Anyone Interested in Ships

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Brushes and commutators sir?   Here are some on Patricia's port propulsion motor - the bottom ones (not in the pic) are apparently a right bu devil to get at but there is a very nice Harwich based ETO who is reportedly able to reach them so she is always welcome aboard as a spare pair of hands

 

 

Here's the starboard side propulsion motor

 

That commutator looks in good condition. Access is always a problem for brushgear. A number of loco designs had rotating brushgear to make that easier. I'm sure other applications did too.

[Kingzance]

30 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

Crikey KZ, you might have met my Dad in Houlders!

 

Liberties had two scotch boilers and a recip triple, and very little electricity as built, a lot of oil lighting IIRC.  Probably high speed recip generators, like a Willans or Bellis & Morcamb.  

 

I recall Dad talking about T2's, there were two types of electrical installation, one was good and one useless according to him.  He went on to motor ships mostly (although he had dual tickets) and was a Sulzer fan, although he sailed on just about everything there was and stood by several new-builds with B&W engines.  When I was a gadget he said to me I could call myself an engineer when I could describe how a Sulzer fuel pump worked, I was pleased to do so a few years later - RD/RND type.

Houlders from Jan '75 to Dec '77 Neil, two tankers and one gas carrier. I'm therefore guessing that he had retired before I wandered into 53 Leadenhall Street!

[New Haven Neil]

6 minutes ago, Kingzance said:

Houlders from Jan '75 to Dec '77 Neil, two tankers and one gas carrier. I'm therefore guessing that he had retired before I wandered into 53 Leadenhall Street!

 

No, but Dad had left Houlders long before then!  He ended up working for Stevies on the coast at that time as a sort of semi-retirement job, as Chief on the Mobil Lubchem, a little products tanker they managed.  He really enjoyed it, but hated the horrid little generators based on GM 2 stroke engines.

 

 

[Kingzance]

27 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

No, but Dad had left Houlders long before then!  He ended up working for Stevies on the coast at that time as a sort of semi-retirement job, as Chief on the Mobil Lubchem, a little products tanker they managed.  He really enjoyed it, but hated the horrid little generators based on GM 2 stroke engines.

 

 

That looks like a late well-deck design Neil. The home trade boat I was on briefly had 4-cylinder Deutz 4-stroke diesel generators and a Deutz V12 main engine. 

[johnofwessex]

An interesting paper on the UK Marine Diseasle industry

 

http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/4947/1/262203.pdf

[Bon Accord]

9 hours ago, 62613 said:

Yep! She was a 28,000-tonner from the immediate post-war period. There was no general air conditioning (A/C) fitted, nor was there on any BP tanker until the 1960s ( watch someone tell me I'm wrong!). The A/C unit for the officers' smokeroom was a stand-alone unit. I don't know either when BP tankers started to be fitted with a.c. electrics, but for the motorships, I'm pretty sure it was the 'Tree' class, of the early 1960s. The steamers may have been the late 50s. The Eyties certainly had it, and they were 1959 on.

 

 

For the older ships, e.g. the 12s and 16s the only air conditioning retro fitted was to the hospital and Old Mans cabin (RHIP and all that) and both were of course amidships.

The Crown's demise was attributed to a leaking sounding cap immediately abaft the amidships accommodation (5 wings ish) and as the ship was being loaded at Umm Said (now Messaied) the vapour expelled from said cap accumulated around the nooks and crannies of the aft end of the 'midships accommodation and was ignited by the external (DC) Air-Con unit.

The only survivor from the 'midships accommodation was the Old Man - the explosion ripped apart the structure and he was propelled through his dayroom and landed in the sea some distance away. The Mate was on deck at the time and he was also blown into the sea, all the residents amidships were killed instantly including a couple of young first trip apprentices. I think it was 22 lost all told - the surviving crew down aft had to jump into the sea amidst the inferno and had to huddle together amidst the wreckage and hang on to the mooring buoys before being picked up some time later.

A lot of hard lessons were learnt - at great cost - in the 60's but thankfully that led to eventual proper implementation of IG and closed loading.

 

[Bon Accord]

2 hours ago, Kingzance said:

Certainly T2s were Turbo-Electric tankers; I never sailed on freighters until I did a bit of Home Trade work in the early 70's so made an assumption about Liberty Ships, many of which only lasted one trip I know being either sunk or in some cases breaking up due to construction faults. Shell had some ex T2s and several steam recip vessels built pre-war when I joined but I only ever sailed on steam turbine powered vessels with that company. I went diseasal with Houlders and CPShips.

 

T2's were Turbo-Leckie and some of the rebuilds were rather incredibly still in service in US waters within the last decade or so.

Liberties were Triplex up and downers, whilst their successors the Victories were turbine driven.

Regarding DC ships, I sailed in one as late as 2007 (and previously as a passenger/drinker in 1987): the old Columba - built in 1964. 

She's still on the go too, at the ripe old age of 55!

[peterfgf]

11 hours ago, johnofwessex said:

An interesting paper on the UK Marine Diseasle industry

 

http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/4947/1/262203.pdf

More drawings in this one. Denis Griffiths has published several books on the history of marine engines and railway locomotives.

Peterfgf

Griffiths, British Marine Industry and the Diesel Engine. 1997.pdf

[The Stationmaster]

15 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

That commutator looks in good condition. Access is always a problem for brushgear. A number of loco designs had rotating brushgear to make that easier. I'm sure other applications did too.

The ship's machinery is generally very well looked after although it's a something of a battle because there are b no spares available for all sorts of things so they have to be made specially.  The 3rd EO on the Starboard watch was restoring cars of varying ages before eh went to sea (and still does when ashore) and rather likes the ship because it's a similar sort of challenge to creating  parts for a car that went off the market in the1950s.  The variety of spanners needed don't tell the full story as it is reckoned by the engineers that the ship now contains example of just about every screw thread used in the Western world since Whitworth was a lad.  Perhaps an exaggeration but there are definitely reputed to be all the UK variants plus metric plus US threads as a result of various kit being 'restored' or added over the ship's 37 year working life and these pictures don't include the ETOs' stock as they have a separate stores and workshop flat of their own which also includes stuff needed for buoy maintenance.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 8, 2019 by The Stationmaster

[New Haven Neil]

16 hours ago, Kingzance said:

That looks like a late well-deck design Neil. The home trade boat I was on briefly had 4-cylinder Deutz 4-stroke diesel generators and a Deutz V12 main engine. 

 

For the life of me I couldn't recall the main engine, I had to Google to find she had a Deutz.  Dad certainly enjoyed his last years at sea on her before ill health intervened.  The nearest to home trade I got is the ferry here! 

[johnofwessex]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

The ship's machinery is generally very well looked after although it's a something of a battle because there are b no spares available for all sorts of things so they have to be made specially.  The 3rd EO on the Starboard watch was restoring cars of varying ages before eh went to sea (and still does when ashore) and rather likes the ship because it's a similar sort of challenge to creating  parts for a car that went off the market in the1950s.  The variety of spanners needed don't tell the full story as it is reckoned by the engineers that the ship now contains example of just about every screw thread used in the Western world since Whitworth was a lad.  Perhaps an exaggeration but there are definitely reputed to be all the UK variants plus metric plus US threads as a result of various kit being 'restored' or added over the ship's 37 year working life and these pictures don't include the ETOs' stock as they have a separate stores and workshop flat of their own which also includes stuff needed for buoy maintenance.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm amazed that she's still at sea, although her predecessor had a long life.

[The Stationmaster]

On 08/12/2019 at 15:31, johnofwessex said:

 

I'm amazed that she's still at sea, although her predecessor had a long life.

Development of the design for her replacement is now underway although there are different stories around about what it would be like with a number of rumours of a smaller vessel although these are always quashed by the need to be able to lift Class 1 buoys and the need for a helideck which imply a certain minimum size.  So replacement date is far from clear with 2022 being the optimistic estimate and 2023 being the most likely - at present.

 

But she is an old lady so is rarely stressed performance wise nowadays and, although she can make 13 knots over the ground with the aid of the tide and the wind, normal cruising speed is around the 10 knot mark with 3 engines running.  She's a lovely ship to travel on - very nice seaboat except if the wind and sea is on the quarter when she tends to corkscrew a bit but not too uncomfortably.  When we were on board in April she was called out in the middle of the night to a casualty and we had been sheltering off Clacton from storm something or other and I didn't notice any change in motion until she was put into DP when we reached the casualty where we had to wait about over 5 hours for the wind to drop before it was safe enough to send a boat across to the casualty (a lightship with all the lights out)

[St Enodoc]

4 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

a lightship with all the lights out

That would be a darkship then...

[Kingzance]

3 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

That would be a darkship then...

Did the arachnids on board spin a dark web? Hat,coat, door...

[KeithMacdonald]

4 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

That would be a darkship then...

 

Why am I imagining an "interesting conversation" over VHF with one of the Grey Funnel Line demanding right-of-way?

 

(Not mentioned in ColRegs)

[steve W]

On 04/12/2019 at 22:14, Kingzance said:

When I started my MN career, many of our ships bring crude from the PG (as it was then) were around 30,000 DWT and air conditioning was an afterthought. My last few ships had air conditioned engine control rooms and lifts to access them. How things changed in under 20 years!

Yes, but it wasn't the owners suddenly having concern for the crew. Air conditioned control rooms are to keep the new fangled electronics happy! 

Not so sure about lifts. In my opinion most were the creation of the devil and seldom worked as one would expect, if at all. Dangerous and nasty creatures,  although I  always gave in to temptation and used them on the big ball LNG's when going the full distance.

Edited December 10, 2019 by steve W
correction

[Kingzance]

12 minutes ago, steve W said:

Yes, but it wasn't the owners suddenly having concern for the crew. Air conditioned control rooms are to keep the new fangled electronics happy! 

Not so sure about lifts. In my opinion most were the creation of the devil and seldom worked as one would expect, if at all. Dangerous and nasty creatures,  although I  always gave in to temptation and used them on the big ball LNG's when going the full distance.

Of course the additional cost of air conditioning was allocated against the benefits of extended automation - installed to make operation more efficient and to reduce the dependency on manning. The transition in how machinery spaces were fitted out between ‘53 and ‘73 (the range in construction of ships on which I sailed) was very significant. 

[Taigatrommel]

The Eurocity service between Hamburg and Copenhagen has now been diverted so it doesn't use the train ferries across the Fehmarn belt any longer.  This does result in a longer journey time, however, once the tunnel and upgraded lines on both sides of the belt are complete the times will be much reduced.

Last month I took a trip across to experience this service while I still could.  In order to try and properly document the operations, I booked into one of only two hotels in Rødbyhavn.  A good job, as the day I arrived was wet.  So much so that my plans for a bit of sightseeing in Hamburg before getting the 13:28 train to Denmark were nixed.  I got a picture of Cap San Diego moored at the Überseebrücke before giving up and riding round on the U3 for warmth.

 

 

A bite of lunch at the main station, and then I boarded one of Danish State Railways' very comfortable IC3 DMUs to make my way to Rødby.  Pretty unevenful.  We disembarked aboard Prinsesse Benedikte.  There's an odd concept.  Incidentally, it's only the restaurants on the ferry that mean the service qualified as a Eurocity train.  Not that the catering on board is anything special, though it seemed popular.  Getting off at Rødby, a policeman checked my passport and I tried to find the route to my hotel.  A footbridge led into the town, but that was heading the wrong way.  I couldn't see another route that looked obviously public, so I crossed it anyway.  I found myself on a pathway that just felt like old railway.  The next day I found out it was the fomer route to Maribo.  Eventually, and a bit damper, I found the hotel and crashed out for a nap.  Rested, I walked back to the harbour to see if any night photography opportunities presented themselves, but only wind and rain made themselves apparent.

The next morning I woke with the birds and headed to the station.  The regular commuters eyed me suspiciously.

 

They obviously didn't want me jumping the queue for breakfast.  I took a few more pictures and the  went inside to get my ticket for a return on the ferry so I could photograph the German end too.  It was £7 odd.

The weather was much better than the day before, and I spent a while out on deck.  I needed fresh air to help me wake, as at €6, the onboard coffee wasn't for me.  Prins Richard passed us mid-strait.



At Puttgarden there was a coffee machine, €1 for a cup.  Oh goody!  Oh no.  I could see how the ferry got away with their prices.  Still, it was warm, even if it was revolting.

Puttgarden formerly had six platforms.  Well, it still does, but only two are in use.  The others are heavily overgrown.  A leading light stands sentinel amongst the vegetation.



I got a couple of reasonable photos of a train leaving Schleswig-Holstein, and a bit of film of one loading.  Changes since the glory days of loco hauled meant the classic elevated view wasn't possible, but I did my best to get the ship in view.  It appeared that should foot passengers wish to use this particular service, they had to board the train to get on the ferry, the gangways weren't linked up to the ship.



I sailed back to Denmark aboard Prinsesse Benedikte.  Kronprins Frederik was moored at Puttgarden, inbetween freight duties on certain days of the week.  Kronprins Frederik was formerly a DSB "Intercity" ferry for the Great Belt route.

 

 

I waited at Rødby for the next train carrying ferry.  It was Schleswig-Holstein again.



I waited for the next train to Copenhagen.  Luck was on my side.  It was loco propelled with a fantastic sounding GM beast for traction.  The double deckers aren't a patch on IC3s for comfort though.  In Copenhagen I wandered along by Tivoli until I found an inviting looking bar.  A brewhouse to boot.  It was happy hour, so a couple of beers didn't break the bank!  Finally I boarded another IC3 to the airport and flew back to England.  Upon landing there was a shortage of staff for the terminal buses so we had to wait on the plane for a while.  Sailing is much more pleasant...

Edited December 11, 2019 by Taigatrommel

[Kingzance]

On 07/12/2019 at 22:33, johnofwessex said:

An interesting paper on the UK Marine Diseasle industry

 

http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/4947/1/262203.pdf

Thanks for that sir, I found it a very interesting read as one who got to the illustrious heights of holding a 1st Class Combined Certificate.

[jjb1970]

4 hours ago, Taigatrommel said:

The weather was much better than the day before, and I spent a while out on deck.  I needed fresh air to help me wake, as at €6, the onboard coffee wasn't for me.  Prins Richard passed us mid-strait.

I sailed back to Denmark aboard Prinsesse Benedikte.  Kronprins Frederik was moored at Puttgarden, inbetween freight duties on certain days of the week.  Kronprins Frederik was formerly a DSB "Intercity" ferry for the Great Belt route.

 

 

I waited at Rødby for the next train carring ferry.  It was Schleswig-Holstein again.
 

 

The Scandlines ships are very interesting as they're at the leading edge of clean shipping, having converted their ships to diesel - battery hybrid propulsion and with exhaust gas cleaning for the engine they still run. They went from four medium speed engines to a single engine with what at the time was the worlds biggest lithium ion battery.  

[6990WitherslackHall]

4 hours ago, Taigatrommel said:

The Eurocity service between Hamburg and Copenhagen has now been diverted so it doesn't use the train ferries across the Fehmarn belt any longer.  This does result in a longer journey time, however, once the tunnel and upgraded lines on both sides of the belt are complete the times will be much reduced.

Last month I took a trip across to experience this service while I still could.  In order to try and properly document the operations, I booked into one of only two hotels in Rødbyhavn.  A good job, as the day I arrived was wet.  So much so that my plans for a bit of sightseeing in Hamburg before getting the 13:28 train to Denmark were nixed.  I got a picture of Cap San Diego moored at the Überseebrücke before giving up and riding round on the U3 for warmth.

 

 

A bite of lunch at the main station, and then I boarded one of Danish State Railways' very comfortable IC3 DMUs to make my way to Rødby.  Pretty unevenful.  We disembarked aboard Prinsesse Benedikte.  There's an odd concept.  Incidentally, it's only the restaurants on the ferry that mean the service qualified as a Eurocity train.  Not that the catering on board is anything special, though it seemed popular.  Getting off at Rødby, a policeman checked my passport and I tried to find the route to my hotel.  A footbridge led into the town, but that was heading the wrong way.  I couldn't see another route that looked obviously public, so I crossed it anyway.  I found myself on a pathway that just felt like old railway.  The next day I found out it was the fomer route to Maribo.  Eventually, and a bit damper, I found the hotel and crashed out for a nap.  Rested, I walked back to the harbour to see if any night photography opportunities presented themselves, but only wind and rain made themselves apparent.

The next morning I woke with the birds and headed to the station.  The regular commuters eyed me suspiciously.

 

They obviously didn't want me jumping the queue for breakfast.  I took a few more pictures and the  went inside to get my ticket for a return on the ferry so I could photograph the German end too.  It was £7 odd.

The weather was much better than the day before, and I spent a while out on deck.  I needed fresh air to help me wake, as at €6, the onboard coffee wasn't for me.  Prins Richard passed us mid-strait.



At Puttgarden there was a coffee machine, €1 for a cup.  Oh goody!  Oh no.  I could see how the ferry got away with their prices.  Still, it was warm, even if it was revolting.

Puttgarden formerly had six platforms.  Well, it still does, but only two are in use.  The others are heavily overgrown.  A leading light stands sentinel amongst the vegetation.



I got a couple of reasonable photos of a train leaving Schleswig-Holstein, and a bit of film of one loading.  Changes since the glory days of loco hauled meant the classic elevated view wasn't possible, but I did my best to get the ship in view.  It appeared that should foot passengers wish to use this particular service, they had to board the train to get on the ferry, the gangways weren't linked up to the ship.



I sailed back to Denmark aboard Prinsesse Benedikte.  Kronprins Frederik was moored at Puttgarden, inbetween freight duties on certain days of the week.  Kronprins Frederik was formerly a DSB "Intercity" ferry for the Great Belt route.

 

 

I waited at Rødby for the next train carring ferry.  It was Schleswig-Holstein again.



I waited for the next train to Copenhagen.  Luck was on my side.  It was loco propelled with a fantastic sounding GM beast for traction.  The double deckers aren't a patch on IC3s for comfort though.  In Copenhagen I wandered along by Tivoli until I found an inviting looking bar.  A brewhouse to boot.  It was happy hour, so a couple of beers didn't break the bank!  Finally I boarded another IC3 to the airport and flew back to England.  Upon landing there was a shortage of staff for the terminal buses so we had to wait on the plane for a while.  Sailing is much more pleasant...

 

Nice pictures

[Taigatrommel]

4 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

 

The Scandlines ships are very interesting as they're at the leading edge of clean shipping, having converted their ships to diesel - battery hybrid propulsion and with exhaust gas cleaning for the engine they still run. They went from four medium speed engines to a single engine with what at the time was the worlds biggest lithium ion battery.  

 

The scrubbers seem to work well, the air doesn't have the usual tang of a busy port.  I'm not sure you're quite correct on the changes for hybrid drive, the info I read said they'd gone from five to four engines.  Presumably on a short crossing like that (45 minutes) the 10 minutes or so in port offer enough charging time for the batteries to make a difference.  On a long route I'd have thought the pretty constant speed on engines would mean hybrid propulsion wouldn't offer much fuel benefit.

Another technology I hadn't seen before was automatic mooring clamps, that's a labour and time saver.  I guess the minimal tides of the Baltic make such machinery more practical.

[steve W]

A few days ago I was given a small photograph of my grandfather in his boat on the river Fal. The background line of ships intrigued me and a bit of research dates the picture as probably 1924.

 

At the time there were a considerable number of ships in lay up in the Fal and this group appear to be the Truro side of Tolverne (based on the pattern of the fields on the left) and possibly at the rowing boat passenger ferry landing that operated there.

Thanks to Google, the small white vessel second from right of the group has been identified as probably the Blue Funnel 'Hecuba', built in Germany in 1901. After WW1 it was taken into the Holt Line fleet, then Blue funnel in 1923, being scrapped in 1924 (http://www.red-duster.co.uk/)

There are other pictures of the Hecuba in the Fal with different partner vessels in the same year ,so it must have been quite a dynamic place in those days pre-dating the better recorded lay ups in the late 1950's, especially of the BP tankers. Unfortunately none of the other vessels in the picture have been identified.

 

 

Cheers

Steve w.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[KeithMacdonald]

46 minutes ago, steve W said:

A few days ago I was given a small photograph of my grandfather in his boat on the river Fal. The background line of ships intrigued me and a bit of research dates the picture as probably 1924.

 

At the time there were a considerable number of ships in lay up in the Fal and this group appear to be the Truro side of Tolverne (based on the pattern of the fields on the left) and possibly at the rowing boat passenger ferry landing that operated there.

 

Yes, it's Tolverne. 95 years later, ships are still being layed-up there.

 

Last time we sailed up the Fal (15 years ago), we stopped for a while at the tea shop landing stage. The tea shop (still open then) was full of pictures of the D-Day preparations (US landing craft etc).

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolverne

 

Five or so years ago, we also saw some oil or gas rigs layed-up in the Carrick Roads. But "Anyone interested in oil rigs" should perhaps be a seperate topic?

 

You can see some layed-up ships at Tolverne from Google Street View:

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.2223821,-5.0224894,3a,75y,351.99h,85.56t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sJGobz3I4dWQfcCh0XvN5PA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DJGobz3I4dWQfcCh0XvN5PA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D352.89697%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

 

 

[steve W]

Yes, certainly was a good place for ships, not so much these days and Truro Harbour masters are no longer reaping the fees they used too. Tolverne cafe (Newmans Cottage) is no longer operating.

As a teenager I visited several of the BP ships (Grandad was a watchman) and later, for my sins found myself on the 'Methane Princess' at King Harry Ferry during the first Gulf war with a film crew hurriedly making a safety film on poison gas attacks. On that exercise I asked the lighting tech what power he needed from the ship and the answer was along the lines of 'enough for n  'Thickies' and n 'Thinnies' - being the two sizes of cables used depending on the size of lights connected. He had no idea of the actual load or the cable size, but knew which cable to use for each light. We calculated the power and temporary supply cable fromthe emergency generator based on the quantity and approximate current ratings for each!