Ignorant engine users

[mldpt]

I dont have a bavaria just an old westerly corsair which I love but I am sure slagging off Bavaria's is envy, the fact you have such a great value boat having bought a new boat at a reasonable price rather than their highly priced old one, cant imagine what this will do the the resale price of second hand boats.
Mike

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[Mirelle]

Re: warming up big diesels......

These big diesels are all two strokes, with crossheads and a very long stroke; they are in a sense more closely related to the steam engine than to the petrol engine. They run at betwen 180 and say 70 rpm. They are started using compressed air; to go astern you stop, start the engine astern on air, then put the fuel on. To go ahead again you again stop the engine, start it ahead on air, then put the fuel on. The number of ahead and astern movements is of course limited by the supply of compressed air.

The Doxford engine, which is, alas, no longer made, had opposed pistons working in the same cylinder, which gave it perfect primary and secondary balancing; it was notoriously easy to start it in the wrong direction!

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[mldpt]

Whilst on a mooring at Piel Island Barrow on beautiful quiet night with several other boats a friendly yacht from Glasson dock started his very noisy generator up at 0400hrs waking most of us up ran it for two hours then motored off to Douglas IOM, in fact the boat was in Fleetwood the following evening, so I guess it didnt make it to IOM.
I think 0900 hrs is soon enough to run engines and possibly not after 1800 hrs when moored close to others. Its not difficult to check with your neighbour, perhaps he would like to run his engine also but doesnt want to disturb you.
While on this subject we have a skipper who runs a great looking power boat looks great with four huge exhaust above water all stainless, it goes like a racing car I belive in excess of 60kts, the only problem is the ediot skipper goes everwhere at 60 kts the noise is ear shattering, it goes up and down the river without a thought for anybody else on the river. And one very hot afternoon over at Piel Island he cast off his mooring and set off through 20 or so other boats flat out, I was in My dingy along side lifting my outboard down onto the dingy, as he went past there were several people swiming around their boats I tried to signal to him to slow down but he was too full of him self to take any notice, he then came back to see what damage he had done then set off back to Fleetwood. Its only time before he kills somebody and I bet it wont be him.
Mike

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[Sybarite]

I know this is the orthodoxy. I wonder though at diesel cars which spend an enormous amount of time in traffic jams without apparently damaging their engines. Where's the difference?

John

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[qsiv]

I dont get it either - however marine (truck) diesels are perhaps optiomised to deliver lots of torque and to be worked hard - perhaps part of the trade off with oils/bores is that they just dont work as well at light loads.

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[Footpad]

Re: A lady\'s hairdrier

An "old slapper" is still an old slapper even with dry hair?

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[Oldhand]

Re: A lady\'s hairdrier

Never. The engine's only purpose is to move the boat. If the hair has to be blown, stand out on deck in the wind created by the engine moving the boat through the earth's atmosphere or that caused naturally by areas of different pressure.

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[milltech]

Re: warming up big diesels......

I seem to remember being told of the same problem with Bollinder engines on canal boats, having heated the pulb on top with a blow lamp it was apparently somewhat hit and miss which way the boat to started to travel, and a personal danger cranking it for the same reason.


<hr width=100% size=1>John
<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.allgadgets.co.uk>http://www.allgadgets.co.uk</A>

 

[Mudhook]

Re: warming up big diesels......

A long time ago. when I used to drive heavy goods vehicles for a living, I managed to get a Detroit Diesel two-stroke to run 'astern' by the simple expedient of hitting the clutch just as I stalled it. The last thing it did before stopping was wind up all the aggregate 'spring' in the drive train; expert timing with the clutch would disengage the drive just as it had given the engine a brief tweak backwards that would make it run (badly) astern - with about 16 gears available in this mode!

Mirelle and others are right about big marine diesels, but in another former lifetime as a marine engineer I regularly used to run the 500hp medium-speed diesel of a 1,000-ton coaster while alongside. It was the only way to stop the cylinder heads cracking under thermal stress. It was common practice to go and warn any nearby boaters that they'd better be well moored and fendered!

Regards, Mudhook

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[plombier]

I don't suppose that he was running the engines to heat the water to have a shower for himself & the crew. After all there are no "facilities" on the mid-river pontoon that I recall

Used to suffer from this inconsiderate behavior quite a lot in my raggie days.

Worse still are the "gentlemen" who insist on leaving their engines running whilst in locks and proceed to nearly suffocate the smaller boat owners nearer the waterline.

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[Neraida]

Re: warming up big diesels......

Seems alot of us have a past in the Merchant Navy. I too was down below with all the muck. We used to run up 800kw generators to full load within a couple of minutes, high speed V10's. Admitted they had LT cooling passing through them all the time, but thats only 35 degrees.

I am with the "gentle load for abit" camp on this one.

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[Twister_Ken]

Tell that to British Rail...

...or whatever it's called this week.

Their diesels seem to have the engines running continuously, even when parked at Paddington for hours.

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.writeforweb.com/twister1>Let's Twist Again</A>

 

[TheBoatman]

I think you'll find thats not far off what the RNLI do, Engines are started whilst crew cast off, boats out of the harbour before the temp gauge has even started to think about moving. Can you imagine waiting 5 mins for engines to warm up?

Its always puzzled me that boat owners will get in their car start it and drive straight off, but when they get to the boat they insist on "warming up" the engine before moving (strange)

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[Twister_Ken]

Err, actually, the beach-launched inflatables (Atlantic 21 Ribs?) sit on special trailers which have two built-in freshwater tanks for cooling which allow the engines to run for up to five minutes on the beach. The idea is that they are not terribly keen to launch into surf and find the engines splutter and die as soon as load is placed on them.

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[TheBoatman]

Re: warming up big diesels......

That brings back a memory, I was once driving a 14 wheel Foden (I called her Lil) with Gardiner engine through Purley (delivering fly ash for the (then) new M25/M23 junction bridge supports). Woman stepped off pavement, I slammed on brakes, pushed clutch down and poor o'll Lil sounded very sick, cab filled with loadsa unburnt diesel smoke, as she was now exhausting through the air filter, I pulled strangler and piled out sharpish and nearly got run down by a cab.
You could smell diesel in the cab for weeks wafterwards<s>

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[Jacket]

Re: warming up big diesels......

Do they have a compressor running off the engine to replace the compressed air, or is it a case of waiting until you get into harbour to get it topped up?

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[Jimmy20V]

Re: warming up big diesels......

Large vessels have large compressed air systems which run any number of systems as well as the starting air. In my last engine room, starting air was stored in 2 recievers from the two dedicated compressors at 35bar. The other systems (valves etc etc etc etc etc) are stored in two other receivers at 8bar and respectively have their own two compressors.

I think the scale of a ships engine room has to be seen to be believed IMHO. Many friends have visited and been astonished by the main engine (about 40' tall) just for starters!



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[Peppermint]

Re: West Cowes on Saturday AM

A guy was doing this very thing. Someone had a civil word with him and he turned the thing off. He didn't know he was being a nusance. He hadn't thought about it.

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[doris]

Re: A lady\'s hairdrier

You obviously have a greater degree of discipline over swimbo than most men have!!!!

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