Have any of you younger engineers ever sailed on a relatively newer diesel powered ship (post 2005) that uses a scoop to get salt water into the central cooling system instead of a sea chest? They were common on steam ships about 50 years ago. It saved on the electricity need to run those huge SW pumps used in sea chests. You just needed to be going a little faster for the scoop to work without a pump backup.
I have not. But interesting concept that I wasn’t aware of. With all the technology invested in hull design, hull cleanliness & expensive hull paint, I would suspect modern marine architects would be more concerned with the energy wasted with inefficient hydrodynamics compared to electricity used? Now I’m interested in knowing if such scoop systems are still used.
Not a “younger” engineer here but I will chime in anyway. We used the scoop on steamboats because the volume of water required to feed the main condenser was enormous compared to that required by a modern motorboat. Comparing the size of a motorboat’s cooling pumps to the main circ pump on a steamboat tells the whole story.
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