drains but its worth just going along the engine after another quarter of an hour and just opening each one for a few seconds to clear any accumulated water.

 

So now its nice and warm, and believe you me, the engine and boiler rooms will be very warm by this stage, you will be ready to move ship.

 

Its worth at this point having a chat with the bridge to see if they know what their first engine movement will be, ahead or astern so you can be set up for it.

 

You will need to turn the engine over so that the crank on the High Pressure cylinder – the smallest one at the forward end of the engine is in the 3 or 9 o’clock position so when you open the throttle the engine turns.

 

The orders come down from the bridge via telegraph, the Captain moves the telegraph handle and the lucky soul on the controls gets the engine turning in the direction and speed the bridge wants.

 

Now the joy of being in the Great Hall of Technology is that its warm and dry, BUT you cant really see out, all you get is a series of orders – which of course as I am more accustomed to driving a desk I never got to be really used to doing. Usually they come through nice and slow but sometimes when they are coming down thick and fast it can be obvious that all is not well, sometimes confirmed by a jolt and a crash.

 

When its all over, turn the burners off, make sure all the valves are shut, take out the trimmings in the lubricators and that's

it.

 

Well, thats how to do it, I never thought that I would stand on Freshspring’s bottom platform again with steam up and the ship ready to move under her own power but now it sems that it may well happen. My consultancy rates are modest – decent Earl Grey and plenty of it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brilliant - and "The Great Hall of Technology" - love it! We tend to refer to the Engine Room as "The Mechanical Garden"...

 

I can relate to so many of those anecdotes too - reciprocating feed pumps - *shudders*...

 

Mark

[SHMD]

21 hours ago, johnofwessex said:

I worked as a volunteer on Freshspring when she was in Bristol in the 80's

 

A copy of an article I wrote about my experiences is below - it wont let me do it as an attachment

 

Tales Too Ticklish To Tell

 

A personal account of Freshspring’s time in Bristol and the joys of being an amateur marine engineer

 

Quite how I got involved with Freshspring when she was in Bristol in the early 1980’s is lost in the mists of time, but as one of my earliest memories is of being taken on the paddle steamer Bristol Queen by my father, followed by trips on my own on Balmoral in P&A Campbell days, membership of the Navy section of the Combined Cadet Force at School, and spending time in the engine room, including being allowed to take the controls of the SS Manxman, perhaps it was only natural that I would find myself on Freshspring at some stage.

 

Having given it some thought I decided that the best way to put my thoughts on paper would be to take you on a tour of the ship and recount some of the things that happened in those parts of the ship, introduce some of the characters involved and talk about what happened whenever the ship moved.

 

Hopefully the Statute of Limitations should protect all of those involved.

 

The People

 

There are three people who I remember by name from this time, others came and went.

 

The owner was Oswald Burgess, I gather that he had bought Freshspring with a ‘businessman’ who had then had to sell his share to Oswald after a problem with his business. Oswald (Oz) had been a marine engineer, serving both at sea and in Ship Repair – it paid better than ship building both were ‘casual’ but shipbuilding jobs lasted longer than ship repair ones. He had worked for two employers in one day. Like many engineers in Bristol he ended up in British Aerospace.

 

The engineering side of things was looked after by Dan Hayman, another retired British Aerospace engineer, he was also a keen cyclist & youth hosteller who didnt own a car. The YHA in Bristol, Hayman House is named after him. Dan had started (I think) at Cammell Laird before going to sea in WW2 then ending up in Bristol and working on the Brabazon, including time as the flight engineer. He certainly both knew his stuff and how to teach muppets like me.

 

Sadly both are now long gone.

 

The last name I remember was Tig. Unlike the others, Tig was a woman in her late 20’s (?) (The question is about her age, not gender) Her previous job had been breaking 2CV’s for parts but then she had decided, much to the annoyance of her by now ex husband to join the Merchant Navy as an engineer officer. To the credit of the college they decided that her one and only ‘O’ level – in Art would at least mean that she could read drawings. Like Dan & Oswald she was a skilled practical engineer.

 

Moving the Ship

 

If you are of a nervous disposition, I suggest that you go and make yourself a nice cup of tea before skipping to the next piece in the magazine

 

Freshspring was normally moored in front of The Industrial Museum in Bristol, I believe that as a ‘Historic’ vessel she got free moorings and in exchange was occasionally opened to the public. From time to time she had to be moved, or on at least one occasion it was decided to take her for a spin. With a crew that were not as practised as might normally be expected, in the confined waters of the City Docks this was not without its moments.

From memory the first time I was aboard her when she moved I brought a friend with me, who was not overly impressed at having to ‘walk a plank’ to get aboard.

 

As we got ready to sail, a youngish couple walked past with their father/father in law, who was down from Fleetwood to help with the decoration of their new house. He was also something of a ship enthusiast having seen the deep water fishing fleet based in the town. After showing an interest Dan invited them aboard. We then set off down the docks.

 

Dad had a ‘peg leg’ and would have made a perfect Long John Silver. He climbed to the foredeck and promptly took over dealing with the ropes in the bow. The young couple simply stood on the main deck looking about as happy as a vampire at a Garlic Festival.

 

The plan was to sail down the docks and turn off the Underfall Yard where the docks are quite wide. I had recently passed my boatmans licence which included a pilotage exam for the City Docks. While the docks are dredged, the area by the Underfall adjacent to the Baltic and Gefle Wharfs has always been rather shallow and when timber ships discharged there they had to moor away from the quay. As we headed towards the Underfall Yard I shouted to the bridge ‘Oswald it gets rather shallow here’ ‘Dont Worry John, its fine’ ‘Oswald we are getting very close to the Barge moored in front of the Yard’ ‘Hang on everyone, somebody has mucked about with the piston valve on the HP Cylinder, we cant put the engine astern’ CRASH and we piled into a WW2 vintage concrete barge moored in front of the Underfall Yard. By this time things were back to normal in The Great Hall of Technology and we went astern and turned without further ado. No concrete barges were damaged in this little jolly.

 

I don’t know if it was on this trip or another one but while turning opposite the Industrial Museum Freshspring went broadside across St Augustines Reach – the stretch of water that leads up to The City Centre. The Captain – not Oswald put her astern and we ended up colliding with the ‘Lochiel’ an ex McBrayne ship that ended her days as a floating pub in Bristol. This was during Sunday Lunch and livened things up no end.

 

Anyway Dad made a great job of tying us up – not a simple task as most of our mooring ropes were to say the least short. He went off with a spring in his step while his son and daughter in law simply seemed glad to be alive.

 

On another occasion we had to move Freshspring from the top of St Augustines Reach by the Watershed back to the front of The Industrial Museum. The first job was to turn her using a spring. This took some time and provided a welcome spectacle on an otherwise wet and windy Saturday and a free coffee from the grateful owners of a nearby sandwich shop who had benefited from the resultant crowd. Now facing the right way, unusually Oswald had the con, usually he had a retired Deck Officer take command but this time he was enjoying the perk of ownership. Normally my role would have been in the engine or boiler room but he asked if I could take the wheel. This led to my conclusion that power steering is never a good idea, why? Well, Freshsprings steering engine is in the wheelhouse and fills it up with Steam……………

 

Waverley had been due to go to Lundy Island that day however the trip had been cancelled due to the weather, instead she had sailed back from Penarth to Avonmouth and buses had then taken passengers into Bristol to enjoy the sights. Several of Waverleys regulars were enjoying the rare sight of a steamship moving in the City Docks. As we headed to our berth, we saw that the Birmingham Navy had occupied part of it despite clear notices not to moor. There was little we could do other than moor, and Oswald made a good job of a bad situation to bring her in, catching the offending cabin cruiser with the stern. This caused hilarity amongst the Waverley passengers who identified me on the wheel.

 

Later I was told that despite not causing any visible damage, the impact had ripped out all the internal bulkheads in the offending craft. However because it was moored in a ‘no mooring’ area there was no claim against ‘Freshspring’

 

But seriously folks, moving the ship didn't always result in disaster, steaming slowly through the docks on a real steam ship was delightful. I only saw her under way in the docks once – I had had to leave to go and work an evening trip on The Docks Ferry. We were astern of Freshspring as she sailed gracefully through Prince Street Bridge – yes, it WAS open! Before tucking neatly into a berth just upstream to make way for a Harbour event.

 

Oh and the marvellous Navy Siren – whoop whoop whoop, if you get the chance blow it!

 

A Tour of The Ship

 

As it was in my days……………

 

Right in the bows was the focsle with the crew accommodation. In those days there were wooden bunks – I seem to remember blankets on them and there was at least one rather nice traditional coal burning stove. There were also some steam heated radiators, and I seem to remember an electric heater.

 

On deck there was the windlass which did work, except that we never seemed to have a length of rope long enough to use with it!

 

Moving aft you then came to the cargo tanks. Now for reasons I don't fully understand these were filled with drinking straws, something I think was to do with Oz’s ‘Experiment’ more of which anon.

 

Then there was the Captains Cabin with the Bridge on top. The bridge was very simple by todays standards with the only thing run by electricity being the lights. Unlike most ships where the steering gear is in the stern, Freshspring’s steering engine is in the wheelhouse, and the valves are of the ‘outside admission’ type – what the uninitiated need to know is that they leak steam. The ‘rod and chain’ mechanism was long obsolete by the time she was built and Dan suspected that when the Merchant Navy steering orders were reversed in the 1930’s so that when the order was given to put the helm to port the wheel steered the ship to port – previously it was the other way round as if you were using a tiller the makers simply put the steam and exhaust the other way round rather than redesign obsolete equipment.

 

It was possible to con the ship from the open bridge above the wheelhouse but we weren’t entirely convinced about the condition of the deck so she was always controlled from the wheelhouse.

 

Moving aft was the Galley. This was the site of the fabled ‘Experiment’ Oswald was interested in developing a way of stripping insulation from scrap electrical cable. The cable went into a furnace , heating it ‘burnt off’ the insulation the resultant gas was then collected and burnt in the furnace to heat the cable. The ‘experiment;’ also generated quantities of a rather dubious liquid which was then dumped into the ships fuel tanks, and then burnt, the consequences of which could be ‘interesting’

 

On the boat deck above the galley was the Diesel Generator – OK it isnt a Diesel really the Thermal Cycle is much closer to the British Ackroyd-Stuart engine. This had been installed by Oswald to provide power when the ship was not in steam although we never seemed to run it and generally power was only available when we had steam up.

 

The last space I entered at the stern was the shaft tunnel. I spent an ‘amusing’ day in it with Dan trying to adjust the clearances in the plummer block, the intermediate bearings that supported the propeller shaft.

 

Now on the Manxman it was a doddle, the blocks were mounted on screw wedges to allow for adjustment. Whoever designed Freshspring must have hated marine engineers with a vengance, the only way to adjust the clearance was to jack up the propeller shaft, then put a shim under the block. This was a process that could result in the lucky souls given the task going through Rogers Profanisaurus from A to Z

 

(Rogers Profanisaurus is a Lexicon of Language frequently used in times of excitement or stress, from the publishers of Viz Magazine)

 

The Great Hall of Technology (AKA The Engine & Boiler Rooms)

 

With Instructions on How to Make the (Insert Profanity of Choice) Ship Go

 

 

 

So, lets start in the boiler room. Walking into the boiler room, my eyes fell upon a notice ‘Instructions for Engineers and Others using the Wallsend Howden Oil Fuel System’

 

Basically what happens is that fuel is pressurised by steam driven oil pumps, then heated to its flash point by steam oil heaters before passing into a burner in the furnace. Air for combustion is provided by a steam fan at the base of the funnel.

 

It went on to list all the things we should know about the system, starting with the flash point of the fuel. Well, there was some sort of flammable liquid in the tanks but what it was, let alone what the flash point was was unknown. More importantly however there wasn’t a temperature gauge in the system anyway.

 

Now you may well have spotted a complication from my description of the system – all the boiler services were powered by steam. In the old days starting a ship would probably mean getting a tug alongside to provide a steam supply or as she was an Admiralty vessel get a stationary boiler alongside. Now in 1980’s Bristol no such facilities existed so we had to resort to an auxiliary heater worked by a paraffin blowlamp and a hand operated pump. Later an electric pump was added to help things, but it wasn’t always there. With 45 tons of water to be raised to about 40psi before any of the main systems would start that's quite a job.

 

The other issue with Freshspring’s boiler is that Scotch boilers have fairly poor circulation, this means that you have to heat them through slowly, otherwise you can find that you have 180psi of steam ‘on the clock’ and the bottom is stone cold. This means of course, part of the boiler has expanded but the rest of it hasn't so there are significant expansion stresses set up. One Friday evening I turned up to help raise steam only to find that we had 80psi on the clock, already, steam heat and electricity was on. Basically the boiler crew had just ‘got on with it’ and Oswald had just given birth to a large litter of kittens.

 

Anyway one day it fell to me to help raise steam. Climb into boiler room & nearly blow myself up lighting the blow torch. Open the suction valve from the bunkers and the return to suction on the port side - basically to allow the fuel to circulate as it warms up. With the heater on, start the electric pump & heat the fuel through. After 10 minutes or so shut return to suction, light my torch – rag wrapped round a heavy gauge wire, dipped in parrafin & lit, open the inspection port, oil on and ignite. Bang, fuel ignites, remove torch & flame goes out. I’m about to reinsert the torch when the fuel ignites from burning fuel on the furnace wall, Bang!! Smoke billows out round the smokebox doors. Burner then goes out, reignites etc etc – and the furnace is between me and the exit.

 

Anyway this goes on and on, clouds of black smoke emerge from Freshsprings Funnel. The wind carried it all the way up St Augustines reach, across the Centre and as far as Electricity House on the far side of The Centre. The following day I was away on the Steam Specials for the 150th Anniversary of the GWR, but it seems that someone called the Fire Brigade. Later the oil burners were removed from the Port Furnace and replaced by a rudimentary grate with angle iron fire bars. This allowed steam to be raised using coal which is much simpler, possibly something that might be considered for the future.

 

One rather interesting exchange I had with Oswald was that when we were packing up after a move, he said’ I hope you went easy on the Starboard Furnace John, there’s a mark on the furnace and we don’t know if its a crack or a tooling mark’ ‘Thanks Oz, so I could have been sharing the stokehold with 45 tons of boiling water…….’

 

This of course makes me wonder, did the ship possess a boiler certificate in her Bristol days? I was certainly never aware that the necessary work for an inspection had been done.

 

But when steam was up and the oil burners running there wasn't a lot to do in the boiler room, just have an occasional look at the water level & pressure gauges. Given the size of boiler and the fairly modest demands placed on it it could easily cope with the demands from the engine. If only the generator and auxiliaries were running, once pressure had got to 80psi or so they could run for an hour or so before the burner needed re-lighting.

 

Certainly compared with the engine room, once steam was up the boiler room could be a quite peaceful place as you just kept an eye on everything and listened to the distinctive thump of the main engine.

 

One tip I must give though is make sure the gauge glasses are drained over the winter, one winter they froze and smashed flooding the boiler room.

 

So having got 40psi on the clock what next? Well, one day, admittedly we were only running the machinery at our berth but Oswald asked me to take charge of the machinery so I can go through the procedure from start to finish.

 

Before you start touching the machinery, make sure that all the vents are open and facing into wind, also open the Engine Room skylights – once it gets hot you will never manage to cool the place down so best to stop it getting hot in the first place.

 

To start with everything needs to be oiled.

 

In a car engine its fairly straightforward, as there is no water running around (OK in theory, inspection of the crank case of a Morris Minor once suggests otherwise) In a steam engine however the lubricating oil has to deal with water flying everywhere.

 

Most of the parts will need lubricating with ‘Steam Oil’ The old saying ‘Oil and Water Dont Mix’ was clearly written by someone who had never eaten Mayonnaise. Steam Oil, like Mayonnaise forms an emulsion, ie oil and water mix which retains its lubricating properties which other oils wont. Look on the Morris Lubricants website for more details.

 

From memory the Duplex (up and down) pumps are an ‘oil can’ job. The rotary auxiliaries need Steam Oil in the cylinder lubricator (The little thing driven by a belt) and a crank case oil – in the crank case – there is a dip stick to check.

 

There is no cylinder lubrication on the main engine. The Steam is saturated so lubrication is provided by the water condensed from the steam. If you use superheated steam, like a railway locomotive you have to lubricate the cylinders. On a ship this causes a major problem, as the steam is condensed then reused in the boiler you have to get the oil out again.

 

On the top platform there are a number of small oil reservoirs, these feed into oil pipes via Worsted wicks. You will need to fish these out of the reservoir and put one in each pipe before filling the reservoir up.

 

The oil pipes lead down either to bearings, in the case of the crankshaft bearings, or drip into various oil cups on the wiggly bits.

 

I suggest that you need to spend a bit of time filling all these little cups up, squirt oil onto the crosshead slippers, valve and piston glands etc. Also I have been told that you should turn the engine over at some stage, there is gear to do it by hand, and at the bottom of each crank stroke, check that you can get your hand under the Big End In the good old days junior engineers were expected to check the temperature of the bearings by putting their hand on them – while the engine was running. If there wasnt enough clearance you could lose your fingers.

 

Lubricating an engine like this is called ‘Total Loss’ lubrication, having stood between the main engines of Shieldhall in her working days as she headed towards the dumping grounds at full speed and experienced the joys of being showered in what looks like watery mayonnaise I can fill you in on where the ‘Total Loss’ goes.

 

So with everything oiled, lets get things going…………….

 

The first job is to go and open the ship side valve that is connected to The Circulating Pump, the Atmospheric Valve that connects the Condenser to air, and the drain from the Condenser to the Hotwell Tank.

 

Then you need to go on top of the boiler to open the stop valves, at this stage you only need the auxiliary open a turn or so but you may want to open the rest while you at at it. There is a stop for the main engine that must be fully open and there is also a deck line that supplies the windlass and steering engine.

 

The easy way to open the stops is to lift the hatch at the base of the funnel if you havnt done it already, raise the grating then open them with a wheel spanner. Be warned, you wont get frostbite doing it. If you are of a more masochistic disposition there is a walkway, well crawlway over the top of the boiler. Just dont kneel on the metalwork as it will burn you through your clothing.

 

So, with steam on go into the engine room and open the drains on the auxiliary steam line. These are the brass taps attached to the line. This will drain any water in the line into the bilges. When you stop getting water through it you can close them. The ship is now coming to life!

 

Now, this is the important bit, steam is a gas which can be compressed – squeezed. Water however is a liquid & incompressible. What that means is that if water gets into the steam side of the machinery it can cause damage – for example cracking cylinders. So, before you start any of the auxiliary machinery you need to make sure the drains – the small brass taps are open to clear any water. You will know if they are open as you will see steam & water coming out of the attached pipes.

 

Because you are on a ship, the steam exhaust doesnt go to atmosphere instead it goes to the condenser where it is turned back into water. When the main engine is running it creates a vacuum in the condenser so that means that all the auxiliaries have a stop valve n the exhaust side to prevent air being drawn through them into the condenser when they are not running. So when you start anything you will need to ensure that this is fully open.

 

The next thing is to start the circulating pump, then in no particular order oil units & heater, boiler fan and dynamo (unless you want to be stuck in the dark)

 

The oil pumps are pretty straightforward, they are duplex (Non Rotating) and steam is applied throughout the stroke. Open the drains, then the valve to the exhaust, then crack the steam line open. If it doesnt go, stick the bar in it. The bar, there should be one with each pump allows you to trip the auxiliary shuttle valve which should get it moving. What you then do is gradually open the steam valve until it is running at the required speed. When water stops coming out of the drains you can shut them.

 

Next thing is to start the rotary pumps, fan and dynamo.. As they are single cylinder they wont ‘self start’ Open the drains then the exhaust valve. Crack the steam valve open and you should get water blowing out of the drains. To get the thing going you will need to turn it over. The fan engine has a handwheel on the end of the crank shaft – easy. The sea water pump has a special spanner that you put on the flywheel and give it a spin but the Dynamo has a bar that goes in the flywheel get it turning and hopefully dont get whacked by the bar as it flies out when the engine starts.

 

So with everything ticking over and steam rather than water coming out of the drains turn the steam up – a bit! Again what will happen is that you will get more water coming out of the drains which will eventually clear. Now you can go on deck & look over the starboard side to check that water is coming out of the condenser discharge. If it is, you can close the atmospheric valve so that the exhaust goes into the condenser and is turned back into water.

 

If the Atmospheric Valve is opened, steam is exhausted up the large pipe at the rear of the funnel. I was looking at a painting in the Gallery in Plymouth, I think it was The Lighthouse Newlyn by Alexander Stanhope Forbes from an internet search, although memory tells me that rather than two fishermen it was a man and a woman in the rowing boat. Anyway behind them is a trawler with steam coming out of the exhaust from the Atmospheric. My then Girlfriend was decidedly unimpressed when I pointed this out.

 

So when everything is ticking over nicely close the breaker and put the generator on the board. Let there be light. You may need to adjust the voltage using the field regulator which is located on the ships side by the dynamo – its the box with a handwheel on it sited conveniently in a place where you cant see the voltmeter……….. While it didnt happen on Freshspring, the dynamo is able to start generating current thanks to residual magnetism in the machine. So far so good, but if here is insufficient residual magnetism you cant ‘Excite’ the machine so dont get any volts. I did see a Scottish Stoker – think Dave Lister (Red Dwarf) crossed with Rab C Nesbit attempting to excite a dynamo with a stream of profanity, and a few indecent gestures but it didnt work. You can however connect any battery – the larger the better to the field windings and it should do the trick.

 

The other three auxiliaries are The Cargo Pump and General Service pump on the starboard side forward and the Fire and Salvage Pump aft on the port side.

 

I have never seen the Cargo Pump run, I have however used the General Service (GS) Pump. As its name suggests that GS can pump many things. There are bilge and sea suctions, so you can pump water out of the bilges and over the side, or you can pump from a sea suction and then deliver the water either to cool the condenser, or into the Starboard Fire Main. Anyway, Oz came down into the engine room ‘John, please can you start the GS pump, and connect it to the fire main so we can wash the deck.

 

Sea Suctions open, check, delivery to fire main open – check. Pump started and warmed through. It was just ticking over nice and slow, a few strokes a minute, job done. I emerged on deck. ‘John, please turn the pump off, NOW!’ Some poor Sea Cadet was being blown around the deck by an out of control fire hose. It was clearly a bit more powerful than I thought.

 

On one occasion I was asked to start the fire and salvage pump, there was a Royal Visit coming up and Oz had been offered a monitor – fire fighting water jet, as fitted to tugs and fireboats, that he thought could use water from the fire and salvage pump to make a display. Water on, check. Discharge to starboard fire main, check. Firemain open, check. Open exhaust valve, drains open, crack steam line open and apply bar to start the engine. When water stops coming out of the drains, open the main steam valve a further turn. More water starts coming out of the drains so wait until they run clear again, repeat. With the engine now warmed up I fully opened the steam valve and listened to the whirr as the pump accelerated to full speed.

 

So far, so good, but Oz didnt like the auxiliary stop fully open. As the pump accelerated the lights went out and all the other auxiliaries stopped in the same way way that the lights all go out when you start a car as the pump took all the available steam. The noise of the pump was drowned out by the protests of the crew who I had plunged into darkness.

 

 

 

The Main Engine

 

OK, lets look at the main engine.

 

First you need to get permission from The Bridge to start the engine – even if you are doing a few RPM alongside the ship will start to strain at her moorings and shift.

 

Then check that the propeller is clear of obstructions – there isnt half a treetrunk stuck under the stern or something.

 

So with that done, the stop valves open, and the oiling done the first thing to do is to open the drains, the small handwheels under the cylinder block.

 

Next job is to pull a little spring loaded pull over the air pump, this clears any water above the pump so it doesnt fracture and close the drain from the condenser into the hotwell, this will allow a vacuum to be created once the engine starts working.

 

Next, there is an auxiliary steam range located rather conveniently over your head where you cant read the valves by the controls. Three valves – the Impulse which puts high pressure steam into the low pressure cylinder, more of which anon, the reverser steam – if you dont set it up right it will take your arm off and the Silent Blow Off.

 

Now if ever there was a misnomer, its ‘Silent Blow Off’ The first time I was let loose on the controls I was trying to turn on the Impulse and set up the reverser, instead I opened the ‘Silent Blow Off’ As Marvin The Paranoid Android would have put it, it is a meaning of the word ‘silent’ I am not familiar with. Imagine blowing steam at 100psi into a large metal box, silent it isnt.

 

Now some of you may have been lucky enough to have driven a steam railway locomotive. Most locomotives have two cylinders, cranks at 90 degrees to each other taking steam direct from the boiler. So, as soon as you open the regulator and steam starts to flow into the cylinders they go.

 

Freshspring on the other hand has the standard marine 3 cylinder triple expansion engine, cranks at 120 degrees. So far so good, but unlike a railway locomotive the steam flows sequentially from the high pressure cylinder through the intermediate pressure then into the low pressure cylinder before exhausting into the condenser.

 

So, when you open the throttle it wont necessarily start…………………

 

So, it hasnt started, grab the trigger that controls the impulse and give it a squirt of HP steam in the LP cylinder, still wont (insert profanity of choice) go, try, and believe you me on Freshspring it isnt the simplest of jobs moving the expansion links with the reversing engine.

 

Bear in mind that there is no manual for this and I was relying on what I could remember of watching the engineer on watch on the Bristol Queen as a three year old twenty odd years ago. Eventually the thing will start, even though its layout and controls are rather different.

 

Leave it running slowly for about half an hour or so and it should be nicely warmed through.

 

After about 10 minutes you can shut the drains but its worth just going along the engine after another quarter of an hour and just opening each one for a few seconds to clear any accumulated water.

 

So now its nice and warm, and believe you me, the engine and boiler rooms will be very warm by this stage, you will be ready to move ship.

 

Its worth at this point having a chat with the bridge to see if they know what their first engine movement will be, ahead or astern so you can be set up for it.

 

You will need to turn the engine over so that the crank on the High Pressure cylinder – the smallest one at the forward end of the engine is in the 3 or 9 o’clock position so when you open the throttle the engine turns.

 

The orders come down from the bridge via telegraph, the Captain moves the telegraph handle and the lucky soul on the controls gets the engine turning in the direction and speed the bridge wants.

 

Now the joy of being in the Great Hall of Technology is that its warm and dry, BUT you cant really see out, all you get is a series of orders – which of course as I am more accustomed to driving a desk I never got to be really used to doing. Usually they come through nice and slow but sometimes when they are coming down thick and fast it can be obvious that all is not well, sometimes confirmed by a jolt and a crash.

 

When its all over, turn the burners off, make sure all the valves are shut, take out the trimmings in the lubricators and that's

it.

 

Well, thats how to do it, I never thought that I would stand on Freshspring’s bottom platform again with steam up and the ship ready to move under her own power but now it sems that it may well happen. My consultancy rates are modest – decent Earl Grey and plenty of it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is one of those all too rare posts where a "like / smile / what ever" is just not enough.

 

 

Thanks for posting.

Kev.

 

[Rivercider]

On 05/06/2022 at 23:29, johnofwessex said:

I worked as a volunteer on Freshspring when she was in Bristol in the 80's

 

A copy of an article I wrote about my experiences is below - it wont let me do it as an attachment

 

Tales Too Ticklish To Tell

 

A personal account of Freshspring’s time in Bristol and the joys of being an amateur marine engineer

 

Quite how I got involved with Freshspring when she was in Bristol in the early 1980’s is lost in the mists of time, but as one of my earliest memories is of being taken on the paddle steamer Bristol Queen by my father, followed by trips on my own on Balmoral in P&A Campbell days, membership of the Navy section of the Combined Cadet Force at School, and spending time in the engine room, including being allowed to take the controls of the SS Manxman, perhaps it was only natural that I would find myself on Freshspring at some stage.

 

Having given it some thought I decided that the best way to put my thoughts on paper would be to take you on a tour of the ship and recount some of the things that happened in those parts of the ship, introduce some of the characters involved and talk about what happened whenever the ship moved.

 

Hopefully the Statute of Limitations should protect all of those involved.

 

The People

 

There are three people who I remember by name from this time, others came and went.

 

The owner was Oswald Burgess, I gather that he had bought Freshspring with a ‘businessman’ who had then had to sell his share to Oswald after a problem with his business. Oswald (Oz) had been a marine engineer, serving both at sea and in Ship Repair – it paid better than ship building both were ‘casual’ but shipbuilding jobs lasted longer than ship repair ones. He had worked for two employers in one day. Like many engineers in Bristol he ended up in British Aerospace.

 

The engineering side of things was looked after by Dan Hayman, another retired British Aerospace engineer, he was also a keen cyclist & youth hosteller who didnt own a car. The YHA in Bristol, Hayman House is named after him. Dan had started (I think) at Cammell Laird before going to sea in WW2 then ending up in Bristol and working on the Brabazon, including time as the flight engineer. He certainly both knew his stuff and how to teach muppets like me.

 

Sadly both are now long gone.

 

The last name I remember was Tig. Unlike the others, Tig was a woman in her late 20’s (?) (The question is about her age, not gender) Her previous job had been breaking 2CV’s for parts but then she had decided, much to the annoyance of her by now ex husband to join the Merchant Navy as an engineer officer. To the credit of the college they decided that her one and only ‘O’ level – in Art would at least mean that she could read drawings. Like Dan & Oswald she was a skilled practical engineer.

 

Moving the Ship

 

If you are of a nervous disposition, I suggest that you go and make yourself a nice cup of tea before skipping to the next piece in the magazine

 

Freshspring was normally moored in front of The Industrial Museum in Bristol, I believe that as a ‘Historic’ vessel she got free moorings and in exchange was occasionally opened to the public. From time to time she had to be moved, or on at least one occasion it was decided to take her for a spin. With a crew that were not as practised as might normally be expected, in the confined waters of the City Docks this was not without its moments.

From memory the first time I was aboard her when she moved I brought a friend with me, who was not overly impressed at having to ‘walk a plank’ to get aboard.

 

As we got ready to sail, a youngish couple walked past with their father/father in law, who was down from Fleetwood to help with the decoration of their new house. He was also something of a ship enthusiast having seen the deep water fishing fleet based in the town. After showing an interest Dan invited them aboard. We then set off down the docks.

 

Dad had a ‘peg leg’ and would have made a perfect Long John Silver. He climbed to the foredeck and promptly took over dealing with the ropes in the bow. The young couple simply stood on the main deck looking about as happy as a vampire at a Garlic Festival.

 

The plan was to sail down the docks and turn off the Underfall Yard where the docks are quite wide. I had recently passed my boatmans licence which included a pilotage exam for the City Docks. While the docks are dredged, the area by the Underfall adjacent to the Baltic and Gefle Wharfs has always been rather shallow and when timber ships discharged there they had to moor away from the quay. As we headed towards the Underfall Yard I shouted to the bridge ‘Oswald it gets rather shallow here’ ‘Dont Worry John, its fine’ ‘Oswald we are getting very close to the Barge moored in front of the Yard’ ‘Hang on everyone, somebody has mucked about with the piston valve on the HP Cylinder, we cant put the engine astern’ CRASH and we piled into a WW2 vintage concrete barge moored in front of the Underfall Yard. By this time things were back to normal in The Great Hall of Technology and we went astern and turned without further ado. No concrete barges were damaged in this little jolly.

 

I don’t know if it was on this trip or another one but while turning opposite the Industrial Museum Freshspring went broadside across St Augustines Reach – the stretch of water that leads up to The City Centre. The Captain – not Oswald put her astern and we ended up colliding with the ‘Lochiel’ an ex McBrayne ship that ended her days as a floating pub in Bristol. This was during Sunday Lunch and livened things up no end.

 

Anyway Dad made a great job of tying us up – not a simple task as most of our mooring ropes were to say the least short. He went off with a spring in his step while his son and daughter in law simply seemed glad to be alive.

 

On another occasion we had to move Freshspring from the top of St Augustines Reach by the Watershed back to the front of The Industrial Museum. The first job was to turn her using a spring. This took some time and provided a welcome spectacle on an otherwise wet and windy Saturday and a free coffee from the grateful owners of a nearby sandwich shop who had benefited from the resultant crowd. Now facing the right way, unusually Oswald had the con, usually he had a retired Deck Officer take command but this time he was enjoying the perk of ownership. Normally my role would have been in the engine or boiler room but he asked if I could take the wheel. This led to my conclusion that power steering is never a good idea, why? Well, Freshsprings steering engine is in the wheelhouse and fills it up with Steam……………

 

Waverley had been due to go to Lundy Island that day however the trip had been cancelled due to the weather, instead she had sailed back from Penarth to Avonmouth and buses had then taken passengers into Bristol to enjoy the sights. Several of Waverleys regulars were enjoying the rare sight of a steamship moving in the City Docks. As we headed to our berth, we saw that the Birmingham Navy had occupied part of it despite clear notices not to moor. There was little we could do other than moor, and Oswald made a good job of a bad situation to bring her in, catching the offending cabin cruiser with the stern. This caused hilarity amongst the Waverley passengers who identified me on the wheel.

 

Later I was told that despite not causing any visible damage, the impact had ripped out all the internal bulkheads in the offending craft. However because it was moored in a ‘no mooring’ area there was no claim against ‘Freshspring’

 

But seriously folks, moving the ship didn't always result in disaster, steaming slowly through the docks on a real steam ship was delightful. I only saw her under way in the docks once – I had had to leave to go and work an evening trip on The Docks Ferry. We were astern of Freshspring as she sailed gracefully through Prince Street Bridge – yes, it WAS open! Before tucking neatly into a berth just upstream to make way for a Harbour event.

 

Oh and the marvellous Navy Siren – whoop whoop whoop, if you get the chance blow it!

 

A Tour of The Ship

 

As it was in my days……………

 

Right in the bows was the focsle with the crew accommodation. In those days there were wooden bunks – I seem to remember blankets on them and there was at least one rather nice traditional coal burning stove. There were also some steam heated radiators, and I seem to remember an electric heater.

 

On deck there was the windlass which did work, except that we never seemed to have a length of rope long enough to use with it!

 

Moving aft you then came to the cargo tanks. Now for reasons I don't fully understand these were filled with drinking straws, something I think was to do with Oz’s ‘Experiment’ more of which anon.

 

Then there was the Captains Cabin with the Bridge on top. The bridge was very simple by todays standards with the only thing run by electricity being the lights. Unlike most ships where the steering gear is in the stern, Freshspring’s steering engine is in the wheelhouse, and the valves are of the ‘outside admission’ type – what the uninitiated need to know is that they leak steam. The ‘rod and chain’ mechanism was long obsolete by the time she was built and Dan suspected that when the Merchant Navy steering orders were reversed in the 1930’s so that when the order was given to put the helm to port the wheel steered the ship to port – previously it was the other way round as if you were using a tiller the makers simply put the steam and exhaust the other way round rather than redesign obsolete equipment.

 

It was possible to con the ship from the open bridge above the wheelhouse but we weren’t entirely convinced about the condition of the deck so she was always controlled from the wheelhouse.

 

Moving aft was the Galley. This was the site of the fabled ‘Experiment’ Oswald was interested in developing a way of stripping insulation from scrap electrical cable. The cable went into a furnace , heating it ‘burnt off’ the insulation the resultant gas was then collected and burnt in the furnace to heat the cable. The ‘experiment;’ also generated quantities of a rather dubious liquid which was then dumped into the ships fuel tanks, and then burnt, the consequences of which could be ‘interesting’

 

On the boat deck above the galley was the Diesel Generator – OK it isnt a Diesel really the Thermal Cycle is much closer to the British Ackroyd-Stuart engine. This had been installed by Oswald to provide power when the ship was not in steam although we never seemed to run it and generally power was only available when we had steam up.

 

The last space I entered at the stern was the shaft tunnel. I spent an ‘amusing’ day in it with Dan trying to adjust the clearances in the plummer block, the intermediate bearings that supported the propeller shaft.

 

Now on the Manxman it was a doddle, the blocks were mounted on screw wedges to allow for adjustment. Whoever designed Freshspring must have hated marine engineers with a vengance, the only way to adjust the clearance was to jack up the propeller shaft, then put a shim under the block. This was a process that could result in the lucky souls given the task going through Rogers Profanisaurus from A to Z

 

(Rogers Profanisaurus is a Lexicon of Language frequently used in times of excitement or stress, from the publishers of Viz Magazine)

 

The Great Hall of Technology (AKA The Engine & Boiler Rooms)

 

With Instructions on How to Make the (Insert Profanity of Choice) Ship Go

 

 

 

So, lets start in the boiler room. Walking into the boiler room, my eyes fell upon a notice ‘Instructions for Engineers and Others using the Wallsend Howden Oil Fuel System’

 

Basically what happens is that fuel is pressurised by steam driven oil pumps, then heated to its flash point by steam oil heaters before passing into a burner in the furnace. Air for combustion is provided by a steam fan at the base of the funnel.

 

It went on to list all the things we should know about the system, starting with the flash point of the fuel. Well, there was some sort of flammable liquid in the tanks but what it was, let alone what the flash point was was unknown. More importantly however there wasn’t a temperature gauge in the system anyway.

 

Now you may well have spotted a complication from my description of the system – all the boiler services were powered by steam. In the old days starting a ship would probably mean getting a tug alongside to provide a steam supply or as she was an Admiralty vessel get a stationary boiler alongside. Now in 1980’s Bristol no such facilities existed so we had to resort to an auxiliary heater worked by a paraffin blowlamp and a hand operated pump. Later an electric pump was added to help things, but it wasn’t always there. With 45 tons of water to be raised to about 40psi before any of the main systems would start that's quite a job.

 

The other issue with Freshspring’s boiler is that Scotch boilers have fairly poor circulation, this means that you have to heat them through slowly, otherwise you can find that you have 180psi of steam ‘on the clock’ and the bottom is stone cold. This means of course, part of the boiler has expanded but the rest of it hasn't so there are significant expansion stresses set up. One Friday evening I turned up to help raise steam only to find that we had 80psi on the clock, already, steam heat and electricity was on. Basically the boiler crew had just ‘got on with it’ and Oswald had just given birth to a large litter of kittens.

 

Anyway one day it fell to me to help raise steam. Climb into boiler room & nearly blow myself up lighting the blow torch. Open the suction valve from the bunkers and the return to suction on the port side - basically to allow the fuel to circulate as it warms up. With the heater on, start the electric pump & heat the fuel through. After 10 minutes or so shut return to suction, light my torch – rag wrapped round a heavy gauge wire, dipped in parrafin & lit, open the inspection port, oil on and ignite. Bang, fuel ignites, remove torch & flame goes out. I’m about to reinsert the torch when the fuel ignites from burning fuel on the furnace wall, Bang!! Smoke billows out round the smokebox doors. Burner then goes out, reignites etc etc – and the furnace is between me and the exit.

 

Anyway this goes on and on, clouds of black smoke emerge from Freshsprings Funnel. The wind carried it all the way up St Augustines reach, across the Centre and as far as Electricity House on the far side of The Centre. The following day I was away on the Steam Specials for the 150th Anniversary of the GWR, but it seems that someone called the Fire Brigade. Later the oil burners were removed from the Port Furnace and replaced by a rudimentary grate with angle iron fire bars. This allowed steam to be raised using coal which is much simpler, possibly something that might be considered for the future.

 

One rather interesting exchange I had with Oswald was that when we were packing up after a move, he said’ I hope you went easy on the Starboard Furnace John, there’s a mark on the furnace and we don’t know if its a crack or a tooling mark’ ‘Thanks Oz, so I could have been sharing the stokehold with 45 tons of boiling water…….’

 

This of course makes me wonder, did the ship possess a boiler certificate in her Bristol days? I was certainly never aware that the necessary work for an inspection had been done.

 

But when steam was up and the oil burners running there wasn't a lot to do in the boiler room, just have an occasional look at the water level & pressure gauges. Given the size of boiler and the fairly modest demands placed on it it could easily cope with the demands from the engine. If only the generator and auxiliaries were running, once pressure had got to 80psi or so they could run for an hour or so before the burner needed re-lighting.

 

Certainly compared with the engine room, once steam was up the boiler room could be a quite peaceful place as you just kept an eye on everything and listened to the distinctive thump of the main engine.

 

One tip I must give though is make sure the gauge glasses are drained over the winter, one winter they froze and smashed flooding the boiler room.

 

So having got 40psi on the clock what next? Well, one day, admittedly we were only running the machinery at our berth but Oswald asked me to take charge of the machinery so I can go through the procedure from start to finish.

 

Before you start touching the machinery, make sure that all the vents are open and facing into wind, also open the Engine Room skylights – once it gets hot you will never manage to cool the place down so best to stop it getting hot in the first place.

 

To start with everything needs to be oiled.

 

In a car engine its fairly straightforward, as there is no water running around (OK in theory, inspection of the crank case of a Morris Minor once suggests otherwise) In a steam engine however the lubricating oil has to deal with water flying everywhere.

 

Most of the parts will need lubricating with ‘Steam Oil’ The old saying ‘Oil and Water Dont Mix’ was clearly written by someone who had never eaten Mayonnaise. Steam Oil, like Mayonnaise forms an emulsion, ie oil and water mix which retains its lubricating properties which other oils wont. Look on the Morris Lubricants website for more details.

 

From memory the Duplex (up and down) pumps are an ‘oil can’ job. The rotary auxiliaries need Steam Oil in the cylinder lubricator (The little thing driven by a belt) and a crank case oil – in the crank case – there is a dip stick to check.

 

There is no cylinder lubrication on the main engine. The Steam is saturated so lubrication is provided by the water condensed from the steam. If you use superheated steam, like a railway locomotive you have to lubricate the cylinders. On a ship this causes a major problem, as the steam is condensed then reused in the boiler you have to get the oil out again.

 

On the top platform there are a number of small oil reservoirs, these feed into oil pipes via Worsted wicks. You will need to fish these out of the reservoir and put one in each pipe before filling the reservoir up.

 

The oil pipes lead down either to bearings, in the case of the crankshaft bearings, or drip into various oil cups on the wiggly bits.

 

I suggest that you need to spend a bit of time filling all these little cups up, squirt oil onto the crosshead slippers, valve and piston glands etc. Also I have been told that you should turn the engine over at some stage, there is gear to do it by hand, and at the bottom of each crank stroke, check that you can get your hand under the Big End In the good old days junior engineers were expected to check the temperature of the bearings by putting their hand on them – while the engine was running. If there wasnt enough clearance you could lose your fingers.

 

Lubricating an engine like this is called ‘Total Loss’ lubrication, having stood between the main engines of Shieldhall in her working days as she headed towards the dumping grounds at full speed and experienced the joys of being showered in what looks like watery mayonnaise I can fill you in on where the ‘Total Loss’ goes.

 

So with everything oiled, lets get things going…………….

 

The first job is to go and open the ship side valve that is connected to The Circulating Pump, the Atmospheric Valve that connects the Condenser to air, and the drain from the Condenser to the Hotwell Tank.

 

Then you need to go on top of the boiler to open the stop valves, at this stage you only need the auxiliary open a turn or so but you may want to open the rest while you at at it. There is a stop for the main engine that must be fully open and there is also a deck line that supplies the windlass and steering engine.

 

The easy way to open the stops is to lift the hatch at the base of the funnel if you havnt done it already, raise the grating then open them with a wheel spanner. Be warned, you wont get frostbite doing it. If you are of a more masochistic disposition there is a walkway, well crawlway over the top of the boiler. Just dont kneel on the metalwork as it will burn you through your clothing.

 

So, with steam on go into the engine room and open the drains on the auxiliary steam line. These are the brass taps attached to the line. This will drain any water in the line into the bilges. When you stop getting water through it you can close them. The ship is now coming to life!

 

Now, this is the important bit, steam is a gas which can be compressed – squeezed. Water however is a liquid & incompressible. What that means is that if water gets into the steam side of the machinery it can cause damage – for example cracking cylinders. So, before you start any of the auxiliary machinery you need to make sure the drains – the small brass taps are open to clear any water. You will know if they are open as you will see steam & water coming out of the attached pipes.

 

Because you are on a ship, the steam exhaust doesnt go to atmosphere instead it goes to the condenser where it is turned back into water. When the main engine is running it creates a vacuum in the condenser so that means that all the auxiliaries have a stop valve n the exhaust side to prevent air being drawn through them into the condenser when they are not running. So when you start anything you will need to ensure that this is fully open.

 

The next thing is to start the circulating pump, then in no particular order oil units & heater, boiler fan and dynamo (unless you want to be stuck in the dark)

 

The oil pumps are pretty straightforward, they are duplex (Non Rotating) and steam is applied throughout the stroke. Open the drains, then the valve to the exhaust, then crack the steam line open. If it doesnt go, stick the bar in it. The bar, there should be one with each pump allows you to trip the auxiliary shuttle valve which should get it moving. What you then do is gradually open the steam valve until it is running at the required speed. When water stops coming out of the drains you can shut them.

 

Next thing is to start the rotary pumps, fan and dynamo.. As they are single cylinder they wont ‘self start’ Open the drains then the exhaust valve. Crack the steam valve open and you should get water blowing out of the drains. To get the thing going you will need to turn it over. The fan engine has a handwheel on the end of the crank shaft – easy. The sea water pump has a special spanner that you put on the flywheel and give it a spin but the Dynamo has a bar that goes in the flywheel get it turning and hopefully dont get whacked by the bar as it flies out when the engine starts.

 

So with everything ticking over and steam rather than water coming out of the drains turn the steam up – a bit! Again what will happen is that you will get more water coming out of the drains which will eventually clear. Now you can go on deck & look over the starboard side to check that water is coming out of the condenser discharge. If it is, you can close the atmospheric valve so that the exhaust goes into the condenser and is turned back into water.

 

If the Atmospheric Valve is opened, steam is exhausted up the large pipe at the rear of the funnel. I was looking at a painting in the Gallery in Plymouth, I think it was The Lighthouse Newlyn by Alexander Stanhope Forbes from an internet search, although memory tells me that rather than two fishermen it was a man and a woman in the rowing boat. Anyway behind them is a trawler with steam coming out of the exhaust from the Atmospheric. My then Girlfriend was decidedly unimpressed when I pointed this out.

 

So when everything is ticking over nicely close the breaker and put the generator on the board. Let there be light. You may need to adjust the voltage using the field regulator which is located on the ships side by the dynamo – its the box with a handwheel on it sited conveniently in a place where you cant see the voltmeter……….. While it didnt happen on Freshspring, the dynamo is able to start generating current thanks to residual magnetism in the machine. So far so good, but if here is insufficient residual magnetism you cant ‘Excite’ the machine so dont get any volts. I did see a Scottish Stoker – think Dave Lister (Red Dwarf) crossed with Rab C Nesbit attempting to excite a dynamo with a stream of profanity, and a few indecent gestures but it didnt work. You can however connect any battery – the larger the better to the field windings and it should do the trick.

 

The other three auxiliaries are The Cargo Pump and General Service pump on the starboard side forward and the Fire and Salvage Pump aft on the port side.

 

I have never seen the Cargo Pump run, I have however used the General Service (GS) Pump. As its name suggests that GS can pump many things. There are bilge and sea suctions, so you can pump water out of the bilges and over the side, or you can pump from a sea suction and then deliver the water either to cool the condenser, or into the Starboard Fire Main. Anyway, Oz came down into the engine room ‘John, please can you start the GS pump, and connect it to the fire main so we can wash the deck.

 

Sea Suctions open, check, delivery to fire main open – check. Pump started and warmed through. It was just ticking over nice and slow, a few strokes a minute, job done. I emerged on deck. ‘John, please turn the pump off, NOW!’ Some poor Sea Cadet was being blown around the deck by an out of control fire hose. It was clearly a bit more powerful than I thought.

 

On one occasion I was asked to start the fire and salvage pump, there was a Royal Visit coming up and Oz had been offered a monitor – fire fighting water jet, as fitted to tugs and fireboats, that he thought could use water from the fire and salvage pump to make a display. Water on, check. Discharge to starboard fire main, check. Firemain open, check. Open exhaust valve, drains open, crack steam line open and apply bar to start the engine. When water stops coming out of the drains, open the main steam valve a further turn. More water starts coming out of the drains so wait until they run clear again, repeat. With the engine now warmed up I fully opened the steam valve and listened to the whirr as the pump accelerated to full speed.

 

So far, so good, but Oz didnt like the auxiliary stop fully open. As the pump accelerated the lights went out and all the other auxiliaries stopped in the same way way that the lights all go out when you start a car as the pump took all the available steam. The noise of the pump was drowned out by the protests of the crew who I had plunged into darkness.

 

 

 

The Main Engine

 

OK, lets look at the main engine.

 

First you need to get permission from The Bridge to start the engine – even if you are doing a few RPM alongside the ship will start to strain at her moorings and shift.

 

Then check that the propeller is clear of obstructions – there isnt half a treetrunk stuck under the stern or something.

 

So with that done, the stop valves open, and the oiling done the first thing to do is to open the drains, the small handwheels under the cylinder block.

 

Next job is to pull a little spring loaded pull over the air pump, this clears any water above the pump so it doesnt fracture and close the drain from the condenser into the hotwell, this will allow a vacuum to be created once the engine starts working.

 

Next, there is an auxiliary steam range located rather conveniently over your head where you cant read the valves by the controls. Three valves – the Impulse which puts high pressure steam into the low pressure cylinder, more of which anon, the reverser steam – if you dont set it up right it will take your arm off and the Silent Blow Off.

 

Now if ever there was a misnomer, its ‘Silent Blow Off’ The first time I was let loose on the controls I was trying to turn on the Impulse and set up the reverser, instead I opened the ‘Silent Blow Off’ As Marvin The Paranoid Android would have put it, it is a meaning of the word ‘silent’ I am not familiar with. Imagine blowing steam at 100psi into a large metal box, silent it isnt.

 

Now some of you may have been lucky enough to have driven a steam railway locomotive. Most locomotives have two cylinders, cranks at 90 degrees to each other taking steam direct from the boiler. So, as soon as you open the regulator and steam starts to flow into the cylinders they go.

 

Freshspring on the other hand has the standard marine 3 cylinder triple expansion engine, cranks at 120 degrees. So far so good, but unlike a railway locomotive the steam flows sequentially from the high pressure cylinder through the intermediate pressure then into the low pressure cylinder before exhausting into the condenser.

 

So, when you open the throttle it wont necessarily start…………………

 

So, it hasnt started, grab the trigger that controls the impulse and give it a squirt of HP steam in the LP cylinder, still wont (insert profanity of choice) go, try, and believe you me on Freshspring it isnt the simplest of jobs moving the expansion links with the reversing engine.

 

Bear in mind that there is no manual for this and I was relying on what I could remember of watching the engineer on watch on the Bristol Queen as a three year old twenty odd years ago. Eventually the thing will start, even though its layout and controls are rather different.

 

Leave it running slowly for about half an hour or so and it should be nicely warmed through.

 

After about 10 minutes you can shut the drains but its worth just going along the engine after another quarter of an hour and just opening each one for a few seconds to clear any accumulated water.

 

So now its nice and warm, and believe you me, the engine and boiler rooms will be very warm by this stage, you will be ready to move ship.

 

Its worth at this point having a chat with the bridge to see if they know what their first engine movement will be, ahead or astern so you can be set up for it.

 

You will need to turn the engine over so that the crank on the High Pressure cylinder – the smallest one at the forward end of the engine is in the 3 or 9 o’clock position so when you open the throttle the engine turns.

 

The orders come down from the bridge via telegraph, the Captain moves the telegraph handle and the lucky soul on the controls gets the engine turning in the direction and speed the bridge wants.

 

Now the joy of being in the Great Hall of Technology is that its warm and dry, BUT you cant really see out, all you get is a series of orders – which of course as I am more accustomed to driving a desk I never got to be really used to doing. Usually they come through nice and slow but sometimes when they are coming down thick and fast it can be obvious that all is not well, sometimes confirmed by a jolt and a crash.

 

When its all over, turn the burners off, make sure all the valves are shut, take out the trimmings in the lubricators and that's

it.

 

Well, thats how to do it, I never thought that I would stand on Freshspring’s bottom platform again with steam up and the ship ready to move under her own power but now it sems that it may well happen. My consultancy rates are modest – decent Earl Grey and plenty of it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for that insight.

I see the Freshspring is open to the public at weekends. I have not so far been there at the right time, but one day I will get to make a visit.

Here are some photos I took back in 2019 when I walked the other side of the Torridge on my South West Coast Path walk from Bideford to Appledore. That day I also visited the excellent Appledore Maritime Museum.

 

 

Freshspring at Bideford 10/4/2019

 

cheers

[johnofwessex]

If anyone is in urgent need of a stoker I may be available.

[Tankerman]

On 21/05/2022 at 21:44, New Haven Neil said:

Came across this shot on line recently, takes me back.

 

Changing a piston on a Sulzer slow speed engine, looks like an RD90 or RND90 series - 90cm bore.  Gives an idea to laymen just how big these 'Cathedral' engines are.

 

 

That's the second topic I've read this morning which has brought back memories of things long past. As Lecky I was the crane driver a few times.

[Tankerman]

On 05/06/2022 at 23:29, johnofwessex said:

I worked as a volunteer on Freshspring when she was in Bristol in the 80's

 

A copy of an article I wrote about my experiences is below - it wont let me do it as an attachment

 

Tales Too Ticklish To Tell

 

A personal account of Freshspring’s time in Bristol and the joys of being an amateur marine engineer

 

Quite how I got involved with Freshspring when she was in Bristol in the early 1980’s is lost in the mists of time, but as one of my earliest memories is of being taken on the paddle steamer Bristol Queen by my father, followed by trips on my own on Balmoral in P&A Campbell days, membership of the Navy section of the Combined Cadet Force at School, and spending time in the engine room, including being allowed to take the controls of the SS Manxman, perhaps it was only natural that I would find myself on Freshspring at some stage.

 

Having given it some thought I decided that the best way to put my thoughts on paper would be to take you on a tour of the ship and recount some of the things that happened in those parts of the ship, introduce some of the characters involved and talk about what happened whenever the ship moved.

 

Hopefully the Statute of Limitations should protect all of those involved.

 

The People

 

There are three people who I remember by name from this time, others came and went.

 

The owner was Oswald Burgess, I gather that he had bought Freshspring with a ‘businessman’ who had then had to sell his share to Oswald after a problem with his business. Oswald (Oz) had been a marine engineer, serving both at sea and in Ship Repair – it paid better than ship building both were ‘casual’ but shipbuilding jobs lasted longer than ship repair ones. He had worked for two employers in one day. Like many engineers in Bristol he ended up in British Aerospace.

 

The engineering side of things was looked after by Dan Hayman, another retired British Aerospace engineer, he was also a keen cyclist & youth hosteller who didnt own a car. The YHA in Bristol, Hayman House is named after him. Dan had started (I think) at Cammell Laird before going to sea in WW2 then ending up in Bristol and working on the Brabazon, including time as the flight engineer. He certainly both knew his stuff and how to teach muppets like me.

 

Sadly both are now long gone.

 

The last name I remember was Tig. Unlike the others, Tig was a woman in her late 20’s (?) (The question is about her age, not gender) Her previous job had been breaking 2CV’s for parts but then she had decided, much to the annoyance of her by now ex husband to join the Merchant Navy as an engineer officer. To the credit of the college they decided that her one and only ‘O’ level – in Art would at least mean that she could read drawings. Like Dan & Oswald she was a skilled practical engineer.

 

Moving the Ship

 

If you are of a nervous disposition, I suggest that you go and make yourself a nice cup of tea before skipping to the next piece in the magazine

 

Freshspring was normally moored in front of The Industrial Museum in Bristol, I believe that as a ‘Historic’ vessel she got free moorings and in exchange was occasionally opened to the public. From time to time she had to be moved, or on at least one occasion it was decided to take her for a spin. With a crew that were not as practised as might normally be expected, in the confined waters of the City Docks this was not without its moments.

From memory the first time I was aboard her when she moved I brought a friend with me, who was not overly impressed at having to ‘walk a plank’ to get aboard.

 

As we got ready to sail, a youngish couple walked past with their father/father in law, who was down from Fleetwood to help with the decoration of their new house. He was also something of a ship enthusiast having seen the deep water fishing fleet based in the town. After showing an interest Dan invited them aboard. We then set off down the docks.

 

Dad had a ‘peg leg’ and would have made a perfect Long John Silver. He climbed to the foredeck and promptly took over dealing with the ropes in the bow. The young couple simply stood on the main deck looking about as happy as a vampire at a Garlic Festival.

 

The plan was to sail down the docks and turn off the Underfall Yard where the docks are quite wide. I had recently passed my boatmans licence which included a pilotage exam for the City Docks. While the docks are dredged, the area by the Underfall adjacent to the Baltic and Gefle Wharfs has always been rather shallow and when timber ships discharged there they had to moor away from the quay. As we headed towards the Underfall Yard I shouted to the bridge ‘Oswald it gets rather shallow here’ ‘Dont Worry John, its fine’ ‘Oswald we are getting very close to the Barge moored in front of the Yard’ ‘Hang on everyone, somebody has mucked about with the piston valve on the HP Cylinder, we cant put the engine astern’ CRASH and we piled into a WW2 vintage concrete barge moored in front of the Underfall Yard. By this time things were back to normal in The Great Hall of Technology and we went astern and turned without further ado. No concrete barges were damaged in this little jolly.

 

I don’t know if it was on this trip or another one but while turning opposite the Industrial Museum Freshspring went broadside across St Augustines Reach – the stretch of water that leads up to The City Centre. The Captain – not Oswald put her astern and we ended up colliding with the ‘Lochiel’ an ex McBrayne ship that ended her days as a floating pub in Bristol. This was during Sunday Lunch and livened things up no end.

 

Anyway Dad made a great job of tying us up – not a simple task as most of our mooring ropes were to say the least short. He went off with a spring in his step while his son and daughter in law simply seemed glad to be alive.

 

On another occasion we had to move Freshspring from the top of St Augustines Reach by the Watershed back to the front of The Industrial Museum. The first job was to turn her using a spring. This took some time and provided a welcome spectacle on an otherwise wet and windy Saturday and a free coffee from the grateful owners of a nearby sandwich shop who had benefited from the resultant crowd. Now facing the right way, unusually Oswald had the con, usually he had a retired Deck Officer take command but this time he was enjoying the perk of ownership. Normally my role would have been in the engine or boiler room but he asked if I could take the wheel. This led to my conclusion that power steering is never a good idea, why? Well, Freshsprings steering engine is in the wheelhouse and fills it up with Steam……………

 

Waverley had been due to go to Lundy Island that day however the trip had been cancelled due to the weather, instead she had sailed back from Penarth to Avonmouth and buses had then taken passengers into Bristol to enjoy the sights. Several of Waverleys regulars were enjoying the rare sight of a steamship moving in the City Docks. As we headed to our berth, we saw that the Birmingham Navy had occupied part of it despite clear notices not to moor. There was little we could do other than moor, and Oswald made a good job of a bad situation to bring her in, catching the offending cabin cruiser with the stern. This caused hilarity amongst the Waverley passengers who identified me on the wheel.

 

Later I was told that despite not causing any visible damage, the impact had ripped out all the internal bulkheads in the offending craft. However because it was moored in a ‘no mooring’ area there was no claim against ‘Freshspring’

 

But seriously folks, moving the ship didn't always result in disaster, steaming slowly through the docks on a real steam ship was delightful. I only saw her under way in the docks once – I had had to leave to go and work an evening trip on The Docks Ferry. We were astern of Freshspring as she sailed gracefully through Prince Street Bridge – yes, it WAS open! Before tucking neatly into a berth just upstream to make way for a Harbour event.

 

Oh and the marvellous Navy Siren – whoop whoop whoop, if you get the chance blow it!

 

A Tour of The Ship

 

As it was in my days……………

 

Right in the bows was the focsle with the crew accommodation. In those days there were wooden bunks – I seem to remember blankets on them and there was at least one rather nice traditional coal burning stove. There were also some steam heated radiators, and I seem to remember an electric heater.

 

On deck there was the windlass which did work, except that we never seemed to have a length of rope long enough to use with it!

 

Moving aft you then came to the cargo tanks. Now for reasons I don't fully understand these were filled with drinking straws, something I think was to do with Oz’s ‘Experiment’ more of which anon.

 

Then there was the Captains Cabin with the Bridge on top. The bridge was very simple by todays standards with the only thing run by electricity being the lights. Unlike most ships where the steering gear is in the stern, Freshspring’s steering engine is in the wheelhouse, and the valves are of the ‘outside admission’ type – what the uninitiated need to know is that they leak steam. The ‘rod and chain’ mechanism was long obsolete by the time she was built and Dan suspected that when the Merchant Navy steering orders were reversed in the 1930’s so that when the order was given to put the helm to port the wheel steered the ship to port – previously it was the other way round as if you were using a tiller the makers simply put the steam and exhaust the other way round rather than redesign obsolete equipment.

 

It was possible to con the ship from the open bridge above the wheelhouse but we weren’t entirely convinced about the condition of the deck so she was always controlled from the wheelhouse.

 

Moving aft was the Galley. This was the site of the fabled ‘Experiment’ Oswald was interested in developing a way of stripping insulation from scrap electrical cable. The cable went into a furnace , heating it ‘burnt off’ the insulation the resultant gas was then collected and burnt in the furnace to heat the cable. The ‘experiment;’ also generated quantities of a rather dubious liquid which was then dumped into the ships fuel tanks, and then burnt, the consequences of which could be ‘interesting’

 

On the boat deck above the galley was the Diesel Generator – OK it isnt a Diesel really the Thermal Cycle is much closer to the British Ackroyd-Stuart engine. This had been installed by Oswald to provide power when the ship was not in steam although we never seemed to run it and generally power was only available when we had steam up.

 

The last space I entered at the stern was the shaft tunnel. I spent an ‘amusing’ day in it with Dan trying to adjust the clearances in the plummer block, the intermediate bearings that supported the propeller shaft.

 

Now on the Manxman it was a doddle, the blocks were mounted on screw wedges to allow for adjustment. Whoever designed Freshspring must have hated marine engineers with a vengance, the only way to adjust the clearance was to jack up the propeller shaft, then put a shim under the block. This was a process that could result in the lucky souls given the task going through Rogers Profanisaurus from A to Z

 

(Rogers Profanisaurus is a Lexicon of Language frequently used in times of excitement or stress, from the publishers of Viz Magazine)

 

The Great Hall of Technology (AKA The Engine & Boiler Rooms)

 

With Instructions on How to Make the (Insert Profanity of Choice) Ship Go

 

 

 

So, lets start in the boiler room. Walking into the boiler room, my eyes fell upon a notice ‘Instructions for Engineers and Others using the Wallsend Howden Oil Fuel System’

 

Basically what happens is that fuel is pressurised by steam driven oil pumps, then heated to its flash point by steam oil heaters before passing into a burner in the furnace. Air for combustion is provided by a steam fan at the base of the funnel.

 

It went on to list all the things we should know about the system, starting with the flash point of the fuel. Well, there was some sort of flammable liquid in the tanks but what it was, let alone what the flash point was was unknown. More importantly however there wasn’t a temperature gauge in the system anyway.

 

Now you may well have spotted a complication from my description of the system – all the boiler services were powered by steam. In the old days starting a ship would probably mean getting a tug alongside to provide a steam supply or as she was an Admiralty vessel get a stationary boiler alongside. Now in 1980’s Bristol no such facilities existed so we had to resort to an auxiliary heater worked by a paraffin blowlamp and a hand operated pump. Later an electric pump was added to help things, but it wasn’t always there. With 45 tons of water to be raised to about 40psi before any of the main systems would start that's quite a job.

 

The other issue with Freshspring’s boiler is that Scotch boilers have fairly poor circulation, this means that you have to heat them through slowly, otherwise you can find that you have 180psi of steam ‘on the clock’ and the bottom is stone cold. This means of course, part of the boiler has expanded but the rest of it hasn't so there are significant expansion stresses set up. One Friday evening I turned up to help raise steam only to find that we had 80psi on the clock, already, steam heat and electricity was on. Basically the boiler crew had just ‘got on with it’ and Oswald had just given birth to a large litter of kittens.

 

Anyway one day it fell to me to help raise steam. Climb into boiler room & nearly blow myself up lighting the blow torch. Open the suction valve from the bunkers and the return to suction on the port side - basically to allow the fuel to circulate as it warms up. With the heater on, start the electric pump & heat the fuel through. After 10 minutes or so shut return to suction, light my torch – rag wrapped round a heavy gauge wire, dipped in parrafin & lit, open the inspection port, oil on and ignite. Bang, fuel ignites, remove torch & flame goes out. I’m about to reinsert the torch when the fuel ignites from burning fuel on the furnace wall, Bang!! Smoke billows out round the smokebox doors. Burner then goes out, reignites etc etc – and the furnace is between me and the exit.

 

Anyway this goes on and on, clouds of black smoke emerge from Freshsprings Funnel. The wind carried it all the way up St Augustines reach, across the Centre and as far as Electricity House on the far side of The Centre. The following day I was away on the Steam Specials for the 150th Anniversary of the GWR, but it seems that someone called the Fire Brigade. Later the oil burners were removed from the Port Furnace and replaced by a rudimentary grate with angle iron fire bars. This allowed steam to be raised using coal which is much simpler, possibly something that might be considered for the future.

 

One rather interesting exchange I had with Oswald was that when we were packing up after a move, he said’ I hope you went easy on the Starboard Furnace John, there’s a mark on the furnace and we don’t know if its a crack or a tooling mark’ ‘Thanks Oz, so I could have been sharing the stokehold with 45 tons of boiling water…….’

 

This of course makes me wonder, did the ship possess a boiler certificate in her Bristol days? I was certainly never aware that the necessary work for an inspection had been done.

 

But when steam was up and the oil burners running there wasn't a lot to do in the boiler room, just have an occasional look at the water level & pressure gauges. Given the size of boiler and the fairly modest demands placed on it it could easily cope with the demands from the engine. If only the generator and auxiliaries were running, once pressure had got to 80psi or so they could run for an hour or so before the burner needed re-lighting.

 

Certainly compared with the engine room, once steam was up the boiler room could be a quite peaceful place as you just kept an eye on everything and listened to the distinctive thump of the main engine.

 

One tip I must give though is make sure the gauge glasses are drained over the winter, one winter they froze and smashed flooding the boiler room.

 

So having got 40psi on the clock what next? Well, one day, admittedly we were only running the machinery at our berth but Oswald asked me to take charge of the machinery so I can go through the procedure from start to finish.

 

Before you start touching the machinery, make sure that all the vents are open and facing into wind, also open the Engine Room skylights – once it gets hot you will never manage to cool the place down so best to stop it getting hot in the first place.

 

To start with everything needs to be oiled.

 

In a car engine its fairly straightforward, as there is no water running around (OK in theory, inspection of the crank case of a Morris Minor once suggests otherwise) In a steam engine however the lubricating oil has to deal with water flying everywhere.

 

Most of the parts will need lubricating with ‘Steam Oil’ The old saying ‘Oil and Water Dont Mix’ was clearly written by someone who had never eaten Mayonnaise. Steam Oil, like Mayonnaise forms an emulsion, ie oil and water mix which retains its lubricating properties which other oils wont. Look on the Morris Lubricants website for more details.

 

From memory the Duplex (up and down) pumps are an ‘oil can’ job. The rotary auxiliaries need Steam Oil in the cylinder lubricator (The little thing driven by a belt) and a crank case oil – in the crank case – there is a dip stick to check.

 

There is no cylinder lubrication on the main engine. The Steam is saturated so lubrication is provided by the water condensed from the steam. If you use superheated steam, like a railway locomotive you have to lubricate the cylinders. On a ship this causes a major problem, as the steam is condensed then reused in the boiler you have to get the oil out again.

 

On the top platform there are a number of small oil reservoirs, these feed into oil pipes via Worsted wicks. You will need to fish these out of the reservoir and put one in each pipe before filling the reservoir up.

 

The oil pipes lead down either to bearings, in the case of the crankshaft bearings, or drip into various oil cups on the wiggly bits.

 

I suggest that you need to spend a bit of time filling all these little cups up, squirt oil onto the crosshead slippers, valve and piston glands etc. Also I have been told that you should turn the engine over at some stage, there is gear to do it by hand, and at the bottom of each crank stroke, check that you can get your hand under the Big End In the good old days junior engineers were expected to check the temperature of the bearings by putting their hand on them – while the engine was running. If there wasnt enough clearance you could lose your fingers.

 

Lubricating an engine like this is called ‘Total Loss’ lubrication, having stood between the main engines of Shieldhall in her working days as she headed towards the dumping grounds at full speed and experienced the joys of being showered in what looks like watery mayonnaise I can fill you in on where the ‘Total Loss’ goes.

 

So with everything oiled, lets get things going…………….

 

The first job is to go and open the ship side valve that is connected to The Circulating Pump, the Atmospheric Valve that connects the Condenser to air, and the drain from the Condenser to the Hotwell Tank.

 

Then you need to go on top of the boiler to open the stop valves, at this stage you only need the auxiliary open a turn or so but you may want to open the rest while you at at it. There is a stop for the main engine that must be fully open and there is also a deck line that supplies the windlass and steering engine.

 

The easy way to open the stops is to lift the hatch at the base of the funnel if you havnt done it already, raise the grating then open them with a wheel spanner. Be warned, you wont get frostbite doing it. If you are of a more masochistic disposition there is a walkway, well crawlway over the top of the boiler. Just dont kneel on the metalwork as it will burn you through your clothing.

 

So, with steam on go into the engine room and open the drains on the auxiliary steam line. These are the brass taps attached to the line. This will drain any water in the line into the bilges. When you stop getting water through it you can close them. The ship is now coming to life!

 

Now, this is the important bit, steam is a gas which can be compressed – squeezed. Water however is a liquid & incompressible. What that means is that if water gets into the steam side of the machinery it can cause damage – for example cracking cylinders. So, before you start any of the auxiliary machinery you need to make sure the drains – the small brass taps are open to clear any water. You will know if they are open as you will see steam & water coming out of the attached pipes.

 

Because you are on a ship, the steam exhaust doesnt go to atmosphere instead it goes to the condenser where it is turned back into water. When the main engine is running it creates a vacuum in the condenser so that means that all the auxiliaries have a stop valve n the exhaust side to prevent air being drawn through them into the condenser when they are not running. So when you start anything you will need to ensure that this is fully open.

 

The next thing is to start the circulating pump, then in no particular order oil units & heater, boiler fan and dynamo (unless you want to be stuck in the dark)

 

The oil pumps are pretty straightforward, they are duplex (Non Rotating) and steam is applied throughout the stroke. Open the drains, then the valve to the exhaust, then crack the steam line open. If it doesnt go, stick the bar in it. The bar, there should be one with each pump allows you to trip the auxiliary shuttle valve which should get it moving. What you then do is gradually open the steam valve until it is running at the required speed. When water stops coming out of the drains you can shut them.

 

Next thing is to start the rotary pumps, fan and dynamo.. As they are single cylinder they wont ‘self start’ Open the drains then the exhaust valve. Crack the steam valve open and you should get water blowing out of the drains. To get the thing going you will need to turn it over. The fan engine has a handwheel on the end of the crank shaft – easy. The sea water pump has a special spanner that you put on the flywheel and give it a spin but the Dynamo has a bar that goes in the flywheel get it turning and hopefully dont get whacked by the bar as it flies out when the engine starts.

 

So with everything ticking over and steam rather than water coming out of the drains turn the steam up – a bit! Again what will happen is that you will get more water coming out of the drains which will eventually clear. Now you can go on deck & look over the starboard side to check that water is coming out of the condenser discharge. If it is, you can close the atmospheric valve so that the exhaust goes into the condenser and is turned back into water.

 

If the Atmospheric Valve is opened, steam is exhausted up the large pipe at the rear of the funnel. I was looking at a painting in the Gallery in Plymouth, I think it was The Lighthouse Newlyn by Alexander Stanhope Forbes from an internet search, although memory tells me that rather than two fishermen it was a man and a woman in the rowing boat. Anyway behind them is a trawler with steam coming out of the exhaust from the Atmospheric. My then Girlfriend was decidedly unimpressed when I pointed this out.

 

So when everything is ticking over nicely close the breaker and put the generator on the board. Let there be light. You may need to adjust the voltage using the field regulator which is located on the ships side by the dynamo – its the box with a handwheel on it sited conveniently in a place where you cant see the voltmeter……….. While it didnt happen on Freshspring, the dynamo is able to start generating current thanks to residual magnetism in the machine. So far so good, but if here is insufficient residual magnetism you cant ‘Excite’ the machine so dont get any volts. I did see a Scottish Stoker – think Dave Lister (Red Dwarf) crossed with Rab C Nesbit attempting to excite a dynamo with a stream of profanity, and a few indecent gestures but it didnt work. You can however connect any battery – the larger the better to the field windings and it should do the trick.

 

The other three auxiliaries are The Cargo Pump and General Service pump on the starboard side forward and the Fire and Salvage Pump aft on the port side.

 

I have never seen the Cargo Pump run, I have however used the General Service (GS) Pump. As its name suggests that GS can pump many things. There are bilge and sea suctions, so you can pump water out of the bilges and over the side, or you can pump from a sea suction and then deliver the water either to cool the condenser, or into the Starboard Fire Main. Anyway, Oz came down into the engine room ‘John, please can you start the GS pump, and connect it to the fire main so we can wash the deck.

 

Sea Suctions open, check, delivery to fire main open – check. Pump started and warmed through. It was just ticking over nice and slow, a few strokes a minute, job done. I emerged on deck. ‘John, please turn the pump off, NOW!’ Some poor Sea Cadet was being blown around the deck by an out of control fire hose. It was clearly a bit more powerful than I thought.

 

On one occasion I was asked to start the fire and salvage pump, there was a Royal Visit coming up and Oz had been offered a monitor – fire fighting water jet, as fitted to tugs and fireboats, that he thought could use water from the fire and salvage pump to make a display. Water on, check. Discharge to starboard fire main, check. Firemain open, check. Open exhaust valve, drains open, crack steam line open and apply bar to start the engine. When water stops coming out of the drains, open the main steam valve a further turn. More water starts coming out of the drains so wait until they run clear again, repeat. With the engine now warmed up I fully opened the steam valve and listened to the whirr as the pump accelerated to full speed.

 

So far, so good, but Oz didnt like the auxiliary stop fully open. As the pump accelerated the lights went out and all the other auxiliaries stopped in the same way way that the lights all go out when you start a car as the pump took all the available steam. The noise of the pump was drowned out by the protests of the crew who I had plunged into darkness.

 

 

 

The Main Engine

 

OK, lets look at the main engine.

 

First you need to get permission from The Bridge to start the engine – even if you are doing a few RPM alongside the ship will start to strain at her moorings and shift.

 

Then check that the propeller is clear of obstructions – there isnt half a treetrunk stuck under the stern or something.

 

So with that done, the stop valves open, and the oiling done the first thing to do is to open the drains, the small handwheels under the cylinder block.

 

Next job is to pull a little spring loaded pull over the air pump, this clears any water above the pump so it doesnt fracture and close the drain from the condenser into the hotwell, this will allow a vacuum to be created once the engine starts working.

 

Next, there is an auxiliary steam range located rather conveniently over your head where you cant read the valves by the controls. Three valves – the Impulse which puts high pressure steam into the low pressure cylinder, more of which anon, the reverser steam – if you dont set it up right it will take your arm off and the Silent Blow Off.

 

Now if ever there was a misnomer, its ‘Silent Blow Off’ The first time I was let loose on the controls I was trying to turn on the Impulse and set up the reverser, instead I opened the ‘Silent Blow Off’ As Marvin The Paranoid Android would have put it, it is a meaning of the word ‘silent’ I am not familiar with. Imagine blowing steam at 100psi into a large metal box, silent it isnt.

 

Now some of you may have been lucky enough to have driven a steam railway locomotive. Most locomotives have two cylinders, cranks at 90 degrees to each other taking steam direct from the boiler. So, as soon as you open the regulator and steam starts to flow into the cylinders they go.

 

Freshspring on the other hand has the standard marine 3 cylinder triple expansion engine, cranks at 120 degrees. So far so good, but unlike a railway locomotive the steam flows sequentially from the high pressure cylinder through the intermediate pressure then into the low pressure cylinder before exhausting into the condenser.

 

So, when you open the throttle it wont necessarily start…………………

 

So, it hasnt started, grab the trigger that controls the impulse and give it a squirt of HP steam in the LP cylinder, still wont (insert profanity of choice) go, try, and believe you me on Freshspring it isnt the simplest of jobs moving the expansion links with the reversing engine.

 

Bear in mind that there is no manual for this and I was relying on what I could remember of watching the engineer on watch on the Bristol Queen as a three year old twenty odd years ago. Eventually the thing will start, even though its layout and controls are rather different.

 

Leave it running slowly for about half an hour or so and it should be nicely warmed through.

 

After about 10 minutes you can shut the drains but its worth just going along the engine after another quarter of an hour and just opening each one for a few seconds to clear any accumulated water.

 

So now its nice and warm, and believe you me, the engine and boiler rooms will be very warm by this stage, you will be ready to move ship.

 

Its worth at this point having a chat with the bridge to see if they know what their first engine movement will be, ahead or astern so you can be set up for it.

 

You will need to turn the engine over so that the crank on the High Pressure cylinder – the smallest one at the forward end of the engine is in the 3 or 9 o’clock position so when you open the throttle the engine turns.

 

The orders come down from the bridge via telegraph, the Captain moves the telegraph handle and the lucky soul on the controls gets the engine turning in the direction and speed the bridge wants.

 

Now the joy of being in the Great Hall of Technology is that its warm and dry, BUT you cant really see out, all you get is a series of orders – which of course as I am more accustomed to driving a desk I never got to be really used to doing. Usually they come through nice and slow but sometimes when they are coming down thick and fast it can be obvious that all is not well, sometimes confirmed by a jolt and a crash.

 

When its all over, turn the burners off, make sure all the valves are shut, take out the trimmings in the lubricators and that's

it.

 

Well, thats how to do it, I never thought that I would stand on Freshspring’s bottom platform again with steam up and the ship ready to move under her own power but now it sems that it may well happen. My consultancy rates are modest – decent Earl Grey and plenty of it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you so much for posting this. I had to stop reading it two or three times because of the tears of laughter. 

[eastglosmog]

I found some old photographs of mine taken at a Portsmouth Navy day in August 1963.  Just spent a happy evening trying to work out what the ships were. So here they are, not of the best quality (I was only 11 at the time I took them).

HMS Centaur and F107 HMS Rothesay (Type 12 frigate).

 

HMS Corunna, Battle class destroyer

 

I think this is HMS Dainty undergoing refit, which was the only Daring class destroyer in Portsmouth at the time.

 

A Type 15 and a Type 12 frigate, not sure which.

 

HMS Gambia, just about the last Colony class cruiser left in the RN at the time.

 

And finally, the new submarine HMS Rorqual.

[New Haven Neil]

@johnofwessex well that gave me a laugh for sure - I don't have any steamship experience, just motor, and that was a while ago, but don't recount your tale to a BoT examiner!  Your explanation of preparing for 'sea' reminded me of one of my orals, where I got a similar question and got torpedoed half way through by the examiner picking up on something I shouldn't have said - and corrected myself too late!  I passed though...

 

Unfortunately our new Manxman will not provide the same enjoyable experience on the bottom plates.  Diesel-electric.  :-(

[peach james]

My Certificate 3 (Engineering Officer of the Watch) ticket oral exam- it was supposed to be a practice, but we were under the gun for time, so the plan was if it was OK, it was the board, if it wasn't it was a practice...

Anyway, LCdr  Ang Lopez was the chair, and my drawing was main lube oil on HMCS Protecteur. (not HMS Protector !)  I just made 1 minor error with the drawing- I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how the levers worked for operating the main engine throttles.  Like 100% brain fart- the oil drives the servo piston UP, and that lifts the valves up to open them...and I was like a totally stunned idiot and spent 10 minutes trying to think of how it worked.  It's simple, the pivot is at the left end, the cylinder is at the right end...but for the life of me, I couldn't figure it out when I was doing the drawing.  I got it, but it took me those 10 minutes or so to figure it out.

The oral portion was always 4 parts, the drawing (Sketch and explain  xxxx system), Duties & responsibilities of someone (roundsman-yourself), an emergency question, and then usually an describe and operate.  

I think it made for good tickets- the board chair gets better the higher you go, and the start of it was at the LS (S1) level for board members, that we'd be on the boards.  It means that you had to know the systems to be able to ask intelligent questions. 

I have my Cert 2A (Pro) written exam, which we were _not_ to get a copy of- I got 83% on it, which is quite a high mark.  Done on July 4th, 2004 in Pearl Harbor.  It's all irrevelevent now, but a lot of effort goes into learning enough to be safely dangerous.

James (EOOW qualified for 21000 SHP Cross Compound Turbine Ship, January 2012)

[MarkC]

My abiding memories of orals:-

Class 4 (Basic Engineering watchkeeper), January 1983

I went to Liverpool to do mine - the examiners in Newcastle were failing everybody, as their argument was "There's no jobs, so why give 'em tickets?" They had a point - out of 120 finishing their cadetships  at South Shields in December 1982, 5 of us got jobs. 3 of those were with Shell - one trip only. The other two - we both worked for the same company - British & Commonwealth. He lasted 2 trips before being made redundant. That left one out of 120 - me. Scary or what?

 

Class 2, July 1985

I got the examiner known as "The Prince of Darkness", who told me (not asked if it was OK, per protocol) that he had a trainee examiner sitting in. This bloke had a 90-95% fail rate. I came out of there not knowing if I'd been punched, bored or reamed - but holding a Pass Certificate.

 

Class 1, July 1989

Orals were early afternoon. I'd woken up early. only to find that my wife, some 12 weeks pregnant, was bleeding... Panic phone calls to doctors & her mum, then a call to the Office to say that I wouldn't be joining a ship as planned the following day, & why. OK, no problem, says the voice on the other end. Oh, hang on - aren't you doing Orals today? Yes, I still am, says I.

 

So, wife settled, her mum there, doctor been - bed rest & hope was all he could really do - and off I go.

 

As you can imagine, I was more than a bit distracted, but in I went. Nice guy doing the Inquisition; off we go. All going pretty well, then we get to doing a river transit, but the star gazers get it wrong & put us on a sandbank. However, the pilot says that if we keep full power on, we'll push over it. So, lots of precautions to take, send staff to attend to them. Then something else happens, but we must keep power on. OK, send someone else to check/report/sort it. Then something else etc etc. Finally I say "Well, we should do x,y & z, but can I ask something please?" "Certainly". "Just where are all the bodies to do these things coming from?". (Bear in mind, I'm really not having a good day...) . Ah, says my tormentor, you're one of these poor baskets on minimum manning ships, are you?

 

He pauses, smiles gently, asks a couple more questions, then sits back, looks at me & tells me I've passed. Happy days.

 

Oh, and the pregnancy scare? He's now 32, with a family of his own...

 

Mark

[New Haven Neil]

I have a feeing your Class 2 guy was the guy that took me for my Class 4......felt more like an Extra Chief's!  I take it that was Newcastle?  Sheesh, all those years later and I still break out in a cold sweat!  It was explained to me that as it also gave me Class 2 part A I had to be up to the mettle.....he gave me that but made me work for it for sure, I found out I knew things I didn't know I knew!  He also did his damnest to trip me up to see if I would bullsh!t, when I said I'd been on LPG, him saying he didn't know much about them (yeah, right).  If I didn't know, I said I didn't know - result.  IIRC none of the others passed that day......

 

In 1980 when I finished my cadetship in Bibby's there were 6 of us, I think one made it through to a career, the rest of us got made redundant in stages over the next few years and life regularly took right angle bends ever since for me!  Two I'm still in touch with are in engineering still, one in the Morcambe Bay gas/windmill business, the other in Norway for Phillips IIRC - Norwegian wife, he speaks funny now.

[wirey33]

My father, who passed away in 2019, was a naval officer rising to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. He had a long a varied career in the Navy including getting torpedoed when heading to Russia on a North Atlantic Convoy mission and building Fairey Swordfish aircraft from a kit of parts in various far flung corners of the British Empire.

 

Some years ago he started a scratch-building a model of the Cutty Sark but never got much further than the hull and decking. It's been sitting in the loft for many years stored in a glass case which he also built to house the finished model. We were hoping that someone might be interested in taking on the task of finishing it, but had no idea how to hit the "target market". So now I've come across this thread and it seems like as good a place as any to try and find a new home for it.

 

It is currently in Warwickshire (but could possibly be re-located to Berkshire or North Yorkshire ) and if anyone would be interested we be happy to donate it, just pleased that it doesn't have to get thrown away when he put so much time and effort into building it. Drop me a PM if you have any interest. Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

[MarkC]

1 hour ago, New Haven Neil said:

I have a feeing your Class 2 guy was the guy that took me for my Class 4......felt more like an Extra Chief's!  I take it that was Newcastle?  Sheesh, all those years later and I still break out in a cold sweat!  It was explained to me that as it also gave me Class 2 part A I had to be up to the mettle.....he gave me that but made me work for it for sure, I found out I knew things I didn't know I knew!  He also did his damnest to trip me up to see if I would bullsh!t, when I said I'd been on LPG, him saying he didn't know much about them (yeah, right).  If I didn't know, I said I didn't know - result.  IIRC none of the others passed that day......

 

In 1980 when I finished my cadetship in Bibby's there were 6 of us, I think one made it through to a career, the rest of us got made redundant in stages over the next few years and life regularly took right angle bends ever since for me!  Two I'm still in touch with are in engineering still, one in the Morcambe Bay gas/windmill business, the other in Norway for Phillips IIRC - Norwegian wife, he speaks funny now.

Aye, Class 2 & Class 1 were both at Gosforth.

 

The PoD was a piece of work - I heard of guys walking out of the building after hearing that he was the duty examiner... I was an oil tanker man when I did Class 2, so no dodgy LPG questions for me on that occasion 😎

 

[johnofwessex]

I remember doing the oral for my Boatmans Licence - Bristol Cumberland Basin to Netham Lock, when I talked about it being shallow by the Great Britain due to the remains of Medieval piling the surveyor smiled and passed me.

[big jim]

First time posting to this thread, sold a bike on eBay this evening and offered it drop it off in Wallasey, popped into a pub called the ferry afterwards, noticed a cruise ship over in Liverpool which then departed as we were sat having a drink 

 

A quick google suggests it’s the emerald princess on a tour of the UK, should have left at 17:00 but departed about 20:30

 

some poor pics through the window of the pub 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 1, 2022 by big jim

[J. S. Bach]

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Edited July 1, 2022 by J. S. Bach