# Steam ship fresh water paranoia



## kewl dude (Jun 1, 2008)

In post # 4 in the below thread:

http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/showthread.php?t=115442 
titled Boiler Suits

Sadistic Mechanic keyed: " I realize the true depth of steam ship water paranoia,"

Not paranoia a very real deal, ships carried only so much fresh water: forepeak, afterpeak, engine room double bottoms: 600 tons max sticks in my mind. First thing a ship did after tying up in a US port was connect the fresh water hose and fill all tanks. 

Other ports around the world provided varying grades of "fresh-water" more often from a barge than a shore pipe. Some places the water was very sweet others less so. In those days ships routinely stopped for fresh water where it was available more often than they stopped for fuel.

A typical steam plant would lose 7 tons a day, some more some less. Ships had a pair of high pressure single stage steam evaporators that needed frequent blow downs and mechanical cleaning to produce their combined 7 tons a day output of fresh water. It was only with the advent of modular two-stage flash evaporators that fresh water worries went away. 

I was 3 A/E and 2 A/E on Oriental Exporters/Ogden Marine's SS Columbia a jumboized T2 converted to a geared bulk carrier on the Philadelphia or Norfolk to Amsterdam or Antwerp coal run. Prior to JFK's presidency the US Government paid cash US money for locally generated electricity at European US military bases. JFK started the pay with low sulfur coal, which kept 28 US flag ships fully employed for years. As well as employing many Europeans receiving and delivering that coal.

In Amsterdam we either discharged at the coal dock right behind Central Station. Alongside at a steel plant way out in the boonies. Anchored in the stream behind Central Station, discharging into a whole flock of small powered river vessels, via a pair of floating discharge cranes one on each side or our ships' gear. We always went alongside right downtown Antwerp. 

In Philadelphia we loaded at the old fashioned fixed 'pick up a railroad hopper car and turn it over and dump it into the ships hold' coal dock where the ship needed to shift along the dock to load. 

While in Norfolk the dock used a German conveyor belt and a traveling on railroad tracks spout, where the ship remains in one place, that we called a Sputnik. It took 24-36 hours to load 25,000 tons in Philly as little as three to six hours in Norfolk.

Anyway regardless of the day of the week or the time of day when we tied up in Philly the Water Guy stood on the pier. He had to unlock the stout steel little shelter where the fresh water fill lived then he would help the watch engineer connect our fresh water hose. 

So we went to the shipyard for an overhaul and while we were there a brand new 30 tons a day Aqua-Chem modular 2-stage flash evaporator was installed. Eight feet wide by eight feet long by eight feet high everything on one skid. 

When we got back to Philly all of our fresh water tanks were full and our new evap shut off. We all forgot about the Water Guy until he walked into the Chief Engineers office to be told his services were no longer needed.

In post # 4 Sadistic Mechanic keyed: "here is something I learned - the best water saving technique for domestic water before actually turning it off completely was to turn off the cold water and turn the heat of the hot water, consumption would plummet."

You have a devious mind SM, why would you do that to your shipmates? 

When we got into low fresh water situations we went onto water hours and everyone quit washing clothes. The water would be on everywhere for the hour before and the hour after each meal: 0700-0900, 1100-1300, 1600-1800. The water was always on to the refrigerated drinking water fountains aka Scuttlebutts and the galley.

Attached:

Columbia-1.jpg (53.2 KB) 
Columbia-2.jpg (59.1 KB)

Greg Hayden
Vista - San Diego area - California


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## OilJiver (Jun 30, 2014)

Think someone’s about to get a big sad on in pic 1 Greg!


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## surfaceblow (Jan 16, 2008)

I remember being on a Steam Tanker (T-5) near Poughkeepsie NY. While discharging we were having some boiler work going on. One of the Shore Gang plugged his extension cord into the console outlet which was for a trouble light while working on the console. No one on watch noticed that the console blew its breaker so the boiler online shutdown. I woke up since the steam forced draft fan was slowing down. By the time we got the water level back to restart the boiler the DC Heater had ice in it. Any way we used a lot of our Distill water bring the plant back on and refilling the boiler that was being worked on. I had ordered distill water tanker for New York City. On the way down river we started to make distill water but being light every turn the Evap Feed Pump was coming out of the water and strainer was filling up with ice. So the First A/E changed over the Evap Feed to come from the Steam Butterworth Pump. The Steam Pump speed up since the suction was out of the water once it was back in the water the pump discharge pressure was too high and caused the last mishap was the High Hat fell off causing the river water to spray into the demisters. While the Engineers were tending to the Evap. the Captain canceled the Distill Water Barge. By the time we got to the loading port in the Virgin Islands we had a total of 47 tons of water onboard. So even before we had FWE the water barge and Potable water hose were connected. 

Joe


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## surfaceblow (Jan 16, 2008)

In post # 4 Sadistic Mechanic keyed: "here is something I learned - the best water saving technique for domestic water before actually turning it off completely was to turn off the cold water and turn the heat of the hot water, consumption would plummet."

The one method to reduce the domestic water was just to leave the Evap on to the Potable Water Tank in use. That way the water from the Evap did not have time to cool down a bit. Normally we always try to fill the tanks that were not in use so if the Evap did not trip due to high salt we did not contaminate the water going to the Boilers or the domestic water. 

Joe


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## lakercapt (Jul 19, 2005)

Fresh water was always a concern in the "Old days" but with the reverse osmosis systems now they have more water than needed for domestic use and we often used it to wash down as it was easier that way than closing down and restarting the plant.
Remember well the days drifting off Nauru and chasing rain clouds!!!


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

I doubt a steam ship man would be happy with the quality of an RO plant throughput. And what a superb plant it would be to have insufficient waste heat for a 'vap.


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## david freeman (Jan 26, 2006)

Water consumption, and especially distilled water, it quality, purity, and consumption per day against its production on a a steamer, water quality was a never ever ending story, and keeping the sea water evaps clear of scale and cold shocking/maintaince, together with the distilled water vap through put offten created tensions, when one was not allowed on passage to heave too and generally repair the leaks and various other problems that may occur, if one did not keep on top of maintaince and other watchkeeping duties on a steamship.


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## david freeman (Jan 26, 2006)

david freeman said:


> Water consumption, and especially distilled water, it quality, purity, and consumption per day against its production on a a steamer, water quality was a never ever ending story, and keeping the sea water evaps clear of scale and cold shocking/maintaince, together with the distilled water vap through put offten created tensions, when one was not allowed on passage to heave too and generally repair the leaks and various other problems that may occur, if one did not keep on top of maintaince and other watchkeeping duties on a steamship.


On a bad day what with sootblowing, blowdowns, leaking joints, domestic consumption and steam on deck, one could easily allow the plant to get out of control. Here I am not talking of shell boilers but high pressure 1000psi/1000'F superheated jobby.


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## steamer659 (Mar 18, 2009)

My worst nightmare came to pass in 1993, caught my regular steam OBO outbound and on the fly at Gib... The departing Chief said- watch the Port Boiler, think you have a leak.... Take Care....

Well, we had a screen tube leak and a generating tube leak- I kept the RPM down a bit, but later that night calculated that we would run out of water come two days out of New Orleans.. had a condensate cooled spray film type single effect distiller which had wicked air leaks... between this and the boiler leaks, we were doomed to run out....

Pulled to anchor in the Bahamas and took 100 tons of "feedwater" by barge.... a miserable trip... also found that the Stbd Boiler had a roof tube leaking too.....Fixed it all in New Orleans and sailed on the eleventh hour... Arrrrgggh


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## Jim Glover (Aug 13, 2006)

Sailed on the Shell tanker Hemiplecta as 4/E in 1973 .Water Book was an A4 Jotter ,the most important piece of do***entation onboard that vessel.I think the Evaps were Caird & Rayner and spent most of the time trying to extract the max output from them.I was relieved when I paid off .


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