2008 Week 22 in Review

Back to Business

I started this week with a lot of catching up in the office and at the shop. This meant billing, several trips each to the bank, Kinkos, and the post office.

I also spent several hours on the phone, including straightening out the mess I got into with AT&T for using my new phone in Canada. I can tell you all cell phone companies are jerks, but if you really hold them down you might get someone on the line who is really helpful. It can be entertaining.

I stalled the person who first took my call with all sorts of inane questions. He would tell me there wasn’t anything he could do and then ask “is there anything I help with, sir?” and I’d ask another question to keep him on the line. I also insisted that I want the same top-quality service that Tom Cruise gets (though this guy said they treat all their customers with the same respect) and I guess they wrote it down in my file. After stalling for another half-hour, they handed me off to someone who finally straightened it all out (and told me that all their customers receive the same great service).

The trouble all started because after ten years of abuse I just switched from Sprint to AT&T (to use my new iPhone). New customers are treated like untrustworthy criminals for 90 days, but I got around that by hanging on and had about $700 in “roaming charges” knocked off my statement.

Lightship Lumber Planning

I finally started the real work on writing the bid request for the Lightship #83 deck lumber. Brian Johnson of Ocean Bay Marine Inc and I took measurements and discussed quality requirements for the deck lumber. We also took some samples:

We need over 10,000 board feet of planking, plus nib planking, coverboards, marginboards, carlins, and winch pads.

We should have a draft to Northwest Seaport for review by next Wednesday.

Work on the fireboat Duwamish

Also this week, I disassembled the aft air compressor in the fireboat Duwamish. From looking at the make, I think that the aft air compressor was installed with the Cooper-Bessemers and the forward one was replaced more recently. After inspecting it, I don’t think that the replacement is able to produce the 600 psi required for the Duwamish’s high-pressure system. I’m going look in to repairing the damaged one, which has been stored on deck under a rain cover, but it looks like it’ll be a lot of work.

An interesting thing about the original air compressors is that they’re mostly brass, and may have been the same make of air compressor used to start the stainless steel Clevelands in minesweepers. These engines use the same high-pressure settings that the Cooper-Bessemers in the fireboat use, so it’d make sense that they have the same kind of compressors.

If anyone has any information about air compressors like those used in minesweepers, contact me, or write about it on the discussion board.

Old Tugboats Changing Hands

Craig stopped by for a tour of South Lake Union last week. He’s got some neat stories of large-bore Sulzers and crossing oceans on container ships. He is still looking for his dream steel tugboat with a heavy-duty to cruise the Sound with. Comment here with your recommendations.

I also learned that Skip bought another old tug: a Miki tug named the Galene down in Portland, powered by a 1,200 horsepower Superior. This sounds like a gigantic project and I hope he can handle it.

A Visit from Captain Jake

Captain Jake, currently of the San Diego Maritime Museum’s Californian, stopped by for a tour of South Lake Union. I sailed with him back in ‘96 on the Lady Washington. He’s still driving tall ships and has recently taken over the steam yacht Medea for the San Diego Maritime Museum. I showed him around the Arthur Foss and the fireboat Duwamish, and he rattled off a bunch of heavy-duty powered boats in southern California (with gossip). I’ll have to follow that information up now that I’m done with the Pearl.

New York Planning

I made some plans for the New York trip later this month. We’ll be visiting three fireboats (including the two powered by Enterprises that posted about here), South Street Seaport, and hopefully Staten Island and some of the cool boats over there.

July work on the Sobre las Olas

I’ve re-scheduled a trip to LA this July for some more work on the Sobre Las Olas, the Atlas-powered fantail yacht. The Sobre’s mechanic John got most of the snifters and all of the blow-down valves off of the two engines, and he’s going to send them up for me to overhaul in my shop. I’ll bring them down with me to reinstall. I’m looking forward to seeing the guys and the boat this summer.

International Retired Tugboat Association Party

On Saturday night, we attended the International Retired Tugboat Association party in Everett. Most of the party was onboard the Olmstead, a 95-foot retired Navy tug of the same class as the Maris Pearl and the Red Cloud. I took a picture of the hold, which I uploaded here.

Lia and I arrived just in time to take a ride on a 60-foot tug (I can’t remember its name) for a cruise on the Snohomish River, followed by drinks, snacks, and tugboat stories. We passed by many neat old tugs, one of which I know very well: the Island Champion.

The Island Champion is a classic 100-foot wooden tug from 1944 with a (6)33f14 Fairbanks-Morse main. Hilbert and Jeanne, the proud owners, have had lots of work done in the last few years on the engine, the deck, and the hull, but unfortunately the boat spent one tide exchange under the Snohomish Slough.

Here’s the sad story:

Last spring, I was helping Hilbert move the boat back to her very inconvenient moorage, where she regularly sits in the mud (the Snohomish River has lots of space for old tugs to tie up, but it’s a tidal estuary and I wouldn’t call the moorage great). When arriving at the dock a little late on the tide, we decided to turn the boat around and quickly learned that we couldn’t rely on the prop-walk when we’re in such shallow water (the wheel is too close to the bottom). This made turning around very difficult and after using up all the air and failing to pivot the boat with the bow in the bank, we thought we’d better get back to the dock even if we were pointed the wrong way. While backing up to the dock, the boat got hung up on something – maybe a root ball. Even with the Fairbanks wound up at 350 rmp (50 over max rated) we couldn’t get the boat loose. A bystander took a video of our fruitless efforts from the riverbank that’s on YouTube here.

We put all ashore except for Hilbert and I. I called Global Dive and Salvage, who I worked for back in ‘98 and ‘99. Hilbert and I prepared the boat for listing over and hoped that she’d float again on the next tide.

Then the Global guys arrived with trucks and boats and big pumps. We got the pumps off the trucks and into the small boats and got to the Island Champion just as the tide came up over her decks. Before we could get the pumps installed, the water started flooding in through the salon doors and galley doors and completely filled the engine room. By the time we had the pumps set up, it was too late to make any progress against the tide and we shifted our efforts to containing the fuel and oil. We anchored an oil containment boom and plugged the fuel tank vents, trying to keep petroleum out of the river:

Later that night, we saw fuel begin to appear in the containment boom and found that the base of the fuel tank vent was completely rusted away. The Global Dive crew and I worked through the night to soak up the fuel with pads. I don’t know how many piles of soaked pads we bagged up, taped closed, and hauled up the dock.

Around 7 AM, divers showed up to seal the tug up and pump out all the tanks and the engine room. That’s when I left, totally exhausted. The Island Champion was raised on the next tide and delivered to the Everett Shipyard to be cleaned out.

Since then, Hilbert and Jeanne have been working very hard to put the boat back together and have had lots of good work done. I wouldn’t say that the incident helped the vessel, but in a way it’s boosted the progress: they’ve had to work a lot faster to keep up with repairs and maintenance on the Island Champion. I look forward to seeing her cruise again soon.

2008 Week 21 in Review

Cruising on the Maris Pearl, Continued

The next day, we pulled into Prince Rupert and toured the Town of Nothing. I napped, played darts with Craig, then tried to encourage the wait staff at Breakers to join us for a tugboat party. They declined. Next time I’ll say “Mega-Yacht Party,” no mater what type of boat I’m on.

We stayed overnight in Prince Rupert. I worked in the engine room for most of the day, then we all watched movies.

The next morning, we got underway early, bound for Ketchikan. We passed the Songhee, a retired Army tug powered by an Atlas diesel that now operates as a Southeast Alaska charter boat:

When we pulled into Ketchikan, we had to squeeze the Pearl into a tight marina between two giant cruise boats. After mooring, we toured all the bars in Ketchikan with Brian and Roger. It was sunny for once, but there were five cruiseships in port and that made the whole town kind of crazy. It quieted down after the cruiseships left, and the locals were fun to chat with.

We spent the next day in K-Town, and took a day trip to Metlakatla, a small native village south of Ketchikan. On the way there, we passed this waterfall with an old powerstation at its base:

I also saw a home overlooking the water with “Leask” carved in the door. I thought it might be Irv’s house, or one of his family member’s house (that’s Irv from the Velero IV. Back in Ketchikan, we toasted Brian and Craig before their departure, and had dinner at Annabelle’s again.

On Thursday, I spent all day in the engine room again, cleaning and taking care of small things. I flew out Friday morning, back to Seattle and “real” work. The trip was a lot of fun, but I’m definitely glad that the Pearl is done for another season.

Reader-Submitted Heavy-Duty Stories

I’ve received several interesting stories from readers in the past few weeks.

First, a man from the Netherlands emailed to report a crane-barge powered by a 1944 Atlas-Imperial. The crane barge is reportedly run several times a week, showing that the heavy-duties are still doing what they were designed to do. We posted the full story on the discussion board here.

Later, fireman Robert from New York emailed about the city’s two fireboats powered by Enterprise diesels, the John D. McKean and the Alfred E. Smith. We posted Robert’s full email on the discussion board here. I’m also making plans to drop by and visit when I’m in New York later this month. I’ll write all about it here when I get back.

Finally, we received an email and later a phone call from Dirk about his days on the Arthur Foss in the early 1970s, just after Foss donated the boat to Northwest Seaport. Dirk was one of the first volunteers to help get the tug running as a heritage vessel. He was helping with a program called North by Northwest that got city kids out on boats, which ended up using the Arthur for some of their programs (an early maritime heritage partnership!).

We posted his full story over at the discussion board here. It’s a great read, and shows another piece of heavy-duty history.

Dirk is also interested in the Cooper-Bessemer for sale I heard about a while back. I just checked and it’s still posted on Craigslist. [posting since expired]

2008 Week Seven in Review

This has been a busy week for Old Tacoma Marine Inc. In addition to our usual winter maintenance load, the museum program schedule is picking up and we’re getting a lot of interest in old diesels following our increased web presence.

First, a variety of engine and vessel news:

Maris Pearl Updates
Jay, Charlie, and I started the week by moving the Maris Pearl from Lake Union Dry Dock back to Shilshole Marina. It was a pretty uneventful trip.

OTM Inc checked in with Alaska Copper and Brass again about the cooler for the tug’s Enterprise diesel. Wayne reported no progress, so I threatened to go down there and roll the tubes myself. Next Monday, I think I’ll show up at their plant with my work boots and hard hat.

I also talked with Rick Hamborg, new owner of the Red Cloud, about the extra control head that I’d like to purchase for the Maris Pearl. I think we might be able to reach a deal soon.

Arthur Foss’s Bearing

OTM Inc picked up the throw-out bearing for the Washington diesel in the Arthur Foss:

Everett Engineering did a great job, although Dan Martin overrode my request for more fore-and-aft thrust clearance so that the tight fit will hold oil better. I’m afraid that it will be much harder to center the bearing every time the propeller shaft is engaged. The clutch on the Arthur Foss uses a set of links that flop over-center in a way that maintains pressure on the clutch without force from the throw-out bearing. When the throw-out bearing is backed off a little, there is no thrust pressure at all. The centering is sometimes hard, as the big wheel that moves the bearing is touchy. We’ll probably want to engineer a clamp or holder of some type to maintain the bearing position while underway. The collar and bearing were installed on Thursday, but the links need to be cleaned. They’ll be installed early next week.

David B Propeller Work
I talked with Jeffrey on the David B, which is hauled-out in preparation for propeller work. They also want to replace the stern bearing due to the 1/4 inch clearance recorded, but the rudder is in the way of the bearing housing. It looks like Jeffrey will need to remove the short intermediate shaft in order to remove the bearing housing, but the tail shaft will be even harder to remove. I’m wondering if they’ll replace the bearing without cleaning the shaft lining. Jeffrey’s frustration makes me think so.

Update on the Catalyst’s Cylinder Heads
The Catalyst’s owners have reached an agreement with Empire Motors to purchase the three new cylinder heads (previously mentioned here) as well as the patterns. I’m really looking forward to seeing them and I hope they work. I’m also really, really excited to see the patterns. I’ll post lots of pictures when they get here.

Fairbanks-Morse Parts
Steve from Striegel Supply is looking for some Fairbanks-Morse parts for a blower on a 16”-bore engine. I don’t know who would have these parts—does anyone reading this have any ideas? Leave a comment – or better yet, post on our discussion board!

A Fairbanks-Morse in Maryland
I talked with John in Maryland this week. He has a Fairbanks-Morse FM–A—6 engine, like the one on the John N Cobb. He’ll be sending us photographs and information soon. He’s also trying to locate spare parts just in case; I recommended Hatch and Kirk overhaul the injectors and pumps for him.

An Atlas-Imperial in Astoria
OTM Inc received an email from the Columbia River Maritime Museum in response to a letter we sent informing the museum of some small problems with their Atlas-Imperial on display. They don’t want to work on the engine right now (especially since it’s on display in the main lobby – though I think that working on it right there would be very interesting for visitors), but they do want a list of what to do and how to do it for future planning. I’ll come up with a detailed list and maybe make a copy of one of our manuals to hand-deliver in March.

An Enterprise in Astoria
I received an email from John Gillon of Portland, Oregon:

I am a volunteer with the amphibious forces memorial museum. Last October we sailed the Sakarissa from San Francisco to Portland Or. She is moored on the Columbia River next to our Landing Craft Infantry 713.

I was looking on your web site and we have a Enterprise engine on the Sakarissa and it is a beautiful engine. You can visit our web site and see more, or contact them for some good pictures of the engine.

I enjoyed your web site,

John

The Amphibious Forces Memorial Museum has hidden the pictures of its Enterprise too well for me to find, so I’ll have to see if I can visit the Sakarissa while I’m Astoria for the Columbia River Maritime Museum errand:

The Ballard Maritime Academy Engineer for a Day Program

Preparing for a course like this is a hectic process, as the boats always require some head-scratching and jury-rigging to get them running after a long idle period. The biggest puzzle we faced this time was getting enough air pressure to start the fireboat Duwamish’s diesel-electric system. The fireboat’s air compressors need a little work; one of them really doesn’t pump air at all, and the other one’s efficiency is suffering. It takes a long time for it to fill the tanks up to the minimum level needed to turn the main over, so for past Engineer for a Day programs we’ve run an air hose from the Arthur Foss to the fireboat to fill up the tanks.

This past autumn, though, we moved the boats on the Historic Ships Wharf around so that the Arthur and the Duwamish are separated by a big old Lightship (number 83). If we use a long enough hose to stretch up and over the lightship and down into the fireboat, it doesn’t effectively fill up the tanks. Grant and I spend most of Thursday running the air compressor on auxiliary generator, wondering if we’d get enough pressure to turn on the main. We thought about renting an air compressor, but couldn’t find a large enough one on short-notice.

Finally, late in the day, the Duwamish’s own air compressor filled up the tanks to the needed psi and Grant was able to start up the number one main generator:

We ran it and the generator for a while after that to ensure that we had enough air built up to start the engine several times, since that’s a key part of the Engineer for a Day program.

While Grant was working on the Duwamish, cleaning and oiling and turning over the three big Bessemer generators, I was doing some work on the Arthur Foss. We’d removed the base doors during the autumn 2007 Diesel Engine Theory course (pictures at Northwest Seaport’s Flickr account), and I needed to re-seal them using my own patented “goo” method. Five of these doors are the original aluminum with “Washington Iron Works” cast into them, but one is a replacement made of plywood. Northwest Seaport’s museum specialist is hoping to replace this replacement door with a piece of thick plexiglass so that we can see into the engine while it’s running, but they weren’t able to get it purchased and cut in time for this class. They’re aiming to get it installed in time for the summer tour season, though. I doubt that they’ll be able to see much through all the oil that’ll get splashed against the door while the engine is operating, but it’s a neat idea and no harm in implementing it (at least until I have a new door cast in aluminum).

The Virginia V at least was ready to go — though this is only because we don’t start up her steam plant during the Engineer for a Day program (it would double the cost of the class). Her power plant is currently disassembled for winter maintenance, but that actually makes it even more interesting to observe.

After all that preparation, the Engineer for a Day program went great. John Foster, the instructor for the Ballard Maritime Academy, brought 16 kids down for one of the program’s annual field trips. He spends several classes before the field trip teaching the kids about marine engineering and engine theory so that they have a good understanding of it in their heads before they step aboard. When we have them actually start up an engine – either the Arthur’s Washington or the Duwamish’s Bessemers – they suddenly understand what the diagrams and explanations mean:

Despite this, I’m always a little nervous thinking about a big group of kids storming the boat. Once they arrive and we break them into three groups to cycle through the Arthur, the Duwamish, and the Virginia V, I usually calm down. They may be high schoolers, but they want to be there and are way smarter than I give them credit for — even if they play games and whisper and text message while they’re supposed to be listening. I had a great time leading them through the Arthur’s start-up and shut-down procedures, and both Grant and Gary say the same thing about their sections. I’m looking forward to doing as many of these as we can, and not just for Ballard Maritime Academy.

Inaugural Tugboat Night!
The week finally ended with OTM Inc helping run a new program with Northwest Seaport and the Center for Wooden Boats. Tugboat Night was designed to serve three different purposes: to provide a regular, low-cost program on the Arthur Foss, to exercise all of the tug’s equipment more often, and to get more people onboard and involved with the boat and the organizations.

On Saturday night, twelve people showed up for the program, all really excited. Several had never been onboard before, though they’d seen the tug at the dock. My original plan for the evening had been to lead all the participants through the boat starting in the engine room, turning on everything and then turning off everything. After running the auxiliary generator and the AC generator, though, we ended up getting distracted by the main engine and not going on to the steering equipment and other systems. Everyone loves watching the Washington Iron Works diesels, since they have so many exposed moving parts and ways to see into the engine. We played with the controls, trying to get the engine to idle as slow as possible before stalling, and I answered a lot of questions from both beginners and the professional electrical engineer who had run hydroelectric generators in Montana:

This, however, is the great thing about Tugboat Night. Next time, we’ll do it differently; we could have other instructors up in the fo’c’sle or the wheelhouse while I stay in the engine room and let participants choose where they go, or we could spend less time on the pre-start checklists and just turn things on and off. We could have a “plumbing night” or a “wiring night” or a “steering and telegraph night,” as well as a “deck department” or an “engine department” night.

I’m really excited by the turn-out of this first session, since it shows that people are interested in learning about the gritty details of old boats. I think that it’s a great way to start building a volunteer engine crew for the Arthur, both to help keep up with maintenance and repair, and for in the future when the tug starts cruising again (though that’s barely on the horizon). I hope that see all the same people at the next Tugboat Night, plus more who hear about it from them.

NWS and the CWB have scheduled four more sessions of Tugboat Night, on April 19, June 21, August 16, and December 20. Depending on the popularity of the class, they may hold more this year, and they’re planning to hold one every month of 2009. Call the CWB at (206) 382-2628 to register now.

Finally, Tape versus No Tape: A Viewer Poll

Kirtland (a boat guy living aboard the Arthur Foss these days in a work-exchange arrangement with Northwest Seaport) and I had a “discussion” the other day about paint on boats. It went sort of like the Bud Light “great tastes” versus “less filling” commercials.

It is my philosophy that paint is an impermeable barrier that protects the ship from rot, rust, and other elemental damage. It is Kirtland’s philosophy that paint is a cosmetic that keeps the boat looking sharp and shipshape. Of course, what we actually said was something like “Next time, use tape, [censored]!” “You want tape? Beat me to it, [censored]!” and back and forth several times.

Now, I’m a big proponent of keeping the boats looking sharp so that the maritime groups have good “dock presence,” but before worrying about making them look good we should worry about keeping them protected from the rain and other agents of deterioration. If Kirtland wants to spend a lot of time fussing over masking and detailing and what should be painted green versus white, then that’s fine – as long as the boat is already protected.

Readers, what do you think? Paint as protective barrier or paint as a cosmetic detail? Please comment with your opinion.