2009 Week 19 in Review

Breaking down the party

I spent the first part of the week finishing the big M4 Party. Volunteers and I worked around the clock to clean up and return all the stuff, following the amazing show. Thanks to all those who helped this year!

If you want to be involved in the next M4 party, please contact me and I’ll put you in touch with the crew.

Preparing for Illinois

I talked two weeks ago about how I’d been talking with the Indian Grave Pump House in Illinois about installing re-babbitted main bearings in their Fairbanks-Morse engines. I ended Week 17 hearing “we’re waiting for the bearings to come back from the shop,” and by this week they were back to “hurry hurry hurry,” so I’m getting ready to go to Illinois again.

I picked up more lapping compound (a big 5lb bucket this time), and cleaned up the shop. This time, the trip is indefinitely long, so I had to be sure the bills are paid and the chickens have feed. It’ll probably be two or three weeks, so stay tuned for blogs from the Midwest.

Business as usual

OTM Inc got audited by the insurance company. Lame.

Elliott Bay Tugboat Races

On Saturday, OTM Inc went to the tugboat races on Elliott Bay aboard the Maris Pearl. It was a great day for racing, and we had a blast:

We also saw the Fearless out in fine form:

Tugboat Night!

We had another session of Tugboat Night aboard the Arthur Foss. The next session is June 13, so we’ll see you there!

Labor versus Capital

There’s been lots of talk about our ideas of labor changing these days, but I want to know if our ideas of efficiency will change. I think it might have to.

Let’s say we give billions to the auto industry so that they can keep people employed. We as tax payers will pay them to make cars, but then no one wants to buy them. Did it work? No but if we give billions to an auto industry that makes cars by hand, using hand tools. And turn out less cars people keep their jobs.

By the same token, if we give billions to highway improvement, it will be under the banner of creating jobs and employing people. It sounds like a good idea, but I’m worried that what will happen when the government starts awarding contracts. If the lowest bidder is the company that wants to buy a big automatic highway re-paving machine that was made in China and can be driven by one person, then did the plan work? I say that it didn’t, if the original plan was to create jobs (unless we’re counting off-shore manufacturing jobs).

I’m worried that billions will go to replace old diesels for no reason except to keep the Chinese who build Caterpillars employed for another day. Ultimately the money earmarked for a cleaner and better running fleet should be spent to have engineers and mechanics replace the rings and injectors. A billion dollars can service a lot of engines and keep people employed right here – plus it will help protect the environment by both cutting emissions and preventing new engines to be shipped around the world and old engines to be shipped to the scrappers.

Really, if we clean up the engines that are already in use, the benefits will be compounded. We’ll have cleaner air, more work with less capital investment, a better life for mid-level educated folks, and no artificially-created demand for the new products. All the equipment serviced will already be in demand due to the fact that someone owns it.

So, government folks, please stop creating meaningless capital investment and buy labor, instead. There are millions of ways to improve the world with out making anything.

2009 Week 14 in Review

We started this week by cleaning the shop really well, since I was headed out of town. I also tied up loose ends on the Arthur Foss and gathered parts for the Maris Pearl.

Tug for sale

The tug Earnest is for sale here in Seattle. It’s a great tug, 91 feet long and built in 1942. It used to have a 600-HP Atlas-Imperial just like the one owned by the Florida Flywheelers. It’s been re-powered with a 1,125 Caterpillar D-399 engine, but it’s still a good boat. Contact me if you or a friend is interested.

Enterprise R-Models for sale

We’ve heard that there’s two 8,000 horsepower Enterprise Model-R diesels for sale in Maryland. They’re part of a genset and that was supposed to power an island, but apparently the deal fell through. We’ve heard that these two were the last off the Enterprise manufacturing line, so we hope someone grabs them. Contact OTM Inc if you’re interested.

Coincidence?

I just found out that an old neighbor of mine is a descendant of the guy who invented the Metal Marine Pilot, which was later turned into a Wood Freeman Autopilot. Huh.

Public Trust

We at OTM Inc have recently heard of a tugboat collection getting pushed around by the government.

Steve is a tugboat guy in Waterford, New York. He’s a little reckless, a little eccentric, and very passionate about what he does, which is to collect old tugboats. I can see you rolling your eyes out there, but if the tugboat collection is doing okay and not harming anyone, why bother him?

Well, the New York State Canal Corporation is apparently planning to remove Steve and his vessels from “their” waterways by systematically attacking him with court orders, restraining orders, fines, and the other non-violent weapons available to bureaucracies. The Canal Corporation is a state-owned operation designed to manage the public trust that owns the canal and river systems in New York. According to Steve, they recently changed the state law to say “no living on boats in the canals.” We at OTM Inc have not looked up the law, but find it unlikely that they made it that general; instead, we speculate that they changed the state law to read something like “no living on a barge called Pennsylvania No. 399 within 100 yards of Lock E-2.”

Anyway, Steve continued living on his boat, so the Canal Corporation had him arrested and issued a restraining order to keep him off the boats. Interestingly, the Canal Corporation then assumed care of the boats, until they can safely acquire title to them through the doctrine of adverse possession. I think we all can guess where they’ll end up after the Canal Corporation has title to them.

Steve is planning to strike back by accusing the Canal Corporation of “interfering with the safe operation of a vessel” and “forcefully taking control of a manned vessel.” Both of these are federal offenses and typically taken very seriously.

While researching this article, OTM Inc tried tirelessly to contact an official with the Canal Corporation, but received no response to any of the voicemails or messages left with the secretary. I can only assume that they are uninterested in making a statement at this time.

While I understand the need to put some vessels out of their misery, and that there are some situations in which a boat collector must be saved from himself, setting a bureaucratic precedent like this is disturbing. The idea that the same entity that obtains the restraining order can gain control of the vessel through taking care of it in the owner’s court-ordered absence is pretty scary, and a scenario I don’t want to see played out.

At the same time, there are some boat projects that really are hopeless and should be shut down before they end up costing a lot of taxpayer money to clean up. These projects are the one that linger for decades, with lots of time and energy and love and hope and money all wasted in the end because the project was hopeless from the start.

From my perspective, it comes down to how to define what projects are “hopeless.” Who gets to make the call on that? What’s their training? Who trained them? Are they licensed, and who licensed them?

Even more, are there any objective criteria or scale that this person or persons can use to judge boat projects as a potential success or failure at the beginning? Someday, I will assemble an interdisciplinary panel of experts in a variety of related fields, including psychologists, psychiatrists, economists, curators, drum circle hippies, demographers, maritime attorneys, navel architects, ship captains, surveyors, and boat repair specialists. This team will develop just such a scale to judge boat projects on, so that we can stop wasting years of hope and work only to lose it all to scrappers or government agencies. No old boat project should be judged without such a panel – one that includes both boat people and realists.

Until then, Old Tacoma Marine Inc will offer unbiased mediation services to assist parties with resolving such disputes.

Old Tacoma Marine Inc goes to Mexico

See you next week!

2008 Week 46 in Review

We took the rest of the main bearings out of the Catalyst this week. Bill and I rolled them out two at a time to look at them, clean them really well, measure them, and take pictures:

Then we’d roll them back in and roll out another two. We were careful to not roll out adjacent pairs, since it’s important that the crankshaft stay supported even with a couple of bearings out. Now that I’ve said that, I’ll say that there was one exception: we rolled out both six and seven at the same time, because one of them is a small bearing beside the air compressor bay, so it’s not quite as important.

We also found that number six and number seven are bad, which makes three bad main bearings to be re-babbitted. One of them is ripple-y, like it got hot (maybe it was changed out and not scraped in, which would have caused it to heat up) and two of them are cracked very badly:

One of the cracked ones was definitely from badly-poured babbitt (which I described back in Week 44), so the other one was probably bad babbitt as well, since they were probably done at the same time. It’s hard to tell, though, and we don’t really know when the babbitt on the mains was poured. It could well be the original 1932 babbitt! Maybe I’ll look it up in the log book to pass some time while underway next summer.

By the end of the day, we’d rolled out all of the main bearings except for number one. This one carries the weight of the flywheel, which we didn’t want to deal with on this job. We’re going to assume that it’s okay for the time being, since the flywheel is a consistent load – it just goes around and around. The pounding of cylinders firing is the thing that’s really hard on the main bearings, so neither Dan nor I were that worried about number one. We’ll look at number one in the future, but this winter’s job is big enough already.

Later in the week, Bill and I took them up to Everett Engineering for estimates. We also stopped in by Striegel Supply to visit Steve and to pick up a piston ring from a DMM Enterprise. The DMM models have an 8″ bore, so we think that one of those rings might work for the 8″ Washington. It’s thinner, but we took it anyway and hopefully I’ll get it to work.

I introduced Bill to Steve, and we all chatted about how everyone owes us money. Striegel doesn’t really carry Washington stuff, but Steve’s a good guy to know – especially if you ever need Enterprise stuff.

An update on the Island Champion

While we were in Everett, I took Bill by the Island Champion. We went aboard to see some of the work that Hilbert’s been doing and he showed us the new floors he’s laid in the salon and galley, which look very nice. I would rather have seen the old floors refinished, since I’m old-school like that, but they do look good. Hilbert’s been doing a lot of other work on the boat and it’s looking great. He and Bill and I were joking about how it could work as a charter boat, but we weren’t really serious… or were we?

Being aboard reinforced the fact that we need to tie the boat up to a strong pier and run the engine for a few days, since it hasn’t been run since the last year’s swamping (I told that sad story back in Week 22). A few days after it was brought up, we flushed the engine really well, flushed the oil lines, and bailed out the crank pit. Then we changed the oil a couple of times, rotated the engine by hand, took all the reed valves apart, cleaned them, and put them back together. We also drained the Manzells and flushed them, then cranked tons of oil through them. With all that, the engine should be fine, but hasn’t been run since so can’t sign off on it yet—plus the engine should be run as often as possible, anyway. Hopefully, we’ll manage that over the winter, once my other jobs are done.

Speaking for Old Engines

I gave a talk for the Society of Port Engineers of Puget Sound, on Veterans Day. They have a speaker at their monthly meetings, and they were interested in hearing about the big old diesels. I don’t think of myself as much of a speaker, but this is the second time I’ve been asked.

Last year, I gave a talk for the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society, and while I think that the guests might have learned something about the antique diesel engines, I wasn’t very animated. I ended up reading a lot of my talk from a script that I wrote beforehand, but other people say it was fine, so maybe I’m just oversensitive.

This year’s talk for the Port Engineers went a lot better. I started by telling some of my funny engineer stories, and then just talking about engines. Instead of preparing a Presentation, I put up pictures of engines and boats that I wanted to talk about and just talked about them. I got some good questions, and a bunch of people were nodding as I talked, so I think it went pretty well.

I want to thank the Society for the invite – I met a lot of interesting maritime folks. I look forward to visiting again.

A buyer for the Lake Superior?

Bob from the American Victory Mariners Memorial and Museum Ship called me the other day; he and his people are interested in maybe buying the Lake Superior. He wanted to know if there were parts and technical support available for maintaining a Q Enterprise. They apparently want to use it occasionally to move things around, but mostly as a museum ship. I told him that there were plenty of resources out there in the community and to keep me in the loop – and to call me for the cruise from Duluth to Tampa.

Later, I did some research on the internet and found an article at the Great Lakes & Seaway Shipping News Archives about the Lake Superior. Apparently, the Army Corps of Engineers gave it to the City of Duluth when they retired it in 1995, and the City tried to make a museum out of it by their convention center. I guess folks weren’t that interested in an old Army tug at the dock, since so few people took the tour that they actually cut a hole into the side of the hole to make an ice cream parlor. That didn’t work either, and they sold the tug to a private company last year.

I think it’s good that the city was able to move on and sell the tug when they saw that it wasn’t working as a museum boat, rather than getting completely stuck trying to convince the world that another old rust bucket was interesting. I’m all for preserving the old boats (they help keep the old engines dry), but museums and cities have to be realistic when they’re trying to operate a workboat as a museum. Sometimes it’s just not doable because people aren’t that interested. I think it’s better to sell the boat and move on than resort to gimmicks. I mean, an ice cream parlor? Are you kidding?

It looks like the folks in Tampa might be able to make a go of it – it sounds like they have lots of activity and know how to keep big old boats (like their flagship, American Victory) interesting and working.

2008 Week 43 in review

The Duwamish, completed!

Last week I finished rebuilding the Duwamish‘s air compressor, but didn’t have time to test it. This week, I ran it for a few hours while I cleaned up the engine room a bit. It worked great! Before the rebuild, it basically didn’t work at all because the air compressor’s valves didn’t get a seal and therefore didn’t compress any air. When I turned it on after the rebuild, I had one tank at 450 psi in about half an hour – way better.

This will also make our next Engineer for a Day class much easier to set up for, since it won’t take so much effort to get enough air pressure to start the engines. For one class, we had to run an air hose from the Arthur Foss over to the fireboat so we could start the mains.

Tire-kicking with Brian

Occasionally, Old Tacoma Marine leads a tour of old boats with old engines in Seattle. This week, after Brian brought three drums of oil down to the Arthur Foss (thanks, Brian!), we drove all around Ballard on the grand tour. We visited the Northwest Marine Propulsion Museum to see Mike’s little three-cylinder Atlas-Imperial and the Washington that was never installed in a boat, as well as the Ruby XIV and its Washington. We then visited Dan Grinstead’s tug Lorna Foss with its direct reversing Atlas-Imperial (the only model with a sliding cam), and then went over to the Angeles, a project tug with a DMG-6 Enterprise.

Jason, who owns the Angeles, hopes to sell the boat to someone unafraid of woodwork. I hope he finds someone, since the tug would make a great cruiser.

After this whirlwind tour, it was back to work – mostly in the office this week, as we’re getting ready for the Catalyst to arrive for her winter engine project.

“New” tugs and engines on the website

Old Tacoma Marine Inc has located another few heavy-duty diesel engines: an Enterprise in the CN Tugboat #6, another Enterprise in the tugboat Lake Superior, another enterprise in the tugboat Edward H, and an Atlas-Imperial on display at Antique Powerland in Brooks, Oregon.

The CN Tugboat #6 (“CN” stands for “Canadian National”) has a DMG6 Enterprise rated for 575 horsepower and is owned by the S S Sicamous Restoration Society, which operates the Okanagon Inland Maritime Heritage Park. Until 2006, it was owned by the City of Kelowna, but it sounds like they had no idea what to do with an old tug and finally donated it to people who know boats. The Society has three other old boats, so I hope that they know what they’ve gotten into:

We couldn’t find as much information about the Lake Superior or the Edward H, but according to the Great Lakes & Seaway Shipping News, they’re both WWII tugs of the same class as the Maris Pearl and the Red Cloud and all the rest, powered by the big Q Enterprises. They’ve both been based in the Great Lakes for several years, have been bought by new owners, re-located to the Duluth area, and are being put back to work. If anyone has any more information – or engine pictures – about either of these tugs, please let us know.

Finally, the Antique Powerland folks have a four-cylinder Atlas-Imperial on display at their grounds in Brooks, Oregon:

According to user Bluedisk, who took this picture and uploaded it to Wikipedia, this engine came out of a tugboat. If anyone reading this knows more about the engine, please let us know!

As always, send us any updates, corrections, or other heavy-duty diesels that we haven’t “found” yet.

On the subject of preserving old stuff

Last week and this week got me thinking about old engines in museum collections again. Mostly, I’m very happy to see museums accepting engines into their permanent collections, but I see some downsides to it. The biggest problem is that museums don’t necessarily understand how to care for a diesel engine. They’re used to preserving artifacts by making storage mounts and keeping them in a climate-controlled space and not letting anything damage them – which works great if the artifact is a hat or a map or a sea chest or something like that:

Engines are different, though – they have to be exercised and maintained in order to preserve them. If you let an engine just sit, even if in a climate-controlled room, it will slowly destroy itself. The oils and lubricants degrade over time, which then allows rust into the unpainted parts of an engine. Even worse, if it was ever seawater cooled then the cast iron pieces have salt permanently stuck in them, which will rust an engine from the inside out. If you just let the engine sit, then the interior parts of the cooling system will fill up with rust and then start pushing out. Eventually, the engine will literally explode – very slowly, but the rust will push its way out and break the castings.

The way to prevent this from happening is to exercise the engine as often as possible. This means lubricating everything and running it if it still runs, or barring it over if it doesn’t. Doing all this will also let you inspect the engine, clean it up, and hopefully notice any problems that need more attention. I know that actually using an artifact like this flies in the face of a lot of museum theory about conserving the original fabric of the object, but since it’s impossible to preserve it without exercising it, I think that museums need to widen their definition of collections care if they have engines in their collection.

Exercising an engine also creates more opportunities to involve the public with the artifacts. A static engine quickly gets boring to all but the most ardent enthusiasts, but a working engine that the public can watch and listen to is interesting for a lot longer to more people. Running an engine also means that a museum can hold repair workshops and engineering classes, which provides yet another layer of “interpretation.”

With all this in mind, I propose that all museums that own an old diesel at least occasionally run the engine, to both preserve the moving parts and also to give members of the public more opportunity to understand 1920s diesel technology.

2008 Week 42 in review

A visit to the Sakarissa

I finished my trip to Portland by visiting the Sakarissa, which is tied up in the Columbia River:

It’s a World War II tug (YTM-269), powered by a DMQ 8 Enterprise (serial number 41119). It has a new governor, a new seawater pump, and a Sperry steering system (with a few problems). Jerry gave us a great tour all throughout the boat.

Back to business

After I got back from Portland, I did some cleaning at the shop and found some interesting links to share. Here’s an old but interesting article about my friend Rick Boggs (and yes, two of the photo captions are mixed up), and here’s the website for the Tugboat Enthusiasts Society. Check out their article on Enterprise diesels.

I also got a long email from Doug Leen about his experience with Mercs. He’s also posted it to his blog, so you can read about it all here.

Lead ballast for the Catalyst

On Friday, I picked up about 2,000 pounds of lead to help ballast the Catalyst a little better. I had to borrow Dan’s truck to haul it up to Port Townsend in one load.

While in Port Townsend, I stopped by Sirens for a drink with Crystal. We ran into Lee Ehrheart, the marine surveyor who works on the Adventuress and other local historic ships. I guess it’s hard to go to PT without running into boat people.

The Duwamish… Finished?!?

I finally finished the work on the fireboat Duwamish‘s air compressor and got it all put back together. I was planning on test-running it, but I had to transfer fuel by hand and ran out of time for the day. I’ll run it for a while next week and see what kind of pressure we can get out of it now.

A visit to Seattle’s sewage pumps

Nick took me on a tour of the sewer pump facility in Interbay, where all of downtown Seattle’s waste water and rain water is pumped out to the treatment plant. They use three big 48-inch pumps, one electric, one Waukesha natural gas engine, and one Chicago Pneumatic natural gas engine:

The city’s planning to replace them all with electric motors, with a diesel generator on standby. Nick loves the old diesels and wanted to show off the Chicago Pneumatic a bit before it goes.

Community dinner

Everywhere I go, I run in to folks who are connected to heavy-duty diesel engines.

On Thursday Lia (naturalist on the Catalyst) and I (relief engineer on the Catalyst) attended one of the communal dinners that Chef Anne Catherine (cook on the Catalyst) holds. We arrived, and there were Eric (former engineer on the Catalyst) and Laura (with Eric, owner of the Atlas-Imperial-powered Newt). We were joined a little later joined by Hugh and Teresa (owners of the Atlas-powered Westward).

We all sat with fifteen others for an amazing dinner of fresh, local ingredients prepared by Chef Anne Catherine, who told about how each had been acquired from a local farmers’ market. After dinner, we went for a nightcap at the Ballard Smoke Shop and ran into Harry (engineer on the Atlas-powered Velero IV).

Small world.

2008 Week 39 in Review

Back to business-as-usual

This week, I’ve gotten back in the shop. I worked on cleaning up an engine control station that I picked up recently. It’s a neat find, perfect for a direct-reversing twin-screw boat. After I finish cleaning it up, I’ll post pictures and put it up on eBay – hopefully by next week.

I also worked on the Duwamish a bit – I checked the cylinder height with a standard gasket and it is too low. The piston goes up past the liner slightly, so next week I’ll put a thicker gasket under it. I’ve got to get this project wrapped up soon, though.

I also cleaned up the shop a bit, and caught up on news from the shop partners. Brian and his shipwright partners are all settled in, John moved out, Grant is moving into John’s old space, and we’re going to be looking for another shop partner soon. My space is right in the center of the shop, so I spend quite a lot of time BSing with everyone who works there. I call this an investment, rather than a waste of time. We may not talk about anything important, but this business requires a lot of social interaction. When I have a question, I can get answer much faster if I am all caught up on the news.

I also worked on taxes and other “business” things. Lame. Stuff like this takes the fun out of running a small business.

Sakarissa moves

We received the following email from Jerry, who works with the Amphibious Forces Memorial Museum, which is thinking about buying the Sakarissa (a WWII “Yard Tug,” sister ship to the Maris Pearl and the Red Cloud):

YTB-269 was built in Tacoma and commissioned 12 April 1944. She served in the Pacific assisting in the operation and transport of ABSD-1 (advance base sectional dry-dock). These large docks were capable of lifting a battleship and were used to repair ships in Eniwetok and Guam during and after the war. The ship returned home to San Francisco on August 22, 1946. She was used for assist duty for the USN until 1974 and was then transferred to MARAD at Suisan Bay tending to the needs of the mothball fleet there. The Sakarissa will join the growing fleet of historic vessels in the Portland/Vancouver WA area. She will become an educational resource attesting to the era when maritime services played a major role in the economy of the Northwest and of the labor that built ships and those few still working to preserve that history.

Jerry also sent a bunch of pictures of the tug, including this engine room shot:

This is the same engine built on the same contract as the Red Cloud and the Maris Pearl, but unlike those two it doesn’t have the clear camshaft view ports on the starboard side. Interesting.

Thanks for the update and the photos, Jerry – I hope that I can make it to the Sakarissa when I’m down in Oregon next month.

Footage from the Quail

Dirk and his friend were treated to a demonstration of the tugboat Quail‘s Atlas-Imperial diesel. Here’s a video of starting her up:

Thanks, Dirk!

What is “original?”

When you’re taking care of engines for which spare parts haven’t been manufactured for 50 years, things tend to get changed around a lot. While I try to stick to the original manufactures’ parts and process, I have had to stray sometimes. If I can’t keep the engine “original”, then the next most important thing is to document the changes that do happen. I’ve been keeping track of the changes I’ve made, but I need to start making better records of the process. I’m going to start a list of variances to the OEM (Original Engine Manufacturer) designs here and on the website. Over time, I hope to document all of the changes I’ve made – and all of the changes that other people have made and told me about.

Here’s a few to start off with:

On the Arthur Foss‘s Washington:

• the fuel pressure regulator is an Atlas-Imperial fuel pressure regulator
• numbers two through six cylinder heads are a newer style with two studs and a collar to hold the valve cages, instead of one big castellated nut around the cage
• the new set of tappet guides have a zerk fitting or 1/8-inch pipe tapped hole in each

On the Catalyst‘s Washington:

• the injector tips, while Washington-style on the outside, are Atlas-Imperial-style on the inside
• the fuel pressure regulator has an atlas imperial seat and stem – inferior to the reversible Washington design
• the new valves are one-piece (this is forgivable)
• the valve cages have new noses and are not one piece any more
• the guides are off the shelf (from MAN or something)
• the rod bearing nuts are nylock and not “large profile”
• the clutch guide pins are two piece
• the pneumatic shifting has been replaced with hydraulic

On the Westward‘s Atlas-Imperial:

• no Manzell

On the Thea Foss‘s Atlas-Imperials:

• much of the engine room controls have been replaced or altered to allow better remote operation

On the Briana Marin‘s Enterprise:

• the thrust bearing and carrying portion of the bed plate has been removed to make room for the gear

That’s it for now. Mechanics, owners, enthusiasts: do you know of any other changes to any other heavy-duty boat? Comment here and we’ll start putting together this record.

Autumn Programs at Northwest Seaport

Old Tacoma Marine Inc has a very good relationship with the Northwest Seaport and I try to help them out when I can. I’m of course most interested in the programs involving the Arthur Foss. I teach all the engine classes held aboard, and last year I not only directed (instigated) the Classic Workboat Show, but I was also the largest sponsor of time and money. Autumn is planning season for Northwest Seaport, so I’ve gotten more involved again by helping them plan next year’s programming and raise funds to make it all happen.

As a start, I went the Lake Union Park Working Group meeting, held every other Friday. All the groups with a stake at South Lake Union send representatives to discuss everything going on, from individual projects to giant joint programs. A major item on the agenda this week was planning joint programs for 2009, but we ended up pushing that back to the next meeting to give all the groups a little more time to recover from the summer. I’m going to meet with Northwest Seaport before that next meeting to commit to expanding the programming schedule just a little more, like we’ve done for the past few years.

I have a few programs that I try to put on every year with the Seaport and the Center for Wooden Boats: Engineer for a Day, Diesel Engine Theory, and the new Tugboat night. These are each engine-centric, mostly on the Arthur, but Engineer for a Day uses all four boats on the wharf (I wrote about it way way back in February). The biggest (and most expensive) single class is Diesel Engine Theory, which is our take-it-apart-and-fix-it class that we’re using to restore the Arthur‘s big Washington:

We’re planning out next year’s programs and finishing this year’s, and finding (as usual) that the main need for each class is participants and funding. For this year’s Diesel Engine Theory class (the only remaining 2008 program), we’ve already got two or three people signed up, and Northwest Seaport is already a third of the way towards raising the total cost of the program (thanks to a 4Culture Special Projects grant), but we really need to fill the class and get the other two-thirds of the money in hand before we start this year’s work.

Northwest Seaport’s staff and board are very busy, so I usually take on a lot of the behind-the-scenes program management. This includes advertising the class and fundraising, on top of the mechanic stuff I need to do to get ready (we really need to order rings soon). This work is essential, since without the organizing, advertising, fundraising, and paper trail, we are spinning our wheels as opposed to building something solid and sustainable that transcends the boat itself.

This gets back to one of my major philosophies. To lift up a boat (or a maritime organization) you need something bigger than that boat (or maritime organization). I think that the best “something bigger” is education. Engine room education is important (the YMTA can tell you why better than I can) and the Arthur Foss just happens to be the best platform for this type of training. She’s a really neat boat, owned by a museum that’s dedicated to keeping her around to teach the public about boats, and she’s moored in the middle of Seattle. The classes and programs we run aboard her for the benefit of the general public can lift the Arthur Foss up and make something more of her than just an old boat.

Of course, last year a program literally lifted the Arthur Foss right out of the water:

That was a great feeling.

Getting back to the upcoming Diesel Engine Theory course, we need behind-the-scenes funding to get it off the ground. If you can help out, contact me now.

The wish list as it stands for the upcoming Arthur Foss programming includes:

• cash
• diesel fuel and lubricating oils
• program participants
• time on a dry dock
• (1) 18-to-one torque multiplier
• volunteers to do behind the scenes work (advertising, fundraising, setup, etc) – sign up for one or more positions now!

2008 Week 38 in Review

This week on Catalyst, we finished up the Alaska cruising season:

Sunday, September 14 – Montague Harbour to Friday Harbor: clear into US, pack and prepare for reentry to “real” life

After I stepped off in Friday Harbor, I headed for the nearest restaurant to feed my need for fried food. I had a great time on the boat, but it was good to get ashore again. I’ll see the Catalyst again in a month or so when they come to Seattle for winter repairs.

Research into proper propeller pitch & keel cooling

Since one of the Catalyst’s big winter projects will be to resolve the overloading issue, I called Sound Propeller Services about re-pitching the propeller. They said that it sounded like it needed to be re-pitched, and recommended that I look at what size the original propeller was.

Dan also told me a cute equation to figure out how to re-pitch a propeller to resolve an overloaded engine:
1) divide achieved RPM at full rack by nameplate RPM to get a decimal amount (0.XX)
2) multiply pitch by ([current pitch] by 3) and that should be the new pitch

I don’t know how scientific it is, but it sounds close. For Catalyst, that’d be 390 divided by 450 to get .86, multiplied by 32 equals 27.5, so it should have a propeller pitch of 27.5 inches. Hmmm…

I also called Keith Sternberg for information about installing a keel cooler on the Catalyst. He recommended one-inch brass pipe in a pattern to get the same surface area as the heat exchanger (or more). Larger than the heat exchanger is fine, too, since the thermostat equals it all out anyway. The most expensive part of the process will be the fittings.

Catching up with the museum ships

I spent a bit of time this week at Northwest Seaport working on some of their projects. Up in the office, we’re wrapping up some final reports for Arthur Foss programming and repairs (mostly last year’s haul-out), and planning the big fall take-it-apart-and-fix it. More on that later.

Down on the wharf, I’m working on the Duwamish again. I’m making slow progress on this project, but I’ll pitch it up after I catch up on everything else. I’ve been gone for quite a while, so there’s plenty to do.

More construction at Lake Union Park

Back in Week 19, I wrote about how excited I am about re-developing Lake Union Park. Well, they finally kicked off Phase II this week by starting to demolish the old yard:

This makes me just a little sad. I lived on board the Arthur Foss for two years, starting right after the “old crew” left in August of 1996. Back then, we moved the boat around quite a bit. I had a great time tinkering in the engine room, which then turned in to a full time “job” of volunteer management and program coordination. We got some good work done then, like raising a new aft mast, painting the whole boat, and training up a crew for deck and engine room work. I lead the group through all the projects, just like I was taught in Sea Scouts. We had a good crew.

Much of our time was spent moored at South Lake Union where the Northwest Seaport had its small shipyard. I had a blast working there – fully recognizing that there was no way that it would be a permanent facility. It was prime real estate, and we were just playing in it.

It was a funny place. The land is a small industrial hold-out right next to downtown Seattle, that’d been completely forgotten by the city. Back then, the Navy owned it and trained reservists in the buildings there, but Northwest Seaport had a long-term arrangement with the City to have historic ship maintenance facilities and moorage there. We had “maintenance” toys like a big old crane and a forklift (we used both to make a 12-foot snowman one winter). We used them to get a lot of work done, but we also did stupid things like taking “crane rides.” We’d hang a fender from the crane, get someone to sit on it, and then swing the boom up and around. Wow. Completely dangerous, but fun.

We also met a lot of people this way. Some of them were short-time volunteers or tourists, but others were “regulars” around the yard. They happened to live there, under the picnic tables or in the out-buildings. They’d be up early for coffee, very respectful, and often worked on the boats or served as crew when we needed an extra hand. They just had a hard time fitting into “normal” society. Maybe 100 years ago they would have been old-time sailors working a respectable job, but now they’re just bums in the park.

Those were the fun times, and I enjoyed them while they lasted, but now the days of the Seaport yard are over. I think it’s for the better – the “interactive” shipyard takes too much space in return for too little public benefit, and it’s declined in the past few years to be just someone’s spare lot to park their junk in (to be fair, a lot of organizations have parked their junk there; not just Northwest Seaport).

So I’m a little sad to hear it’s going since I have good memories of that space, but I’m really excited that it’s being made into a park for a lot of people. I welcome the planned grassy hills and park benches, and even the “interactive fountain.” Let’s hope this change reintroduces more people to their watery roots, and sparks the love for the boats that represent the remaining bits of maritime heritage.

2008 Week 37 in Review

This week on Catalyst, we continued our cruise down the Canadian Inside Passage, heading for home:

Sunday, September 7 – Bishop Bay to Mussel Inlet: skiff into Mussel River, watch Brown Bears (sunny with fog patches)
Monday, September 8 – Mussel Inlet to Hochstader Cove: kayak paddle at Hochstader, wander through islands (overcast then sunny)
Tuesday, September 9 – Hochstader Cove to Schooner Cove: engine problems (repaired), beach walk at Schooner Cove (sunny)
Wednesday, September 10 – Schooner Cove to Village Island: Cross Queen Charolette Strait, explore old village on Village Island (sunny)
Thursday, September 11 – Village Island to Shoal Bay: Through Greene Point Rapids, forest walk at Blind Channel Resort,(sunny)
Friday, September 12 – Shoal Bay to Copeland Islands: Through Dent and Yaculta Rapids, kayak Squirrel Cove, Sunset at anchor (sunny)
Saturday, September 13 – Copeland Islands to Montague Harbour: early start, cross Georgia Strait, enter Gulf Islands, slide show (sunny)

We had the same passengers and crew as last week, since it’s an extra-long 12-day cruise.

We did a lot of running this week. The boat had to be slowed down more and more, and we’re sort of crawling to the finish. It’s embarrassing, and I know the engine would continue to run if we were going faster, but slowing down when there are problems is one of the easiest things to do to save the expensive parts of the engine. Sometimes it’s hard being responsible.

We also stopped to bowl at Butedale again:

A squeak?!?

While underway, I started to hear a squeak coming from number six. I’m already worried about the bearing, but I couldn’t locate the sound. I had looked for about three minutes when the RPM started to drop. I immediately called the captain to alert him to an emergency shutdown, then went on deck to help get the boat to a safe anchorage, since we were in a cluster of islands – not a good position to just drift. I jumped into the skiff and pushed the boat about 75 yards down the passage, where we anchored for an hour while I worked on the engine.

I let things cool for a bit, then removed the covers. I used our infrared temperature gauge to check number six’s bearings. It was fine – I even bumped it and found no change from the last time. I did find that the piston was hot and dry, with some scoring in the liner. I immediately looked at the Manzell and found that the clamp that goes to the pushrod had slipped, which meant the Manzell wasn’t pumping. After heavily oiling and cranking the engine over, we started up and continued on our way at an even more reduced speed, always checking on the Manzell.

Visiting the Teal

We saw a pretty boat: the 1927 research boat Teal:

It was powered by a Washington until the late nineties. I’ve heard that it was damaged beyond repair, so they replaced it. Bummer.

New Washington Line

Speaking of Washingtons, I have a challenge. The Washington Iron Works diesel engine is in my opinion the most beautiful diesel engine in the world. They are efficient, elegant, reliable, and provide a smooth, steady power source for all kinds of boats. They’re also just neat. My clients who have Washingtons love them, and I know there’re several people in the old boat community who would repower their tug or yacht with a Washington if it were available.

These are just some of the reasons behind one of my crazy ideas: I want to start building Washington diesels again. That’s right: I want to build brand-new diesels following a 1920s design. Everything else has gone through a retro-revival (cars, clothes, houses… even avocado-colored blenders), so let’s celebrate the past with new retro diesels.

It sounds complicated, but like any job it just needs to be broken into manageable pieces. First, we’d pick an engine to replicate and reverse-engineer how it was made. This would be a lot of measuring and scratching our heads and looking at original plans and blueprints. We’d get up close with a magnifying glass to figure out where the different parts are, call in experts, and look at old pictures of the Washington Iron Works assembly floor. After that, it’s pretty easy: we’d make the patterns we need for the castings (literally, the cast-iron parts), cast the parts and machine them to spec, assemble them, oil everything, and then run the brand-new engine.

As for choosing an engine, we should start small. Replicating the Arthur Foss‘s big cylinders first off would be too much of a project to start with, even if hearing an eight-cylinder 18″x24″ Washington is one of my dreams. Washington Iron Works made a lot of different engine models, but their smallest size were the “10″ models. The Catalyst‘s engine is the only one we know of left of that size. It’s a 6-10 , with six cylinders, an eight-inch bore, and a ten-inch stroke. It’s a good candidate to start the new line with for a couple of reasons. First, owner Bill has several of the patterns needed to cast new parts (including the cylinder head patterns, which are one of the most complicated to make). Second, it’s a beauty of an engine, reliable and comfortable and kept in near-perfect condition:

How much would creating an all-new Washington cost? Here’s my estimate:

Reverse engineering:	$10,000
Patterns for head:	$0 *
Other patterns: **	$170,000
Casting parts from the patterns:	$80,000
machining the parts:	$150,000
babbitting the bearings:	$35,000
fitting and assembling everything:	$50,000
running and testing	$5,000
total:	$500,000

* Bill already has the patterns for the cylinder heads, so we don’t need to make them (please Bill, please can we use them, please please please?)
** Other patterns: cylinder block, bed plate, rod, piston, rod bearing, main bearing, cap, rocker, shaft mount, injector rocker, valve rocker, thrust bearing, gear drum, oil pump body, fuel pump body, oil pump rocker compressor, cylinder compressor, head compressor, rod compressor, piston compressor, strap… plus maybe a few more

I think that it’d be pretty reasonable for someone or some organization to put $500,000 into creating a new Washington line. Museums, collectors, and people with tugboat yachts would all be interested in replica heavy-duty engines to power their classic boats – just look at how much people are willing to pay for a new replica kitchen stoves.

Bear in mind, too, that after the first new Washington is put together, costs will go way down for each individual engine. You can use the same patterns, you won’t have to reverse-engineer the construction, and the rest of the figures will have less “trial and error” time included. I can’t speculate too much on the economies of scale that would be involved with such an undertaking, but the single biggest cost is the reusable patterns.

I want to get the first of the new Washingtons online by the Catalyst‘s centennial – 2032. We can easily beat that deadline, though, if the funding comes up sooner, so contact Old Tacoma Marine Inc if you’re interested in helping fund the new line. All contributions will be tax-deductible once we find a non-profit partner.

What do you think? I’ve been sitting on this idea for a long time, and I’m going to keep figuring out how to make it happen.

Heavy-duties at Olympia Harbor Days

I wasn’t able to make it to Olympia for Harbor Days and the tugboat races this year, but one of Old Tacoma Marine Inc’s investigative reporters attended and took this great video of the Newt‘s Atlas-Imperial diesel engine:

That’s Eric, who’s also just known as “Newt” sometimes, showing off the Atlas-Imperial to Dirk and Andy. Newt and her owners came in fourth at the races – not too bad.

Photo contest delayed

Speaking of Harbor Days, readers paying close attention will notice that we haven’t announced a winner for the Old Tacoma Marine Inc Summer Sticker Contest yet.

We’ve postponed the contest deadline until November 21st, and will be announcing a winner at the Central Saloon right after checking out the Pacific Marine Expo (register now to avoid exorbitant ticket prices). Remember to Contact me for your own Old Tacoma Marine Inc propeller stickers so you can participate!

2008 Week 35 in Review

Here’s this week’s cruising schedule aboard Catalyst, from Petersburg to Wrangell:

Sunday, August 24 – Petersburg to Ideal Cove: Kayak paddle in Ideal Cove (overcast with showers)
Monday, August 25 – Ideal Cove to Scenery Cove: Visit Le Conte Glacier, full height calving, skiff and hike Baird Glacier (rain)
Tuesday, August 26 – Scenery Cove to Portage Bay: shore walk at Cape Fanshaw, fishing group in Portage Bay (rain)
Wednesday, August 27 – Portage Bay to Roosevelt Harbor: transit Wrangell Narrows, explore Roosevelt Harbor in skiff and on foot (rain)
Thursday, August 28 – Roosevelt Harbor to Canoe Pass: kayak Canoe Pass, transit Zimovia Strait, (some sun and some rain, otters)
Friday, August 29 – Canoe Pass to Berg Bay: visit Anan Bear Observatory, bears are fluffy, paddle Berg Bay/Aaron Creek, slide show
Saturday, August 30 – Berg Bay to Wrangell: last run, pack and prepare to return to what passes for civilization (but isn’t)

Here’s the crew:

And here’re the passengers:

A major highlight of this week was visiting the La Conte Glacier. I hadn’t seen it from a boat before, though I did see it from a float plane once. It’s a very neat tidewater glacier – hard to get to because of a sand bar terminal moraine, which is shallow and keeps out the cruise ships. After that, we went back through Wrangle Narrows to explore some new places, like Canoe Pass and Anan Creek:

We hiked up Anan Creek to a “Wildlife Viewing Site,” which has a bear observatory for people to watch bears feeding in the salmon run without getting rained on (and without feeding the bears). We didn’t see any bears at the observatory, but on the way back a black bear crossed our path. We sat and watched it for about ten minutes before it ran up in to the forest:

We arrived in Wrangle on Saturday to drop off passengers, then headed to Meyers Chuck with just the crew and Bill’s wife and daughter. Coming into Meyers Chuck at night was a little tricky, since it has a very narrow entrance. Luckily, it was one of the clearest nights we’ve had on the trip and we made it in safely. We shut down the engine and watched the stars for hours.

On the subject of cruise ships

I know that there is a lot of hatred for cruise ships (and that I sometimes do the hating), but I do have some other thoughts on them.

I think cruise ships are an efficient way for lot of people to see some amazing sights and relax. They get people to see Alaska (and other places) who would never otherwise get somewhere so remote, and offer a fun vacation. They also are a way to give trees and glaciers an economic value, since people will pay a lot of money to go see (or walk on) “wilderness.”

On the other hand, the get-rich-quick boom-town gold-fever is in the blood of many Alaskans. The process used by cruise ships to transform a town just the next big thing following the gold rush, the clear cuts, and the salmon canneries. It may be a natural thing just like the fishing booms, the timber cuts, and the gold rush. I think the best thing that can be done is to research, document, publish and advertise the changes and relate them with other booms and the impact they made on towns, the environment, the local economies, etc, to try to get the positives out of the cruise ship industry. It is a little icky how some of the towns have turned whole neighborhoods into Disneyland diamond strip malls, but Alaskans have been making a profit off the latest boom for more than a hundred years.

Now, I’ve never actually been on a cruise ship, but someday hope to. If I go on an Alaskan cruise, I want to sign up for the bus trip to the Museum of Alaskan Booms. For me, though, the attraction of a cruise is in the boat itself. Ideally, we’d leave Seattle, motor out about a quarter of a mile, and then drop anchor. I would drink in the casino, hear live music, and play shuffle board. Then at the end of the week, we’d motor back to Pier 66 with a lifetime of memories.

Business as usual

The engine’s oil pressure has been gradually decreasing over the last few weeks, so I started up the auxiliary oil pump to maintain the pressure until we got to Petersburg. Once we were tied up, I changed the oil and filters, flushed the system, and sucked out the residual oil in the base. None of this changed the oil pressure, so on Monday I took all the doors off the crank pit and ran the oil pump to see if any single bearing had way more oil coming out than the others. I found that number six had oil coming out from under the rod foot, and it had bits of babbitt under it in the crank pit.

Oil from under the rod foot might mean that there isn’t enough oil getting to the wrist pin, and babbitt in the crank pit could mean at least two things: that the bearing is going bad and throwing off little pieces of broken babbitt, or that the last mechanic to work on the bearings was lazy and didn’t clean all the pieces of babbitt out of the crank pit. A little leaking oil and babbitt in the crank pit doesn’t tell me much except where to start looking for problems, so I “bumped” number six to see if the rod bearing was out of alignment. It had a little extra clearance – not too bad, but I took out a shim and bumped it again. This time it was within the specifications. I did the temperature test (checking to see if the bearings are heating up, which indicates a problem) at one, five, and 20 minutes, and it’s okay. We’re not losing the oil pressure out of the rod bearings. We’ll take a close look at the main bearings during the winter when we have more time to take the engine apart.

I also removed number five and six’s valves, cleaned them, and swapped them. Since I joined the Catalyst, I’ve taken out all of its exhaust valves and most of its intake valves out for cleaning. I’ve also replaced two of the exhaust valves with spares. Overloading is harder on the valves than any other part of the engine, since overloading makes a lot of heat and soot. First you see pitting, then carbon starts creeping up the guide, and eventually ruins the stem. It’s really important to clean the valves regularly – every year if you’re running the engine a lot.

While we’re on the subject, here’s another maintenance item that many heavy duty owners and mechanics forget. I noticed a lot of gunk in the camshaft bearing cups when we were looking at the rod bearing. All heavy-duty owners should clean out these cups frequently enough that oil actually flows to the bearing. Atlas-Imperial owners should also clean out the tops of the latches, too. This is an easy task to put off, since the first time it’s done it’s messy. After that first time, though, the job will be a lot easier if you keep up with the maintenance. It’s a pretty easy job –hose the cups out with solvent and fill them with fresh oil. Doing this save you some expensive repairs in the long run.

Breaking news

The MAK is gone!

The next stage of construction at Lake Union Park is starting soon, so all the old maritime junk is getting scrapped – including the old MAK that I helped deliver back in the ’90s.

The art of discarding

Boats, like all things, someday need to be thrown away. However, since all the owner’s energy is focused on keeping the boat floating and running, little thought is put into how to eventually get rid of it. This usually leads to a problem: how does one throw away a boat?

The value of things and boats is a weird idea that requires shared opinions and is constantly influenced by enumerable factors. It’s not pleasant to prepare for the worst case scenario, but planning for a variety of possible situations might give you the same piece of mind that fire drills and man-overboard drills do.

A few years ago, I gave my brother a car. My brother, in some respects, is not very good at planning ahead. Since he knew nothing about car ownership, I had to teach him all the rules that they do not show in the commercials. First, licensing, then insurance, then how to drive it, then how to clean it and check fluids.

Next, I showed my brother what to do with the car when he’s done with it. I guided him through many steps and actually practiced each disposal scenario. We backed out at the last minute, just to drill on what he might have to do. Here were our scenarios, each dependent on the condition of the car (we called each person, so they took our word) and prioritized:

1) Car looks good and runs – advertise on Craig’s List to find a buyer – $1,800
2) Car looks good and runs, but there’s no time to find a buyer – cross the street to the Armenians and take their best offer, probably about $50
3) Car looks bad but runs, no takers – the junk yard will offer $35
4) Car looks good wont run, no takers – the junk yard will pick it up will offer $10
5) Car is a total piece of junk – a guy will take it away for $75

I reminded my brother in all cases to accept or pay cash, and immediately send the bill of sale to the licensing department, to make sure that he’s really rid of the car.

This exercise showed that the most likely worst case scenario was to pay $75 to dispose of the car. A similar list of scenarios for even a small boat can have a huge worst-case payout. In order to get rid of it, you need insurance or at least savings and planning. Boats take a lot of work, and there needs to be more emphasis on the art of discarding when that work gets to be too much. I am a planner, which is sometimes hard to notice due to some overlaying personality traits. Seeing through to the end is easy for me and I am surprised when others can’t see huge potential, trends or catastrophes.

If you’re planning to buy a boat, please do some drills on discarding it – for everyone’s sake. Remember that it’s always harder than you think. Here’s how you should do it: first, try to sell you boat. Next, try to give it away. Then, try to pay someone to take it away. Do each drill with the boat in a different theoretical condition – and don’t let your dreams of how the boat will be after you’re done fixing it up interfere with the drill. Make up a couple of bad scenarios and see how hard or how easy it is to get rid of it in each. Sometimes, the only way to get rid of a boat is to pay someone else to break it up for you.

Without planning and drills, owners can get delusional about what the boat is worth and might even think it is worth the same as what was paid for it. This reality check can also help guide maintenance and repair priorities. It might also encourage owners to get rid of boats before they become more of a liability – or someone else’s mess to clean up. There are government-funded programs out there just to get rid of derelict boats (like Washington State’s Department of Natural Resources’ Derelict Vessel Removal Program), and they keep pretty busy. Breaking up your own boat when it’s beyond hope is a neighborly thing to do.

By the way, the car in our anecdote was actually a very nice 1977 BMW 530I. It looked good and it ran, so the Armenians got the car for $50 minutes before my brother moved to New York.

2008 Week 33 in Review

Here’s this week’s cruising schedule aboard Catalyst, from Petersburg to Juneau:

Sunday, Aug. 10 – Petersburg to Scenery Cove: Depart Petersburg, Hike Baird glacier (cloudy)
Monday, Aug. 11 – Scenery Cove to Donkey Bay: Bubble netting whales, Kayak Donkey Bay Estuary, meet Norio (rain)
Tuesday, Aug. 12 – Donkey Bay to Windham Bay: Brother’s Beach walk, explore Windham Bay gold mine, find gold (rain)
Wednesday, Aug. 13 – Windham Bay to Ford’s Terror: Fishing and Kayaking at Windham, Orcas, Set crab pots (rain)
Thursday, Aug. 14 – Ford’s Terror to Ford’s Terror: incredible glacier day, narrows paddle, uplands walk, skiff rides (no rain!?)
Friday, Aug. 15 – Ford’s Terror to Limestone Inlet: whales, crab vortex, salmon in river, beach walk, slide show (sunny & calm)
Saturday, Aug. 16 – Limestone Inlet to Juneau: pack and return to what passes for civilization (but is really a hollow illusion)

Here’s the crew:

And here’re the passengers:

We explored a mine, watched whales bubble-net feeding, played some good pranks, and “ate Alaska.” Good times.

Eating Alaska

Like a lot of the charter boats in southeast Alaska, food is a big part of cruising on the Catalyst. Chef Anne Catherine and others whip up amazing meals for passengers and crew. It would be easy to sit back and let Anne Catherine do all the work, but I like to encourage the passengers to do some good collecting and foraging, too. I call this “eating Alaska.”

There is a lot of wild food in Alaska there for the taking (with the appropriate permits, of course), from blueberries to halibut to Dungeness crab. We get passengers with all different experience levels, so some of them I just hand a trap, and others I really teach how to fish. We eat some of it right off the beach or grill it on the fantail, but sometimes it’s fun to make something a little fancier, like sushi.

On this trip, we had a big sushi party in the Catalyst‘s mess:

We had Sakhalin sole and smoked salmon and limpets and shrimp, veggies and bull kelp, plus wasabi and nori and omelet and tofu and seasoned rice. We made lots of different kinds and had a lot of fun. We made miso, too, for the full experience:

Eating Alaska is definitely one of my favorite parts about shipping out.

Business as usual

I got some good work in on the engine this week: I adjusted the clutch, changed all the pyrometers for better gages, and worked on the valves in cylinder three. While underway, I kept hearing an intermittent sticking-valve sound coming from number three cylinder head. When I pulled its valve cages, the exhaust valve was in bad shape so I pulled it out. I’ve been looking at it, and the part that worries me is the stem damage:

The face can be cleaned up, but the stem damage might condemn the valve. After I pulled out the valve, I cleaned everything, installed a spare valve in the cage, performed the kerplunk test, ran it a few minutes, and then tightened it a little more.

We’re also still overloading the engine a bit. The Catalyst‘s propeller is oversized for her engine, making the engine work too hard. The new pyrometers are showing that the exhaust temperatures are well over 700 degrees at cruising speed (Dan recommends 600 degrees for a caged un-cooled valve). I started reining in the running practices and am making a list for Bill of the options for making the engine run better:

• re-pitch the prop

• add a keel cooler, which would eliminate the need for the seawater pump

• reduce electrical load and add a 12-volt charger to replace the 12-volt alternator

• remove hydraulic controls and steering, which would remove a large parasitic load

• re-ring pistons, grind valves, service injectors, a tune-up that would increase the power available

The Washington manual states in several places not to overload the engine, but acknowledges the tendency to do so since a heavy-duty is very forgiving and can easily carry large loads. This is often difficult to explain to captains because the size of the engine compared to the available horsepower dose not equate to those used to size modern engines. It’s easy to assume that parasitic loads on the engine don’t make a difference, but, in fact, parasitic loads (using the engine’s power to run more than just the propeller) can drain lots of power and make the engine overload pretty easily.

On Catalyst, there’s six parasitic loads that draw 1 to 3 horsepower each: the fresh water pump, the seawater pump, the 12-volt alternator, the 24-volt alternator, the hydraulic pump, and the clutch-in hydraulic pump, which all run on a jack shaft and belts. All together, these take a big bite out of the 120 horsepower that the engine produces when it runs at 450 rpm. Now that we’ve reduced the cruising speed down to 350 rpm, we’ve gotten the average pyro reading down to 600 degrees, which is much better for the engine.

A lesson in applied physics

Confused by all that? Let us consider the power produced by a diesel engine curve and the power required for hull-speed curve.

Diesel engines are designed to run at a certain speed. Re-engineering them by machining or by imagination is never a good idea. The recommended running speed that allows the engine to produce the most horsepower with the least engine wear is the speed at which:

• the pistons reach their designed feet-per-minute

• the firing pressures are just below the limit

• the exhaust temperatures are just below their limit

If you try to cruise at above or below that recommended speed, you will probably “lug” or overload the engine, because you’ll be trying to get it to run faster or with a heavier load than it’s designed to. This causes high firing pressure, soot build-up, burned valves, and actually wears all parts on the engine much more quickly than at recommended running speed.

One of the easiest ways to overload an engine is to try to make the boat go faster than it’s designed to. Boats are designed to cruise at a designated speed at which the boat goes as fast as it can without pushing too much water with the bow. This follows a specific formula, in which hull speed is equal to the square root of the length of the hull at the water line. A displacement hull can’t exceed the speed determined by that equation without severely straining the engine and getting really, really inefficient. There are a lot of other factors involved in the potential speed of a boat, but the two main ones are hull and engine and until those are properly balanced the other ones aren’t a big deal.

Anyway, as a boat accelerates, it needs more and more power to maintain its speed. Let’s say our boat uses 65 horsepower to go 7 knots per hour, 80 horsepower to go 7.5 knots, 100 horsepower to go 8 knots, 125 horsepower to go 8.5 knots, and 175 horsepower to go 9 knots, and hull speed is 9.5 using 250+ horsepower to maintain that speed. The horsepower required keeps going up because it has to push more water in front of it.

Now, it’s important (except for tugs – we’ll talk about that later) to have the engine operating at peak performance at the speed the boat is designed for. This is not necessarily hull speed, although it can be. I recommend cruising at a speed less than hull speed to save fuel, ideally just before the horsepower-required curve starts to climb quickly. In our example boat, I would say that 8.5 is a good cruising speed, because to go just one knot faster you need to burn twice as much fuel and use twice as much horsepower.

Why are tugs excluded from this? They are designed differently than cruising vessels – they’re built to tow much more than their own weight, which changes the relationship between hull and engine. For those of you with tugs, you may never reach your engine’s full power even cruising at hull speed. Some tugs used as yachts re-pitch their wheels to get a little more speed, but it’s pretty scary to idle at 6 knots. Tugs should be opened up often to warm up the engine a bit, but you don’t need to worry about overloading. Once in a while, just for fun, you can put the bow against a sturdy pier and rev it up to so that the engine actually works for a while.

OTM Inc Weekly eBay Auction

We’re open for business even while I’m in Alaska! The Old Tacoma Marine Inc inventory has been moved to a remote off-site location for easier shipping and processing:

This week’s object for sale is a Cleveland Air Shifter: