One for Confirmation

[j.sabourn]

I have been in two extreme life threatening situations on smaller ships, trawlers to be exact, one where it was found later that all the bottom ends were gone, and the other where the.main crankcase was badly distorted. I don’t know about alarms, the only alarms I had were inside my body, but I thank whoever looks after us that we had very able and competent people to take the bull by the horns and get us back to safer waters. They probably broke every law in the book, but the ovrrriding law of all safety of life they adhered to. I have seen engine room bilge alarms silenced and taken out of the system but has always been done with the C/E s knowledge and if it’s good enough for him then I just turned a blind eye. However they were days of manned engine rooms, today is a different story. JS

[robpage]

In manned engine rooms , often a nose tells you more than a bell , I have been with a lost generator crankshaft , there was still pressure , but a very hot oil smell

[vic mcclymont]

Rob, probably,built that way due to lack of materials,it wasn't till mid fifties that the supply of materials improved.
Vic

[robpage]

engineering wise Cayzer Irvine were normally ahead of the game , but on a medium speed SEMT-Pielstik 6000 HP main oil pipe burst a gasket 200mm pipe lost almost the whole sump to the bilges , could not shut down , leaving Guernsey , St Peter Port , not a good place to breakdown we were seconds away from no engine when the bridge relinquished , control , it was the old man's choice to wreck the engine or take a manoeuvre , no auto shut down or low - low alarm

again manned enginerooms , Clan had a lot of Clyde built ships from 1947 onwards, I wonder if the two Mac Ls with Doxfords were because of a scarcity of triple expansion turbines

[happy daze john in oz]

Fire in the engine room on the Windsor while she was in Durban getting ready to sail.

In port for almost three days the main engines shut down and a donkey engine provided all the power.

When the main engines were up and ready the donkey was to be shut down.
An attempt to shut it down failed and the fire broke out.

From what the engineers told me after there was no warning of any fault, no alarm, no odd smell.
It just went off and the main concern at the time was the location of the donkey engine, close to a settling tank just filled.

[robpage]

do you mean Main engines or Turbo-generators , off in Durban , Diesels used for generating

[happy daze john in oz]

do you mean Main engines or Turbo-generators , off in Durban , Diesels used for generating

It was a donkey engine used in port, main engines shut down and maintainance done on them.
This was a normal practice every voyage as we had almost three days in port.

[j.sabourn]

John it was normal on most ships to shut down. The ship went on to a diesel generator to supply the ships domestic needs . JWS.

[robpage]

My memory of the engine room of the Windsor Castle and I went into the generator flat once somewhere around 1972 was that it had three turbo generators and two diesel generators which were used in Port when there was no Steam to power the turbo generators . The main engine was steam turbine and would not have been touched in Port in the 3-day stay and in fact would have only been opened up I would think on an annual survey . I was on the pendennis castle where we had three Harland and Wolff diesels and to Alan turbo generators and you used to do the turbogenerator maintenance in Durban when it was shut down and you was on one or two of the diesel generators

[happy daze john in oz]

You are correct Rob, but on this occasion for some reason the main turbines had been shut down and a 'Donkey' engine of some type, told to us to be a donkey engine, that would not shut down.

From memory the engineers said something about it 'not coming off the board' and an electrical fault caused the fire.