[QUOTE=injunear;109907]I was on a NUC job in the early '70s at Ballast Point. There was a converted LCVP that would push a doughnut barge around that the ships woud pump their bilges into. I remember on more than one occasion, they’d pin the doughnut under the exhaust discharge of a diesel boat when they started the engines.[/QUOTE]
The only time we would use a donut is when fueling. The water from the exhaust valves just flows out of the “stack” so there is no way in Hell to catch it and divert it to a donut without some fancy pipework or a weird-ass trough of some sort.
Are you absolutely certain that donut wasn’t underneath a funny looking L shaped pipe connected to the deck?
Besides, in the 70s no one cared much what went in the water. The only reason we used a donut is because the likelihood of a solid stream of diesel was so high … though it never happened when I was king.
[QUOTE=Steamer;109922]The only time we would use a donut is when fueling. The water from the exhaust valves just flows out of the “stack” so there is no way in Hell to catch it and divert it to a donut without some fancy pipework or a weird-ass trough of some sort.
Are you absolutely certain that donut wasn’t underneath a funny looking L shaped pipe connected to the deck?
Besides, in the 70s no one cared much what went in the water. The only reason we used a donut is because the likelihood of a solid stream of diesel was so high … though it never happened when I was king.:)[/QUOTE]
In retrospect, that may have been the case. We’d move from Script’s pier to the SPERRY for machine work. I also remember carbon deposits floating in the tide rip and a steady film of oil eminating from the donuts when the coxsun was in a hurry.
Back in the 80’s when I worked in New York Harbor my Company had a couple of OP’s. These tugs were used for Ship Work quite a lot and I do not remember them smoking that bad. Trust me this Company was very particular about how the boats looked and I have seen people fired for messing up the paint. The other thing that I remember is they seemed to come up to speed and power very quickly. Now the Cat Powered (Twin 399’s) Tug that I was on smoked her ass off when idling and cold, plus she would blow smoke all over the place when you nailed the throttle.
Personally, I liked the OP’s over a EMD (it must have been the voices in my head) as with the OP there was always something to tighten up on or fix on them.
Back in the 80’s Captain Don Hughs, (unit 48, RIP), took about 40 mucky mucks dressed in their finest yachting clothes out for a spin on his tug, Armstrong, some kind of benefit, I think. For some reason he gave her a full bell, the old’ OP’s spit about twenty or thirty gallons of lovely black slime into the air, did an overspeed trip, made a mushroom cloud that stopped traffic on the SF Bay bridge 200 feet above, and rained down black oil onto the assembled high rollers… Maybe we shouldn’t have shimmed the top crank bearings with beer cans… (But, hey, sometimes ya gotta go with what ya got…)
PS, Armstrong was sister ship to Salvage Chief, LST, but had a huge house and push knees. Saw them both at pier 3 SF together…
[QUOTE=DredgeBoyThrottleJocky;109939]Back in the 80’s Captain Don Hughs, (unit 48, RIP),
snipped
PS, Armstrong was sister ship to Salvage Chief, LST, but had a huge house and push knees. Saw them both at pier 3 SF together…
General characteristics
Class & type: LSM-1 class Landing Ship Medium
Displacement: 530 long tons (539 t) empty
900 long tons (914 t) loaded
Length: 203 ft 6 in (62.03 m)
Beam: 34 ft (10 m)
Draft: Landing :
3 ft 6 in (1.07 m) forward
7 ft 8 in (2.34 m) aft
Full load :
6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) forward
8 ft 3 in (2.51 m) aft
Propulsion: Fairbanks-Morse or GM Cleveland diesel engines, 2,800 shp (2,088 kW), direct drive, 2 screws
Speed: 13.3 knots (24.6 km/h; 15.3 mph)
Range: 5,000 nmi (9,300 km) at 7 kn (13 km/h; 8.1 mph)
Capacity: 5 × medium tanks or
3 × heavy tanks (150 tons max. payload, beaching) or
6 × LVTs or
9 × DUKWs
Troops: 54 troops
Complement: 4 officers, 54 enlisted
Armament: • 2 × 40 mm AA guns
• 4 × 20 mm AA guns
[B][I]“Propulsion[/I][/B] two Fairbanks Morse (model 38D81/8X10, reversible with hydraulic clutch) diesels. Direct drive with 1,440 BHP each @ 720rpm, twin screws”
Don was a character, the first pilot I ever did a (sort o)f ship job with, other than the tug owner. Towing two liberty’s behind a big Chinese tug, the ships were closing pretty
fast. I was trundling by by accident.
Don says. "Hey, Crispy, get in there and push on the right side of the right ship, or the the left side of the left ship, or, ah, hell, I don’t care just get in there somewhere and
push.". I slithered between with a wood YTL, as far forward as I could get before the vise closed. Working to a 90 on the left ship, the right ship got down to about two
feet off the stern. Between the wash and the push we made it… The pilot that owned the YTL saw it all. Yeah, I got an earful.
