Marine Engineers

[Invernahaille]

Reminds me of Nont Sarahs
The panels from the Mauratania were used to furnish the bar.
I think it was the Mauratania.

[Invernahaille]

https://youtu.be/sWjMBSnq2es

Opposed piston oil engine Doxford.
The theory is that you create more Horse Power with fewer cylinders thereby reducing engine size dimensions.
There are of course many downsides to the theory. These engines allowed more cargo capacity, because of their compactness, less engine room space, but what a nightmare on maintenance. Classic, for the untrained eye is that the upper cylinder flexible cooling hoses where prone to wear.
However, when you heard a Doxford running it was a delight. Sewing machine.
Doxford ceased manufacturing marine engines in 1980.

[Stanley]

Look at THIS, a wonderful hour long film brilliantly shot in 1929 of the nitrate clipper Peking rounding the Horn East West. See THIS for more information..

[Invernahaille]

Stanley,
More years than I care to remember ago. The shipping company I was with did a swap over.
I joined a tall ship called the Winston Churchill. The Tall ship company sent their crew to my shipping company.
When I arrived on board the Winston Churchill, the First Officer, asked me my rank.
He said that this vessel doesn't have engines. So I ended up doing a week of Rigging, in the masts. Never again.

[chinatyke]

Stanley,
More years than I care to remember ago. The shipping company I was with did a swap over.
I joined a tall ship called the Winston Churchill. The Tall ship company sent their crew to my shipping company.
When I arrived on board the Winston Churchill, the First Officer, asked me my rank.
He said that this vessel doesn't have engines. So I ended up doing a week of Rigging, in the masts. Never again.

I have a Swedish friend who was a chief engineer. He was freelance and went on different short term contracts, mainly on RO-RO ferries in places like the Black Sea. He got a commission on a tall sailing ship (but it did have a small diesel engine). Before he went he described it has a dream come true. Less than a week into the trip he abandoned ship when they docked in Ireland. He said it was a nightmare and the cook was useless!

[Invernahaille]

LOL LOL

That is true China. They had a small engine to get them off the dock into open sea. Back in the day they had longboats to pull them off.

[Stanley]

Captain Johnson said that the only thing that was dry on the Peking was her cargo. They were hard men!

[Invernahaille]

I remember when I was a junior engineer. A chief engineer said to me that when he joined the M N, that there where wooden ships and iron men.
Today we have iron ships and .......

[Stanley]

[Invernahaille]

Someone sent me an E mail today. They asked what a thrust box was. I tried to explain that if a ships engine didn't have one. The engine would end up in the forecastle.

[Stanley]

Johnny's old lathe. Being an old machine, its thrust bearing is open to view. All machines that generate thrust need a method to soak it up and a way of adjusting it. This is thrust generated by tool pressure but is essentially no different than the thrust box on a ship which deals with the thrust from the propellor.

[Invernahaille]

10 out of 10 Stanley.
When the engine starts the prop turns. The force is on the prop shaft itself, until the vessel starts to move then some of the force is taken off the shaft. However, there is always force on the prop itself. Either forward or astern.
So in essence a thrust bearing/block is a shock absorber.
Newtons third law. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
That should get some grey matter thinking.

[Stanley]

Here's another example of eliminating thrust. This is the second motion shaft for Pendle Street mill. They used double herring bone gearing because, unlike helical gearing, it doesn't generate end thrust in the driven shaft or the driver. That's why it is commonly used, but much finer gears, in turbine gearing on a ship. Clever stuff!

[Invernahaille]

Stanley,
There isn't much chance of that gear accidently disengaging is there?

[Stanley]

None at all Bob!

[Tizer]

`What happens to old cruise ships?' Short BBC video
LINK

[Invernahaille]

They don't get any special treatment, they have a scrap value just like any other ship. Really sad, but that's the way it is.

Same paradox with steeplejacks. They needed chimneys to create the draft from the boilers to get the best coefficient from the coal to create steam.
When King Cotton lost it position in the world, and the mills closed there was no longer a need for chimneys.
See Steeplejacks Corner.
Lancashire Textile Project.

[Stanley]

I wonder if wooden ships were dismantled and the wood recycled?

[Invernahaille]

Stanley,
I am pretty sure they would have used some of the timbers in new build.

[Tizer]

`HMS Hermes to be dismantled' LINK
`The ex-Indian Navy aircraft carrier INS Viraat (the former HMS Hermes) has arrived in Alang in the state of Gujarat, where it will undergo dismantling before the end of the month. The country’s defence ministry had put the 28,000-tonne veteran warship up for sale in the months following its March 2017 decommissioning after efforts to convert it into a floating museum were abandoned due to insufficient funds. The carrier was acquired by local company Shree Ram Group for INR385.4 million (US$5.22 million) through a government auction in July 2020. It will be sold for scrap following the dismantling process. Shree Ram chairman Mukesh Patel said the dismantling is tentatively scheduled for 13:00 local time on Monday, September 28, but remains subject to the tide and weather conditions. Originally delivered to the British Royal Navy in 1959 as the Centaur-class light fleet carrier HMS Hermes, Viraat was sold to India in 1986 and recommissioned into the Indian Navy the following year.'

I presume this photo was taken at the time of the Falklands War...

[Invernahaille]

Tizer,
I went on board the Hermes in the seventies, I think she was still carrying buccaneers then. Remember, she is over sixty years old, not bad for an old lady.
Merchantmen would have been scrapped many years ago.
Still sad to see her go.

[Stanley]

"Still sad to see her go."
Funny how ships are always 'she'. I asked my favourite old salt Alan why and he said it was because the rigging cost more than the hull.
He also told me once that a yacht was a hole in the water you threw money into.....

[Invernahaille]

Stanley,
I think back in the day, most ships especially Royal Navy ships were given feminine names, i.e. Mary Rose, Marie Celeste. etc.

[Stanley]

[Tizer]

Hermes...coincidentally I've just posted a BBC video on another thread showing F35 jets been flown from our HMS QE carrier. LINK