[QUOTE=c.captain;129710]Yeah, like any woman on the planet would put up with a crusty old bugger like me yet alone live under that same roof? That’s why I rent em by the week from Enterprise. Like their slogan says “we’ll pick you up!”[/QUOTE]
Here here! My sentiments exactly. I intend to go forth and partake of such eccentricities this very evening.
[QUOTE=ChiefRob;129691]Be careful what you ask for Tugs, some of these girls now days are into whips, and chains and things that bring pain.[/QUOTE]
Should ya ask??
By the way, we have a young’un who has “Finished With Engines” tattooed on the bottom of one of his feet. Cal Maritime grad. Don’t ask me what possessed him; I suspect ETOH. 
[QUOTE=c.captain;129658]So now I am going and searching for what movie this is and discover it is titled “The Key”, was released in 1958, also stars Trevor Howard, Bernard Lee and Sophia Loren and takes place during the Battle of the Atlantic AND I HAVE NEVER EVEN HEARD OF IT BEFORE TONIGHT!
[B]NOW I AM OBSESSED…I WANT THIS MOVIE![/B]
here’s another clip from it![/QUOTE]
Amazon instant video has it.
[QUOTE=catherder;129742] Should ya ask??
By the way, we have a young’un who has “Finished With Engines” tattooed on the bottom of one of his feet. Cal Maritime grad. Don’t ask me what possessed him; I suspect ETOH. [/QUOTE]
TATTOOED ON THE BOTTOM OF A FOOT? What kind of fucking wimpole gets tattooed on the bottom of a foot? Why on earth even bother? AND YOU CAN REPEAT ALL OF THIS DIRECTLY TO THE FUCKING PANTYWAIST IF YOU WOULD PLEASE MS. CAT!
Now as far as ink goes, the best I ever heard of was a crusty old chief engineer from tugs having one prop tattooed on each butt cheek with the word “twin screw” in the small of his back. Course, I never actually can say that I saw it with my own eyes it thank God!
GOOD FUCKING LORD!
I really must wonder what the rest of this guy looked like? On second thought, better to not know!
suddenly I am left with the thought that MonkeyFist needs to do a Maritime Monday about seamen and their ink if she hasn’t done what yet?
[QUOTE=cmakin;129636]Steam tubines for marine use are most likely on the way out now that they are able to burn natural gas in reciprocating engines. I would imagine that there is still a market at power plants, refineries and such. . . .[/QUOTE]
On the way out NOW? They have been “out” probably since before 1966 except for the USA, LNG carriers and anything nuclear powered. You’re one of the black gang so tell me in terms of HP produced for pound of fuel burned what is the most efficient steam plant ever built? Then for equivalent HP capacity, how does that compare to a slow speed direct drive long stroke diesel?
I would also be interested to hear those statistics. I wonder just how close steam advanced before it died.
[QUOTE=PaddyWest2012;129781]I wonder just how close steam advanced before it died.[/QUOTE]
…or how far the diesels ran before steam just gave up? :>
Some bulk carriers with coal-fired boilers were built for Australia in the 1980s, but I can’t remember the names…
I don’t get it? Steam went away because boiling water to spin a turbine is not as fuel efficient as an equivalent HP diesel plant. It is just as with coal giving way to oil and as reciprocating engines gave way to turbines during the course of the 20th Century. Certainly. the move to diesels by the rest of the maritime nations of the world was well underway by the early 60’s. It was just the US which clung to steam for so long mainly due to demands by the Navy that all CDS built ships be able to make a minimum speed that only a steam plant could provide at the time plus the old inability of our great Navy to let go of the past just it was planning to fight WWII again at sea against the Soviets until the early 90’s.
Do you know that up until the end of WWII the US had the largest slowspeed diesel manufacturing industry in the world? Companies like Nordberg, Busch-Sulzer, and Hamilton all built huge slow speed engines. After WWII all that manufacturing ability and technology development rapidly evaporated to Europe and Asia! Today there is NO large slow speed diesel engine builder in the USA!
9cyl 2-stroke 5850hp Nordberg TS29 engine installed in the EMORY VICTORY…the only diesel powered Victory Ship and largest slow speed diesel ever built up till that time and only one ever constructed by Nordberg which went out of the marine diesel business within a decade of the end of WWII.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA…A NATION CAME TOGETHER AS ONE AND IN SO DOING, PRODUCED NEVER BEFORE SEEN MIRACLES OF INDUSTRY!
now it’s all gone…lost forever to the mists of faded glory
I hate to admit but I don’t really know the history of our mechant fleet. Back in the (good?) old days, we were considered a developing country where workforce was cheap and rules were lax. After the war, the shipping companies purchased a lot of second-hand steamships from the international market because there was a shortage of tonnage and everyone else was already converting to diesel. However, I think most of those ships had a reciprocating steam engines instead of steam turbines. As the economy improved, the shipping companies started ordering newbuildings instead of purchasing second-hand vessels and those were of course all diesel-powered.
However, I know exactly how it went with icebreakers (surprise!). Triple-expansion steam engines were considered superior until the development of the first diesel-electric icebreakers in the 1930s. After that, DC/DC gave way to AC/DC and finally AC/AC.
My father always told me the potential of steam was unlimited and of course I believe him. I find it hard to believe though that there is anything more to learn about the efficiency of steam. Of course Slow Speed direct drive is top of heap now though electric is a contender … It makes sense the hotter the engine room the more lost energy generally. Re; those tattoos … over the top but I don’t mind a small intriguing one on a discreet woman! We all know what those guys look like after their tattoos are 50 years old! ''betcha wish you’d stayed out of the bar that night"" ha ha
[QUOTE=c.captain;129801]I don’t get it? Steam went away because boiling water to spin a turbine is not as fuel efficient as an equivalent HP diesel plant. It is just as with coal giving way to oil and as reciprocating engines gave way to turbines during the course of the 20th Century. Certainly. the move to diesels by the rest of the maritime nations of the world was well underway by the early 60’s. It was just the US which clung to steam for so long mainly due to demands by the Navy that all CDS built ships be able to make a minimum speed that only a steam plant could provide at the time plus the old inability of our great Navy to let go of the past just it was planning to fight WWII again at sea against the Soviets until the early 90’s.
Do you know that up until the end of WWII the US had the largest slowspeed diesel manufacturing industry in the world? Companies like Nordberg, Busch-Sulzer, and Hamilton all built huge slow speed engines. After WWII all that manufacturing ability and technology development rapidly evaporated to Europe and Asia! Today there is NO large slow speed diesel engine builder in the USA!
9cyl 2-stroke 5850hp Nordberg TS29 engine installed in the EMORY VICTORY…the only diesel powered Victory Ship and largest slow speed diesel ever built up till that time and only one ever constructed by Nordberg which went out of the marine diesel business within a decade of the end of WWII.
[/QUOTE]
Nordberg stayed around a little longer than that. The Russian submarine retriever Glomar Explorer which morphed into the drillship GSF Explorer was powered by Nordberg. I think Nordberg went out of business by the mid '70s
[QUOTE=c.captain;129780]On the way out NOW? They have been “out” probably since before 1966 except for the USA, LNG carriers and anything nuclear powered. You’re one of the black gang so tell me in terms of HP produced for pound of fuel burned what is the most efficient steam plant ever built? Then for equivalent HP capacity, how does that compare to a slow speed direct drive long stroke diesel?[/QUOTE]
Many of the ULCCs built in Japan (and other countries) in the 70s were steam turbine. Surprised me when I worked for ABS. Most of the ships I attended in the lightering area at the time were steam. The old Chevron, Texaco and Exxon ULCCs and many of the VLCCs had steam plants that were built up to the mid to late 70s. Here are a couple: ESSO ATLANTIC, built in 1977 at 516,893 DWT; DAVID PACKARD (Chevron), built in 1977, 406,592 DWT; TEXACO LONDON, built 1976, 272,739DWT. Same with LNG tankers. They could burn the leak off of gas in the boilers, so a steam plant made sense. It has only been in the last few years that technology has allowed the burning of natural gas in a reciprocating engine.
[QUOTE=Tups;129795]…or how far the diesels ran before steam just gave up? :>
Some bulk carriers with coal-fired boilers were built for Australia in the 1980s, but I can’t remember the names…[/QUOTE]
I’d be interested in seeing some of those 80’s built bulkers that were still done up in steam. As recently as 1984 the last all-steam passenger vessel (the M/V Fairsky) was built. Her career was plagued with incidents but it’s still pretty cool that there was a pretty modern looking cruise ship going around for the last 30 years on nothing but some big old rip-roarin’ steam turbines.
Isn’t the Energy Enterprise steam?
[QUOTE=c.captain;129780]You’re one of the black gang so tell me in terms of HP produced for pound of fuel burned what is the most efficient steam plant ever built? Then for equivalent HP capacity, how does that compare to a slow speed direct drive long stroke diesel?[/QUOTE]
I’ll let you do the conversion - but one ton of uranium is capable of producing the same amount of power as 80,000 barrels of fuel oil.
Nuke powered steamboats hold their own I think.
[QUOTE=Steamer;129904]I’ll let you do the conversion - but one ton of uranium is capable of producing the same amount of power as 80,000 barrels of fuel oil.
Nuke powered steamboats hold their own I think.[/QUOTE]
80,000-bbls in a steam plant or a big slow-speed diesel? I agree with you that nukes hold their own in terms of efficiency when staking up against any kind of petroleum powered propulsion (whether internal or external combustion). I think, however, if I’ve been following this thread right, that the question at hand was how the most efficient non-nuclear steam plant ever installed on a merchant vessel would stack up against your average, large, slow-speed diesel. Anybody got any stats on that one? What was the most efficient steam plant anyway?
[QUOTE=PaddyWest2012;129912]80,000-bbls in a steam plant or a big slow-speed diesel?[/QUOTE]
“Savannah steamed more than 450,000 miles from 1959 to 1971.The 163 pounds of uranium she consumed is estimated to have provided the equivalent power of nearly 29 million gallons of fuel oil.”
Do the math.
[QUOTE=Steamer;129916]“Savannah steamed more than 450,000 miles from 1959 to 1971.The 163 pounds of uranium she consumed is estimated to have provided the equivalent power of nearly 29 million gallons of fuel oil.”
Do the math.[/QUOTE]
That comes out to 64 gallons to a mile. Assuming they were talking about running a petroleum-powered steam plant on Savannah’s turbines instead of her nuclear plant that would not be too far off from some diesel plants today. What I wasn’t clear on was whether that 29 million gallons was hypothetically combusted in a steam plant or in a slow-speed diesel. The bigger sticking point is, of course, the fact that 29 million gallons is just a hypothetical number because they weren’t burning fuel oil. I am interested in comparing an actual petroleum-powered steam plant with a slow-speed diesel plant.
Coal fired steam turbine! Yeeeehaw.
[QUOTE=z-drive;129926]Coal fired steam turbine! Yeeeehaw.[/QUOTE]
Coal fired? Do they still have fireman down in the depths shoveling coal or do they pulverize it and blow it in like coal fired power plants do?
