Marine Engineers

[Stanley]

The posters of the shipping lines grew into an art form and are prized by collectors.

[Stanley]

I spent an hour yesterday watching videos of running ships ashore to scrap them in Pakistan. There is much criticism of this trade but you have to admit they have made a difficult job as simple as possible.

[Invernahaille]

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/7 ... puffer.jpg

[Stanley]

Bad link Robert.

[Invernahaille]

Sorry Stanley. Problem Fixed.
Its a recent pic of our old friend VIC 32.

[Stanley]

Nice one Robert, I love those little work horses.... Looks as though it's on the Caledonian Canal.

[Stanley]

Robert, you might enjoy THIS, could take you back a year or two. Expensive hobby!

[Invernahaille]

Thanks for that Stanley.
I have worked on British Polar Engines in the past. On the clip I didn't see any bridge telegraph, although the engine controls where clearly displayed next to the Lesney valve (Air Start).

[Stanley]

Due to my current eye problems I've been watching a lot of video on Youtube and there are some very puzzling things on there. One shows a team starting the large diesel on a container ship and either it's very complicated or they were getting into difficulties!
By the way, I discovered that the whole of the Para Handy series is available on Youtube... I watched one, a real blast from the past.

[Invernahaille]

Stanley,
If you remember my post about starting ships engines a couple of pages back. I said that it was labour intensive. Engine start up is the most dangerous part of a marine engineers life. There is so much that can go wrong. When a ship is in port there is a tremendous amount of maintenance being done. Remember Sods law if something is going to wrong it will go wrong. That's the problem with human error. The Titanic sank because of mans arrogance. (God himself could not
sink this ship.)
Lose your propulsion unit and you basically have millions of pounds of cargo and ship idle.
The ship owners can never recoupe that kind of loss.
All in a days work for seasoned sailors.

[Stanley]

I remember it well Robert.
I was watching a rerun of the programme the BBC made of the last voyage of the QE2 as it made its way to Dubai to become a floating hotel.
My mind went back to a winter's day in 1968 when I was delivering cattle to a farm on the coast north of Ayr. The farm stood on a high piece of ground looking out over the Firth of Clyde over to Arran and while we were having a cup of tea I noticed a very big ship coming down the Clyde like the clappers with a huge bone in its teeth. It then turned, still at full speed and did a complete circle. The farmer's wife told me it was the new Cunard liner on its speed trials down the measured mile off Arran and no doubt the sharp turn was part of the commissioning process. It was of course the QE2 on its trials. Impressive sight and I've never forgotten it.

[Stanley]

I was watching a TV programme about the Yangtze River last night and marvelled at the power they must need to breast the rapids. This is the Wantung fighting the rapids in the upper river before the Three Gorges Dam was built. Look at the bone in its teeth! If this was in calm water it must have been doing well over twenty knots! No wonder the engineer is putting out a bit of a puther!

[Stanley]

The headline 'Hunt for the Red in October' caught my attention. See THIS for a Guardian report about the suspected Russian submarine in trouble off Sweden. It reminds me of the murky things that still go on underwater....

[Stanley]

Harbours fascinate me. I used to spend hours watching the comings and goings at Mallaig. The Calmac ferry MV Pioneer is leaving for Skye and the
Small Isles in 1991, the lifeboat is sitting ready and there is the usual bustle round the fishing fleet. When the Smit ocean going tug was on station it was always moored at the outer end of the nearest pier so it had an unobstructed exit if called on. I saw it leaving once on a mission and it was one of the most impressive take-offs I have ever seen. A bloke jumped off and cast off the mooring lines and at the same time a big black cloud of diesel smoke came out of the stack as the engines were taken straight up to maximum revs (they were always ticking over all the time the tug was moored and the engines were clearing their throats!). At first nothing happened but then I noticed that the stern of the boat had sunk below sea level. The screws were shifting the water back from underneath and it was a second or two before she started to move. In less time than it takes to tell she was off out of the harbour at full speed with a big bone in her teeth. I often wonder what emergency she was responding to. Very, very impressive!

[Invernahaille]

Stanley,
Your post Red October I am not by nature a conspiracy theorist but this story brings to mind the FV Gaul (Motor Trawler Gaul) from about 40 years ago. A tragedy.

[Stanley]

Too right Robert and never really explained. I caught a glimpse into the murky world of surveillance when the Kursk went down. My late son in law Harry was one of the main men behind the techniques being used to monitor movements round a submarine, Battle Space Management they call it. It is mainly listening to sounds and comparing them to a large database, every ship has a unique sound signature. He told me at the time when the US was denying the presence of any of their subs in the area that this wasn't true. A Los Angeles class sub was on the bottom permanently monitoring Russian naval movements and they recorded what had happened. It was Harry in Fremantle who matched the sound to an old signature they had on the database which funnily enough was of an accident on a British sub when experimenting with Hydrogen Peroxide fuelled torpedoes, exactly the same thing that cause the Kursk explosion. He and Janet were very active in that field and helped bring in major innovations still in use today by navies and oil companies. Look up Nasnet on the web. Nautronix at Fremantle was where they worked and they did good things. When Harry died in a light plane crash at Jandakot in August 2003 he was on his way to test the latest tweaks to Battle Space Management off the coast with a US submarine but of course this was never acknowledged.

[Invernahaille]

This was one of my old ships. She was Ellerman Lines City of York She used to cruise down to South Africa from Tilbury. The wreck is still there today. Just outside the harbor in Piraeus Greece. So Sad.....

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... q9LBa2ajqA

[Stanley]

You’re right Robert. What a sad sight. You can't understand the process whereby something as expensive as a ship that size is simply abandoned. A very large piece of litter to leave lying around....

[Invernahaille]

Remembrance Sunday.

To They that go down to the Sea in Ships.
Nov 2014

[Stanley]

I endorse that Robert. When in Liverpool I used to visit a small and neglected memorial tower for the Merchant Navy near Littlewood's HQ. I have never seen it mentioned anywhere and believe there is a larger one now. What grabbed me particularly was the fact that as soon as the seamen abandoned ship they were off the payroll as their employment was over......

[Invernahaille]

Stanley,
Likewise if they died at sea they were taken off the payroll. Some wife or girlfriends income stopped just stopped at the drop of a hat.
There must have been a few who said "Why don't he write".

[Stanley]

It's always struck me as a very ungrateful way to treat the men.

[Invernahaille]

Stanley,
The disposable society.
When I joined the Merchant Navy, longer ago than I care to remember. The shipping companies had a policy of taking care of their Officers and crew. They ensured your competency by allowing time to consolidate your experience. I was thirty years old before I got my first Chief Engineers posting, although I had held a Chiefs Ticket for two years.
These days the new generation get their chiefs ticket at around 23 years of age. There are plenty of ship manning companies willing and able to give them positions as long as they hold the correct ticket. Unfortunately the pay and conditions have rapidly declined over recent years.

[Stanley]

Robert, I have a battered but much loved copy of MacGibbon's 'BOT and Marine Engineering Knowledge, Steam and Motor'. I don'/t know the date but it's the Sixth Edition. No wonder it took so long to learn it!
It's inscribed as belonging to F A Wood, 8 West Bank Road, Edge Lane, Liverpool. I wonder if he ended up as an engineer?

[Tizer]

I couldn't decide where to post this link to a BBC article but here seems as good as anywhere. There are some good photos, especially the last one which was taken from an airship.
`The day the entire German fleet surrendered'
"Armistice Day is remembered as the day World War One ended, but for naval historians Britain's greatest victory came 10 days later. Operation ZZ was the code name for the surrender of Germany's mighty navy. For those who witnessed "Der Tag" or "The Day" it was a sight they would never forget - the greatest gathering of warships the world had ever witnessed. It was still dark in the Firth of Forth when the mighty dreadnoughts of the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet began to raise steam and one by one let slip their moorings. The huge shapes of more than 40 battleships and battlecruisers began to ease out, course set due east. As the procession of steel headed for the open water of the North Sea, more than 150 cruisers and destroyers joined them. The mightiest fleet ever to sail from Britain's shores was heading for a final rendezvous with its mortal enemy - the German High Seas Fleet.".......
Full article here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30128199