Tankerman

Not exactly a nickname for the GWR, but in the 1950's and early 1960's a lot of the older ex GWR employees in west Cornwall, including my uncle who was a ganger in the Redruth area, referred to the GWR as The Company. The oldest ticket collector at Truro took it a stage further by replacing one of the BR buttons on his waistcoat with a GWR one.

My father, now long deceased, had a small building company and built everything to a very high standard. When anyone complained about his pricing compared to another builder, his reply was always the same "You cannot buy a Rolls Royce at Ford prices." He also willingly showed his prospective customers examples of his work and he was never short of work.

If I were you I would start doing my own cooking and make my own drinks.

I read this and the word Lansenwith came into my head. It's the name of the farm in Cornwall I lived on between the ages of 6 and 17.

More proof, if it were needed, that Covid is is much less of a worry than the virus "Terminal Stupidity" which appears to be affecting a great number of people.

Reading this has raised a question in my mind. At Penryn, my local station when I was young, it was common for a down goods train to be stopped at the home signal and then to enter the up loop. It is a long time ago now but from memory the home signal remained at danger. Looking at the diagram on the SRS site there is a ground disc signal, identified as 25, adjacent to the home signal. I am assuming that this would have been used to allow the train to enter the up loop. In addition the up loop had a sprung catch point to prevent a train entering it from the down direction, this has the notation 'slotted by 21' on the drawing. Would I be correct in thinking that this sprung point could be manually controlled by the signalman to allow the down goods to enter the up loop? Apologies for going off topic and thanks in advance for any replies.

That depends on the ship managers policy. I was on a motor ship where we were alongside a berth for nearly two months waiting for a charter. During that time the main engine was stopped, but the lub oil system was run on a regular basis. She has only one main engine, a Mitsui–MAN B&W 11G95ME-C9 rated at 79,500 bhp (59,300 kW) at 80 rpm. The first part indicates it's of MAN B&W design built by Mitsui in Japan, if my memory is correct the second part indicates that it's an 11 cylinder engine and the cylinder bore is 950mm. Hope this is of interest.

She's diesel powered and as far as I know the crew remained aboard and the diesel generators have continued to run to keep the lights on and the refrigerated cargo containers working. So it's just a matter of keeping the main air start tanks up to pressure, 300 lb/sq inch in my day, opening the air starting valve, then the fuel valves, all done by the auto start system when you push the button and away you go. No jump leads or steam lines required.

An extra bit of information which may be of interest. The letters at each end of the bar across the circle indicate the classification society. LR indicates that the ship is classed by, and load line assigned, by Lloyds Register. Some of the others are Bureau Veritas BV, American Bureau of Shipping AB, Det Norske Veritas NV, Germanischer Lloyd GL and Nippon Kaiji Kyokai NK. WNA for Winter North Atlantic is only assigned for vessels not exceeding 100 metres in length and only if they are trading in certain areas. If I have remembered correctly the areas are where either hurricanes and/or storm force ten winds can be routinely expected.

I don't know how big the man is that's going to lift the rail using the handles is the last photo, but if I were to meet him I would be very deferential.

A friend of mine answers any 'this is Microsoft' calls with "Oh good, now I can tell you directly that your operating system and programs are a heap of sh*t! Goodbye!" and puts the phone down.

I've used Macs since 1993 and I'm not offended, I'm just pleased that I've never had any of the problems that Windows users seem to regard as an inescapable part of owning a computer.

True story. I was the Electrical Officer on a tanker in drydock, as the ship was completely shut down, I was asked to take four visitors on a tour of the engine room. Part way through the tour I was asked what the two large horizontal cylindrical objects were close to where we were standing. I replied that they were the main electrical generators which supplied the electricity that enabled the ship's systems to work when we were at sea. I was then asked "Why don't you just plug the ship into the mains?" When the other three had stopped laughing I, very gently, explained why that wouldn't work.

It does indeed. Saint Petroc, along with Saint Piran and Saint Michael is one of the patron saints of Cornwal.

But not as well as Pan's People could move.

Lovely spot for photography, three out of the four are in the "not that thing again bracket". The last one is a concentrated orange juice tanker, if my memory is correct she regularly traded into, and probably still does, Antwerp and/or Vlissingen (Flushing)

Mike, Your photo has corrected one of my erroneous thoughts, of which I've had quite a few over the years, , as I have always thought Foxtrot 3 was a large buoy. The name is well known to me because for about twenty years I used to visit St Margarets at Cliffe to watch the passing shipping and, as you will no doubt know, Foxtrot 3 is the point at which westbound traffic has to report to Dover Coastguard. This was particularly useful in obtaining the ships name when, as is often the case, the visibility was too poor to read using a telescope. Nowadays of course it is simply a matter of using the Marine Traffic app on a phone or tablet.

Yes it is. It's a dredger of a type known as a cutter suction dredger. Jan de Nul have a large fleet of dredgers of various types and also a very good website which explains how each type of dredger operates.

Mark, here's a few details of her which you might find interesting. IMO number 9466697, built 2011 by Uljanik at Pula in Croatia, 8,015 gross tons, 2,680 deadweight tons. The beneficial owner is Jan de Nul N.V.

With those expressions it's already obvious that she's going to be a cat that doesn't miss much.

I've done a quick search and come up with this, which I hope will be of interest. Built 1929 by Furness Shipbuilding at their Haverton Hill shipyard on the Tees. She was 11,999 gross tons and powered by two diesel engines driving twin screws. Owned by United Molasses until 1940 when she was sold, or transferred to Athel Line, I'll have to check further but I seem to remember that both companies were subsidiaries of one of the big sugar companies. As you already know she was torpedoed by U82, she was on a voyage from Cardiff to Aruba at the time. The fact that her destination was Aruba makes me think that she was in the oil trade rather than molasses at the time. If you would like me to try to get any further details about her I will be happy to try.

She was steam boiler/ steam turbine powered and there are several events that could cause a boiler/engine room fire. The lubricating oil tank(s) for the main engine gearbox(s) were mounted at high level in the boiler and/or engine room on the ships I sailed on in the 1970's. On one ship I was on the tank developed a leak and the lubricating oil saturated the insulation of the steam pipes for the soot blowers. When the valve was opened to the soot blower pipework, the oil ignited due to the very high temperature of the steam and it took quite a while to extinguish the fire. When operated incorrectly the oil burners in the boilers can "blow back" i.e. the flames go into the boiler room instead of the boiler, this can rapidly cause a fire intense enough to necessitate the evacuation of the boiler room, also depending on the design of the boiler room, a fire in that area can be difficult to fight due to lack of access/space for the crew to deploy sufficient hoses. One of the main turbine/ main generator high pressure steam pipes could fracture, the resulting very high temperature in the engine room would cause some of the equipment to spontaneously combust. If the bilges hadn't been cleaned any oil in them would likewise start to burn and if it was a main generator steam pipe the generators would fail causing the loss of the electrical supply. The above is obviously speculation as at present there is a complete lack of information regarding the cause of the fire.

A number of years ago I used to go to Dover, actually to the Dover Patrol memorial at St Margaret's at Cliffe,, to watch the shipping. As it was sometimes difficult to read the ships names with a telescope I used a marine band handheld with the transmit side disconnected to make it legal. The fact that the ships made those calls were a great help in ascertaining the name of a particular ship. One day when the westbound traffic was particularly busy a Danish coaster owned by a company called H Folmer, who owned a number of coastal vessels, called Dover Coastguard and the usual exchange took place, destination, last port etc. and finally "do you have any dangerous cargo on board?" Back came the calm reply "Yes, 900 tons IMO Class 1", or in other words explosives of some sort. There was a pause before the coastguard replied with "please confirm 900 tons IMO Class 1" which duly received the reply "Confirm 900 tons IMO Class 1". The coastguard then transmitted a general warning to all westbound shipping to keep well clear of the coaster if they were overtaking it.

Jim, Is that the original City of Truro? If so it was the first 47 I saw, it came to Truro to be named and stood out like a sore thumb amongst all the hydraulics.

Jim, If your looking for sponsorship when you do the mountain walk I'm sure quite a few people on here, including me, will be willing to sign up.