I have a lovely image as a metaphor for what a chore that must be.
I once was given a tour of a Canadian Navy supply ship. Bridge full of
high tech electronics. Below, the engine control room full of both electronic and vacuum line (? I forget) controls overlooking the huge
main turbine and ancillary turbine. Aft, a large room filled by two
huge 12-cylinder (IIRC) diesel engines. These can supply power to run everything needed to get the whole ship up and running.
Near by, a "small" 8-cylinder diesel, about the size that would drive a
40' highway tractor-trailer rig, running a compressor that can make
enough compressed air to get the big diesels started.
What do you do if you have a cold ship, nothing running at all, no
shore power, no electricity, no steam?
In a corner of a lower-yet deck, there's a (possibly antique?) vertical-single-cylinder diesel. Bolted to the bulkhead is a hand
crank. You unbolt the crank, crank up the single-banger which generates enough power to start the "small" diesel which starts the big diesels which...
I don't know how often they test-run that little single-banger to
ensure that it still goes. The crank looked like it hadn't been
unbolted for years.
What do you do if you have a cold ship, nothing running at all, no
shore power, no electricity, no steam?
There is a whole youtube genre of starting old & large engines.
Diesel locomotives use the compressed air thing, the British Field Marshal >tractor uses a shotgun shell, a Rumley Oil Pull tractor has the farmer
jump up and down on the flywheel, hot-bulb engines use a blowtorch...
On 2025-05-01, Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
What do you do if you have a cold ship, nothing running at all, no
shore power, no electricity, no steam?
In the case of a Liberty Ship, such as the John W. Brown in Baltimore,
the answer is you go nowhere. There is a ?6"? pipe fitting on its side to
go to an adjacent ship to transfer live steam between them to jump-start
the dead one.
In <m7sbuqF14iiU1@mid.individual.net> ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) writes:
[snip]
There is a whole youtube genre of starting old & large engines.
Diesel locomotives use the compressed air thing, the British Field
Marshal tractor uses a shotgun shell, a Rumley Oil Pull tractor has the >>farmer jump up and down on the flywheel, hot-bulb engines use a >>blowtorch...
Don't forget how to start a piston airplane engine after you've just
jerry rigged together a new plane from the wreckage after you've crashed
in the Arabian desert...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flight_of_the_Phoenix_(1965_film)
In <m7sbuqF14iiU1@mid.individual.net> ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) writes:
[snip]
There is a whole youtube genre of starting old & large engines.
Diesel locomotives use the compressed air thing, the British Field Marshal >> tractor uses a shotgun shell, a Rumley Oil Pull tractor has the farmer
jump up and down on the flywheel, hot-bulb engines use a blowtorch...
Don't forget how to start a piston airplane engine
after you've just jerry rigged together a new plane
from the wreckage after you've crashed in the
Arabian desert...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flight_of_the_Phoenix_(1965_film)
In the case of a Liberty Ship, such as the John W. Brown in Baltimore,
the answer is you go nowhere. There is a ?6"? pipe fitting on its side to >>go to an adjacent ship to transfer live steam between them to jump-start >>the dead one.
I've sailed on the Jeremiah O'brien few times, and wandered through
the engine room while underway. It normally docks at Fisherman's Wharf, and >the only adjacent vessel is a WWII submarine. I'm not sure how they >cold-start.
I don't recall how they fire up the Brown, but will ask a crew member.
I said:
I don't recall how they fire up the Brown, but will ask a crew member.
And found out:
They boot-strap with a giant air compressor.
They back-feed the saturated
steam distribution, and can run the boiler blower, and fuel pump. That gets the boilers up to pressure. At 200 PSI, they shut everything down, close
the compressor's valves, and then restart running off steam. The switch over takes about 15 minutes, and if too much pressure is lost you get to try again.
The boilers are lit by lighting a torch with a piezo grill lighter. Then poking the torch into the back of the burner. Each boiler has four burners, and once one is burning, it will ignite the neighboring ones. So all you really have to do is open the fuel valve.
They boot-strap with a giant air compressor.
I suppose this thing is off the ship? So not something to do in the
middle of the sea.
"Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> writes:
They boot-strap with a giant air compressor.
I suppose this thing is off the ship? So not something to do in the
middle of the sea.
I'd say so....
How would they get out to sea while cold to begin with???
How would they get out to sea while cold to begin with???
No, I mean what to do if somehow the boiler goes off or is switched off
in the middle of the sea.
"Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> writes:
How would they get out to sea while cold to begin with???
No, I mean what to do if somehow the boiler goes off or is switched off
in the middle of the sea.
I suspect that they would take measures to avoid such a circumstance....
Kind of reminds me of when we had a BB&N C-70 installed in a panel truck
and on mornings when it was below freezing (not *far* below, it was NC)
the techs would go through with hair dryers and warm the disk drives before we applied power...
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