2010 Week 4 in Review

Valve-grinding: a team effort

This week, I finished cleaning all the valves for the Thea Foss. Engineer Ron ground the valves and observed that “the first one is fun and the rest of the 24 are boring,” which I definitely agree with. Then Vince came out of retirement and over the mountains to grind the seats, and we had a nice team to get the job done efficiently.

A visit to the Cape Cross

Later this week, I visited the crew of the Enterprise-powered fish tender Cape Cross. The engine’s running well and best of all, the boat is gainfully employed.

Dry-suit repairs

After last week‘s brush with carotid sinus reflux, diver Duane helped me replace the neck seal in my dry suit. Apparently adding a latex neck seal to a neoprene suit is pretty common, and it’s an easy process. First, I coated the sealing area with AquaSeal and let it cure, then I put another coat on to adhere the latex. Then I trimmed it and put one more bead of AquaSeal on edges, and the suit was ready to go.

Giving the CWB a lift

On Saturday, I worked with Sterling Marine Services Llc to level out some of the floating docks at the Center for Wooden Boats by installing some new barrels. Once we got we got a system down, it went really fast. Sterling Marine Services Llc has posted more about it in their brand-new blog here.

Repairs and updates on the Island Champion

I visited the Island Champion this week to isolate the overboard through-hull fixture from the engine. This is an area of excessive stray voltage, which induces electrolysis in the surrounding planks and makes them rot out a lot faster – according to our resources, it’s like nail sickness from increased alkalinity.

I installed piece of hose to separate the engine from the through-hull fitting, which disrupts (in theory) the electrical current running between them:

This should hopefully stop the electrolysis and save the hull timber a little longer.

Also, boat buyers take note: the Island Champion is not for sale anymore.

To bond or not to bond

This brings up the age old-argument: “to bond or not to bond.”

To bond, or not to bond: that is the question:
Whether less noble metals should suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous corrosion,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And insulate them. To dielectric: to isolate;
No more; and by isolate to say we end
The corrosion and the thousand natural shocks
That hulls are heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To dielectric, to isolate;

On the subject of galvanic corrosion: the way I read it, impressed current is best but anodes are easier and more common. If using anodes, quantity and placement are very important to get right and bonding or isolating is addressed on a case-by-case basis.

Some fittings below the waterline, if isolated, can take a long time to degrade, while others will need to be wired to the anode using a resistance-free electrical circuit with heavy-gauge wire, good connections, and keeping it out of the bilge water. When working with mili-volts, a loose connection is no connection: the mili-volt will not jump a gap. I think it is this sloppy wiring that causes bias in our maritime tradesmen.

More important than the bonding and anoding, boats and equipment should be inspected and repaired regularly – and repairs should be made before small problems are catastrophic. It pains me to hear folks argue about bonding while the boat is sinking. While limiting galvanic activity is important – keep it in perspective!

Update on the Maris Pearl

Meanwhile on the Maris Pearl, we’re down to just looking for the shaft that attaches to the piston in the reversing mechanism and the camshaft gear.

Who’s got one? Any drawings? Anything? Help?

Work begins on the Arthur Foss

The Northwest Seaport started their “Stop the Leaks” project on the Arthur Foss; it sounds like the first step was to take off the big rubber fender on the bow. They took a lot of pictures of it – and better yet, wrote a blog about it! Check it out here!

2009 Week 29 in Review

News from Alaska

I’m onboard the Catalyst again and I’m meeting boat friends everywhere: the crew from the Liseron, former crewmates Chuck and Nissa from the Mist Cove, and the crew from the Catalyst, who are all being relieved today by a whole new crew. Captain Steve, chef Lisa, deckhand Lia, and I will be running the boat together for the next few weeks.

Lia and I flew in on Saturday and after some last-minute chores and drinks at the Alaskan hotel, we picked up our passengers on Sunday and headed out to Endicott Arm.

This week’s cruise was from Juneau to Petersburg, stopping at Sanford Cove, Fords Terror, West Brother, Sheldon Cove, West Brother, and Scenery Cove along the way

We kayaked through Fords Terror, picked up a bunch of Dungeness crabs at Wood Spit, made a campfire on West Brother in Frederic Sound, and watched some bears in Sheldon cove.

We got to Sheldon cove early, so I pulled four valves to clean and swap. I exchange intake for exhaust valves every so often so that they wear evenly and we get more life out of them. Washingtons are hard on their valves for some reason.

We liked West Brother so much that we stopped there again and this time we had Norio Matsumoto over for dinner. He’s a great wilderness photographer and he showed a slide show of his work. On the way to Thomas Bay we watched some whales, then anchored in Scenery Cove and went for a walk to Baird Glacier.

Once we got to Petersburg, the whole crew was anxious to connect with the world we all had a cell phone attached to one ear while cleaning the boat, provisioning, and doing other chores.

This week was so nice. Getting aboard Catalyst was like coming home and I ran into each room to revisit great memories and see that everything is still where I left it. Frederick Sound is also some of the best cruising in the world – especially with the great weather we’re having. I have never seen so much sun up here. It made the glacier a beautiful sparkling blue, and it was so warm I could wear shorts and a t-shirt while on our hike there.

Engineer’s Log

Valves from 1 and 2 pulled, cleaned, and swapped in for out
Ex-valve for #3 reinstalled after Eric pulled it
Wiggled cord for the shaft tachometer; no improvement, still reading really low or not at all
Re-soldered wire to stateroom five port forward reading light
Cleaned and flushed bilge

We also did the numbers for this trip, the 11th of the 2009 season:

hours underway: 52:45
hours on main: 53.8
hours on the generator: 35:.6
hours on the water maker: 17:45
miles traveled: 231
gallons of fuel used: 179
gallons of water made: 1,035
gallons of gas used: 8.8
gallons of propane: 4.5
gallons of lube oil: 4
qts of half and half: used 6 (unusually high)

And finally, here’s a tasty recipe from the Catalyst‘s galley:

Crab
drop crab pots in 40 feet of water in top secret location with herring bait caught from just off the Taku fishery pier.
soak for one to two days, pull
return small ones and females
pull all legs of each crab, bracing the center of the body on the boat rail; legs and body meat should come right out of shell
scrape off gills
boil for 11 minutes
shell and eat

Kitchen notes: Crab-eaters of the world are divided into two groups: pilers and gobblers. Gobblers eat each piece of crab as they pull it out of the shell, while pilers pile up their pieces on their plate. Pilers beware, for the gobblers are happy to steal your pile.

Finally, crab-crackers are for newbies.

Waving to the Heavy-Duties

On the way into Petersburg, I saw the Katahdin, the Barron Islands, and the Cape Cross, each powered by a heavy-duty. It’s great to see the old workboat yachts out there.

More scraping at Indian Graves

In news beyond Alaska, I heard that the Indian Grave engine #3 ran for an hour and then the #2 main bearing got hot, so they scraped it down some more. This isn’t unusual – even with a good pattern on the bearing and the engine turning by hand really smooth, more scraping is often required after actually running the engine the first few times. Sounds like it’s going well.

Sexy sailor women

Diana the OTM Inc museologist had pictures taken for the 2010 Sexy Women of Maritime Calendar produced by Jack Tar Magazine this week. Apparently, the photos turned out great, but you’ll have to buy the calendar to see them because she isn’t sharing.

Social Networking

Old Tacoma Marine Inc. joined TheBoaters.com, which is like Facebook for boat trash. Check us out!

New owner for the Sound

I heard that Anthony bought the Sound. Poor sucker – he already owns the Chief. I love Enterprises, but there is such thing as too much of a good thing.

2009 Week 20 in Review

Back to Illinois

On Monday, it was back to Illinois. I picked up the bearings with the rental car on my way to Quincy, and spent the rest of the week measuring the bearings and cautiously fitting them into the number three engine. There is no one “right” way to fit bearings: so much of it depends on the individual circumstances that it changes often.

This time, I needed to do a lot of extra measuring because the first time around the bearings were wrong (back in Week 17). Then, rather than bluing to fit, I installed each bearing and then installed the squisher tool, then lapped the bearing in a little, and then scrape down the high spots. This process insured that the bearing was the same shape it would be when running. The lapping shows the contact area much better than bluing in this case. It is a little extra work, but I’m getting great results, so I’ll continue to do it this way.

On the other hand, the rod bearings are very rigid and so bluing will work well on them.

OTM Inc on KUOW

KUOW, the local NPR station, ran a Weekday program on “field recording” the sounds of everyday life around us. They played a lot of different sound clips, including one from OTM Inc’s everyday life: old engine sounds!

The program is archived on the website here. They play the engine sounds clip at about 30 minutes into the program. Take a listen!

Thanks to David for letting us know we’re famous.

A Visit to Oblong

On Saturday, I needed to drive to St. Louis to pick up the next set of bearings. On my way, I thought “what’s another four hours of driving?” and continued on to Oblong, Illinois to see the Fairbanks-Morse (2) Y semi-diesel at the Oblong Antique Tractor & Engine Show grounds:

The engine is really neat: it was removed from the Mt Erie drainage district pump house in 1990, after 68 years in service. It has two cylinders with a 14 inch bore; it produces 100 horsepower and weighs about 12 tons. Mike met me at the grounds even though they’re not open yet to show me the engine and tell me about the Antique Tractor Association. They have about 200 members and a handful of them are very active on the grounds, acquiring and resurrecting engines and putting together working displays of how it all was done in the past.

The Oblong Antique Tractor & Engine Show formed in 1961, but was idle for a while, then in 1987 it picked back up. They partnered with the Illinois Oil Field Museum for a while, but then the Oil Field Museum got big money, grabbed up some old engines, and moved to the other side of town. Now, like bookends, the two museums display their collections: the sterile and seized-up Oil Field Museum to the west, and the open-air tractor show permanent displays to the east. Best of all is the second weekend in August: the tractor show roars to life, running all their engines and more than 200 visiting displays, while the western collection sits, rusted yet funded.

This year’s Oblong Antique Tractor & Engine Show is August 7th through the 9th at the Crawford County Fairgrounds in Oblong, Illinois.

The guys in Oblong told some great stories from the last 20 or so shows they were a part of. My favorite was the one about a huge horizontal Superior with an air-starter. Before the owner hits it, he winds a string around the governor shaft and pulls while hitting the air, so the crowed thinks it’s like the lawnmower. I love it!

I’m really glad that I made the trip out to Oblong, and I hope that I can make the big summer show someday. Thanks for the tour, Mike!

A new season for the Cape Cross

The 1941 fish packer Cape Cross (formerly the Cape Scott) with the six-cylinder G Enterprise is preparing to get underway. Dan reports that the new owners are working hard to prepare the boat for a season of fish packing and that the Enterprise runs well. This is great news and we are all very happy to hear that the new owners have the patience and boat-maneuvering skill to run the direct-reversible.

That’s saying a lot – one must be patient to wait for reverse; observe the boat’s motions; and use forethought in predicting currents, wind, and prop walk (and in shallow water, lack of prop walk). One of the best recommendations we can make for these direct-reverse captains is to count your starts or have someone else count them, then log it in the ships’ wheelhouse log book and review it occasionally. This way, the measurable goal is to come in with fewer starts as you get better at maneuvering.

2008 Week 40 in review

A reader question about Enterprises

Reader Saúl emailed me for some Enterprise information:

Would you know where I can find an image of the logo placed by Enterprise Engines & Foundry on the armor parts they created during WWII? I am trying to update this list.

I won’t be taking an Enterprise apart until January, so if any of you know the answer, jump right in! Comment here, email Saúl, or contact me. It’s a great project, so I hope that a fellow reader can help Saúl out.

A Big Thank-you to Brian for helping the Arthur Foss program

This week, a reader responded to the wish list I posted for the class I’ll be leading on the Arthur Foss. Brian brought us an 18-to-1 torque multiplier on a long-term loan, and will bring by some lubricating oil soon. This is a huge help to me and to Northwest Seaport – plus, Brian signed up to take the Diesel Engine Theory class.

We still need participants and funding for the class, so please be like Brian and get involved and help where you can!

An update on the Duwamish

I’ve mostly finished re-assembling the air compressor, and now I just have some valve work left. I hope to wrap up this project soon — and maybe post some pictures next week.

An update from the David B

I met with Jeffrey and Christine of the David B (the last boat with a Washington-Estep diesel). I gave them a framed color copy of the “engine card” that Washington Iron Works kept records on for their engine:

Every Washington engine produced has a card, so we can send you a copy of one that interests you for $25 each. We need the engine number or other identifying information and a few months to make the copy. Comment here or contact us to order your engine card today.

Back to Jeffrey and Christine and the David B. They, like many others, have lugging problems due to the wrong-sized propeller and parasitic load. They’re planning to flatten out their wheel this year, and also have me work on perfecting the power train to get the rated engine RPM and 600 degrees on the pyrometers. That is as fast as you can go (remember my discussion of optimizing running speed from a couple months ago?). I’ll also be helping them with some bearing issues this January.

Gaskets for Big Swan

We sent two annealed copper head gaskets and a complete set of rubber grommets to the Big Swan Drainage in Winchester, Illinois. Engineer Kenny manages the drainage company, which uses two giant engines to pump the water out of corn fields and up in to a river that is higher than the fields. The Atlas-Imperial drives a big pump that moves up to 60,000 gallons of water per minute. The other engine, a Cat, can move about 70,000 gallons.

The Atlas, one of my favorite engines in the world, runs great, but there are some water leaks coming from the heads. A water leak is not a terrible thing, but, if left to leak, more problems develop. Changing the grommets is not too tough a job, so it’s a good idea to take things apart to clean and reseal often. This helps prevent small problems from becoming big problems, and removes some of the mystery that can build up if the engine is just left alone. So, as all the old-timers often remind me, “take it apart and fix it!” It sounds like Kenny is planning to do just that.

Boat for sale: Cape Scott

We found another neat boat for sale on the Internet: the Cape Scott, a WWII Navy transport built by Fulton Shipyard in California, which is now a fish packer in Vancouver BC. It’s powered by an Enterprise DMG-6 (like the Briana Marin) and all the gear for fish packing:

I hope a business-minded person buys the boat, since a boat earning a living keeps an engine in good condition. While the operating budget may get cut down in response to economic pressures, engine maintenance rarely gets cut on a working boat, since the engine is the most important thing on it. If the Cape Scott becomes a pleasure boat, I worry that the engine won’t get as much attention as it would if it kept fishing (unless a heavy-duty enthusiast buys it).

The broker is asking $95,000 and has put some basic information on their website, but I have some questions that brokers usually don’t answer: how does it run? How is the hull? How much fish can it haul? What condition are the tanks in? How well does the RSW system operate? When was its last contract for fish packing? If anyone reading knows anything about the Cape Scott, comment here and let us know!

Heavy-duty “for sale” listings

Speaking of which, we’ve launched a new feature of the Old Tacoma Marine Inc website: a Boats for Sale listing. I have a lot of people interested in buying a boat powered by a heavy-duty diesel who call to ask which ones are for sale, so this will be a comprehensive list that will help us get the information out to help the boats change hands quicker. This will be a free service for now, because unwanted boats are bad for my business.

Up now are the Briana Marin (Enterprise DMG-6), the Cape Scott (Enterprise DMG-6), the Oswell Foss (Enterprise DMG-6), the Portola (Winton), the Quail (Atlas 6HM763), and the Ready (Atlas 6HM2124). If you know of other heavy-duty boats for sale, let me know and I’ll get it up.

Off-topic reminder

To all of Old Tacoma Marine Inc’s American readers, remember to vote this November 4th. This is a crucial time for America, and we need to choose the best team to lead our nation.

OTM Inc Weekly eBay Auction

This week’s prize from the OTM Inc shop is a set of two air-powered engine controls manufactured by Westinghouse: