# USS Zumwalt



## ART6 (Sep 14, 2010)

It seems that this ship is in trouble even before it is commissioned according to gCaptain -- seawater leaking into a lube oils system for propshaft bearings, presumably through an oil cooler, so not a major defect -- in my days at sea in steamships it was not an unknown occurrence. The report did, however, strike a chord in my memory: I spent six months assigned to Esso's head office in Victoria Street in London for no obvious purpose except for the loss of sea time, and one day I was sent to a small pump company in Kent. They thought they had developed a means of detecting sea water in lube oil by continuous monitoring. They had a patent application wending its weary way.

They showed me their workshop rig, pumped some lube oil through a chamber and added some salt water, and their jury-rigged alarm went off! Without any authority I offered them five grand of Esso's money to help the development. Upon return to head office I got a resounding bollocking from the marine department manager on the basis that if I had seen it work I should have offered to buy the patent.

Anyway, the firm was Woodward Pumps, and I never did find out where their technology went. Anyone ever come across it in the years post (about) 1966?


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## davidrwarwick (Aug 22, 2005)

Is this the company? 
http://www.woodward.com/Pumps.aspx
Couldn't see anything about lube oil monitoring but maybe I missed it.

Dave


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## Engine Serang (Oct 15, 2012)

Five Grand in 1966 must be worth a million today. Perhaps they went on the piss. I would.


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## ART6 (Sep 14, 2010)

davidrwarwick said:


> Is this the company?
> http://www.woodward.com/Pumps.aspx
> Couldn't see anything about lube oil monitoring but maybe I missed it.
> 
> Dave


Don't know Dave. At the time I visited them they had a small manufacturing plant in Kent (I can't remember exactly where) and it was a bit of a father and son outfit. They supplied small dosing pumps that were used on most of the Esso UK tankers hence, I suppose, their reason for contacting Esso to see if the company would be interested in their idea. Certainly then they were called Woodward Pumps Ltd, but I suppose they could have grown to such a size in fifty years as their web site indicates.


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## Duncan112 (Dec 28, 2006)

The Web link goes to Woodward Governors, founded 1870 by Amos Woodward


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## ART6 (Sep 14, 2010)

Duncan112 said:


> The Web link goes to Woodward Governors, founded 1870 by Amos Woodward


Woodward Governors was certainly not the same company as Woodward Pumps. We had Woodward governors on the turbines in the power station in which I worked when I first came ashore, and they came from a quite different company so you are certainly correct. Thanks for the clarification.

The point of my original post was to wonder if the Zumwalt problem had been detected by sensors like those I referred to, and if anyone with later experience than mine in marine engineering had come across them.


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