# Victory Ship Questions...



## martinihenry (Jan 29, 2007)

The funnels on WWII Victory Ships were originally short and somewhat squat. I've seen many pictures of these vessels during the war with this configuration. However, any postwar picture I've ever seen of a Victory Ship shows a dramatically heightened funnel. Does anybody know why this was done?

Also, I've noticed that the tips of the cargo booms, kingposts and masts are almost always painted black on these ships. I don't know if this was just a wartime livery, but even postwar, in civilian service these ships seem to keep that scheme. Anybody know why?

Thanks!


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## Dickyboy (May 18, 2009)

I don't know the answers to your questions, but perhaps the shorter funnels were to save on steel, after all these ships were only expected to survive a few trans Atlantic crossings. Post war perhaps they found a taller funnel was more effective.
Perhaps the post war paint was for economy, and many of these ships went to convenience flag companies where looks didn't count for that much, and even after the war they wouldn't have been expected to have a very long working lives.


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## Klaatu83 (Jan 22, 2009)

I sailed on two 8500-hp Victories in the 1970s, and both had stacks with caps, which were added subsequent to the 1950s. I know that to be the case because I have seen photographs of the same ships during the 1950s, and they did not have them at that time. I have no idea why that was done, but assume it must have had something to do with improving the efficiency of the boilers.

As for painting the ends of the masts and booms black, I believe that had to do with disguising the boiler soot that tended to collect on the mast heads, particularly the after mast head. Stack soot also tended to show up on the tips of the booms when they were stowed in the vertical position, as they usually were when deck cargo was carried.

Being steam ships, it was necessary for the engineers on Victory ships to "blow tubes" at least once a day, prior to which they always notified the bridge. The mate on watch used to alter course in such a way that the majority of the soot would be blown over the side and not land on the deck, and they took professional pride in being able to plan and execute that maneuver as effectively as possible. However, even in the best of conditions, a small portion of the soot inevitably did land on the ship. In addition, it was not always possible to maneuver the ship properly, due to the proximity of land or traffic.


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## kewl dude (Jun 1, 2008)

It was true that on MOST steam ships tubes were blown at least once each 24 hours dependent upon the quality of the fuel oil. It was also true that the ER notified the bridge prior to blowing tubes so the ships course could be altered for the length of time -- generally about fifteen or twenty minutes -- blowing tubes. Also the tubes were usually blown the same time each day generally on the 2 A/E afternoon 4-8 watch blowing tubes at 1600.

Victory Ships however this was not true since as originally equipped they had "automated" pneumatic soot blowers that took 2-1/2 hours to soot blow both boilers. There were a pair of hefty air compressors yet each time that it blew the pressure was reduced significantly and it took awhile for the two compressors running continuously to rebuild pressure.

Also the pneumatic soot blowers did not do nearly as good a job of cleaning tubes as steam soot blowers as such the 2 A/E began the sequence at the start of both of his daily 4-8 watches. When the automated system worked it was great but when the controller did not work properly the second had to keep his ears open listening for when it changed from one tube to another, and dash up there and manually turn a knob to select the proper next tube bank to be blown. 

When blowing tubes first the top air heater tubes were blown, then starting from the bottom of the generating tubes and progressing up from there again blowing the air heater tubes as the last procedure.

I was told that the heightened stack was both to improve the natural draft and carry the soot higher, regardless as mentioned changing course for five hours a day would not work out to well. So the upper portions of king posts and booms were painted black. 

I sailed one 6,000 HP the Duke Victory, one six month trip to 'Nam and back. Those ER staff who sailed a Victory always packed our ears with cotton when going on watch since the pair of steam turbine driven forced draft fans were adjacent and outboard of each boiler and howled like a banshee all the time since the air inlet was right there in the engine room atop the turbine.

I sailed summer relief six weeks on the Cliffs Victory -- ex Notre Dame Victory - on the Great Lakes, a 8,500 HP plant the forced draft fans were encased in a nearly sound proof casing and the inlet air was ducted down from topside essentially eliminating that howling banshee noise.

I attach a collage of four Cliffs Victory images. When first converted at a US East Coast shipyard the Victory was towed up the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers -- this was prior to the 1959 opening of the St Lawrence Seaway -- and as such could not be longer than 580 feet LOA.

Sometime after the Seaway opened the Cliffs Victory was lengthened to the then standard Great Lakes size of 730 LOA Seaway Max.

The top left picture was taken departing the Soo locks down bound after she was lengthened to 730 feet. The top right and lower left pictures shows the 580 feet LOA Victory negotiating the Chicago River right through the heart of Chicago. The lower right picture is a dark scan of a front cover of Marine Engineering/Log magazine November 1977 issue after she had been lengthened with the Victory arriving in Cleveland Ohio and making for the C & P ore dock to discharge her cargo.

The Cliffs Victory was among the fastest Great Lakes ships @ 580 feet LOA and picked up a couple of knots -- although Great Lakes ships used statute miles versus knots -- after being lengthened 150 feet between the forward and after house.

Perhaps the appropriate steam ship company office did not want to hear about it but now and then Great Lakes ships raced. I was coal passer -- my first ship -- on a 1911 built 1750 HP knee action turbine with a pair of hand fired Scotch boilers. 

The C/E came below and opened the cuts and gagged the boiler safeties so we could race another ship on Lake St Claire. I mean our normal sea speed was all of eight MPH and we were racing another ship of the same class. We DID win reaching the lower end of Lake St Claire ahead of the other ship. But soon as we slowed down and the gags were removed all of the boiler safeties opened up and stayed that way.

Eventually the order was passed to pull all of the fires to let the boilers cool down and the safeties close before fires were replaced.

At the time other east coast converted ships, 10,000 HP C4's could match the Cliffs Victory speed, but normally did not run at that speed as the Cliffs Victory did all the time on open lakes.

Greg Hayden


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## Wallace Slough (Mar 21, 2009)

Greg:
I made one trip to Vietnam on the Mercer Victory right out of school in 1966. The thing I remember most was the heat in the engine room! The engineers would come up off watch looking like they'd been standing in the shower. I don't know what the temperature was down there, but it was really rough in the tropics. 
The heat in the mate's quarters wasn't a lot better though. No AC of course, and there was a little dog house for a wheel house with an open steel deck over the mate's quarters painted Navy gray. It soaked up the sun and the rooms were like a sauna. Victory's were a good ship, but the accomidations left a lot to be desired.


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## kewl dude (Jun 1, 2008)

Massed produced War two ships in general were not big on luxuries, the Government knew from experience that many of those ships would never reach their destination or at most perhaps make one or two round trips before being lost to enemy action.

ALL steam ship engine rooms were HOT. Logging the ER temp at the log desk, where there usually was at least one fresh air blower, was done each watch and I recall 122 F being a common number. Away from blowers it was even hotter.

We drank a lot of water from the refrigerated drinking water fountain and took salt pills frequently. In the tropics you would begin to realize that you had not urinated in a long time and begin to drink even more water.

Yup coming up on deck after a watch with all of your clothes even your socks soaking wet was the norm. Ships with operable skylights tended to be somewhat cooler. C4's for instance had no skylights, the ER overhead was no more than a dozen feet or so above the main turbine.

On the Duke Victory when I got off watch at 2000 often I would go up on the bridge wing and keep the 3rd mate company and cool off. Lotsa ships of that era deck officers spent as much time outside as possible leaving the fella on the wheel to sweat by himself. Most ships had a binnacle sometimes even a wheel and a telegraph on the flying bridge above the wheel house. Add a canvas sun shade for daytime use and all tropical watches were stood here.

September 30 2006 during Fleet Week here in San Diego the Jeremiah O'Brien offered a cruise out to the Silver Gate then back to the dock.at a reasonable price. The top left picture shows San Diego's first light house at the Silver Gate, top right turning around at the San Diego sea buoy, bottom left one of many USCG and Navy Security vessels, bottom right the ship -- here approaching the dock slow ahead --conned from the flying bridge. Note the small radar in a shade box on the right side of the picture.

Greg Hayden


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## Wallace Slough (Mar 21, 2009)

San Diego is my hometown and birthplace, so I can certainly relate to your photos. I often pilot the Jeremiah O'Brien around SF Bay, and took her up to Sacramento with my two daughters along last May. She's a privilege to serve, and it's a wonderful story of volunteer's keeping the old girl going. The person leaning on the rail next to the telegraph in the flying bridge photo is Captain Carl Bowler, a good friend and retired Bar Pilot and former States Line Master who volunteers as second mate on the JOB. The officer in dress whites is Admiral Patterson who was instrumental is saving the JOB from the scrap heap. He's since passed away.


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## jimthehat (Aug 5, 2006)

Wallace Slough said:


> San Diego is my hometown and birthplace, so I can certainly relate to your photos. I often pilot the Jeremiah O'Brien around SF Bay, and took her up to Sacramento with my two daughters along last May. She's a privilege to serve, and it's a wonderful story of volunteer's keeping the old girl going. The person leaning on the rail next to the telegraph in the flying bridge photo is Captain Carl Bowler, a good friend and retired Bar Pilot and former States Line Master who volunteers as second mate on the JOB. The officer in dress whites is Admiral Patterson who was instrumental is saving the JOB from the scrap heap. He's since passed away.


As my first ship as an app was a sam boat I visited the Jeremiah when she came to the uk,whilst looking for what would have been my old cabin i was confronted by a gentleman who stated that it was now his cabin and in conversation he stated that he was a retired US admiral,wonder if that was Admiral patterson?

jim


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## Wallace Slough (Mar 21, 2009)

Jim: That sure sounds like it must have been Admiral Patterson. He was a fine man, and as I said, he was instrumental in saving the JOB from the scrap heap. As I recall, he was in charge of the reserve fleet in Suisun Bay and kept shuffling the JOB around every time she was set up to be towed out for scrap. Due to his diligence, the JOB was saved and a group was organized to eventually steam her down to San Francisco for refurbishment as a museum ship (she's the only vessel to ever get under way on her own from the reserve fleet under her own power). He also made the 1994 voyage back to Normandy when Captain George Jahn (ex Red Stack Pilot) was in command of the ship. Captain Jahn and Admiral Patterson were fine men whom we all miss. George had been in command of the SS William Matson during the D Day landings, and returned 50 years later in command of the JOB. Admiral Patterson also commanded a Liberty during his Navy time. Remarkable ships, and remarkable men!


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## Billieboy (May 18, 2009)

1963 steam turbine engine room 14.500SHP, average temp in N Europe 110°F, this was a 35K dwt tanker built 1957. Always hot, but as the FD Fans were electric, there was not so much screaming!


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## martinihenry (Jan 29, 2007)

Thank you so much for the information, shipmates. I figured soot had something to do with the stack height, but I didn't even think about the fact that the aft cargo gear would be prone to getting fouled by soot, too. The paint scheme makes perfect sense. Fabulous.

I volunteered aboard the SS Red Oak Victory for 2 1/2 years, helping to restore her, and have recently moved on to bigger and better things, but I fell in love with that ship. They're really beautifully made vessels. I sailed on the SS Lane Victory last year on one of her cruises out to Santa Catalina Island and back. The engine room was DEFINITELY hotter than the hobbs of hell. The air coming out of the ER skylight was like putting one's face up to an electric hair-drier on the "high" setting. 

I sailed on the Jeremiah O'Brien just this past weekend, my first time aboard a Liberty. While touring the engine room, I noticed that there was a huge difference in the heat between her engine room and that of the Lane Victory. Firstly, when I walked by the O'Brien's ER skylight up on deck, I didn't get huge blasts of heat like I did on the Lane. Secondly, when you walked into the fidley on the J.O.B., I didn't feel heat at all until I walked down the ladder to the level next to the top of the engine. Granted, they operate the J.O.B.'s engines at reduced capacity, but the heat down there wasn't nearly as intense as it was on the Lane. The Victory Ship boilers had water-wall tube preheaters to preheat the feed water, and to try and minimize the radiated heat from the firebox (not sure if the Liberty boilers do as well). I imagine the AP3 and AP5 variant Victory engine rooms were that much hotter with the additional 2500 shp. You definitely had to be one tough bugger to work in that kind of misery. I have been aboard 6 different Victory Ships, and noticed salt tablet dispensers in each of their engine rooms, as well as refrigerated scuttlebutts. One of ships I visited (S.S. Rider Victory) still had tablets in the salt dispenser up in the officer's mess from its last use in Vietnam.

The forced-draft blowers on Victory Ships were definitely high-pitch screamers. Quite a step up compared to the dinky little reciprocating engine-powered one I saw on the O'Brien, but boy, do they indeed make one heck of a whine.

I have pictures of the Red Oak Victory's mechanical soot-blowing controller system. If you're interested for nostalgia's sake, I can certainly post them. The controller was mounted on the forward bulkhead of the engine room, near the port boiler and if I recall, was basically a pneumatic timer that ported air flow to the varying soot blowers on each boiler after a given amount of time. If my memory serves me correctly, the ROV's controller had been disabled, so I believe they were conducting soot blowing manually. If I understood correctly, the process started with the lowest tubes first, and then moved upward to the economizer tubes.

I would love to see pictures of Victory Ships in operation during the '60s and '70s on the Vietnam NSA voyages, if any exist.


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## steamer659 (Mar 18, 2009)

My only trip aboard a Victory was aboard the USNS Kingsport (ex- Kingsport Victory) as an Oiler in 1978. Interesting vessels- from later conversations, I gathered that the stacks were heightened to gain more "stack effect" for the Sectional Header Boilers and reduce the net horsepower needed from the Sturtevant Steam Turbine Driven Forced Draft Blowers- because the size of the blowers caused the first boiler operating end point to be reached early (endpoint of combustion- combustion air)...This was what I remember...


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## tunatownshipwreck (Nov 9, 2005)

steamer659 said:


> My only trip aboard a Victory was aboard the USNS Kingsport (ex- Kingsport Victory) as an Oiler in 1978. Interesting vessels- from later conversations, I gathered that the stacks were heightened to gain more "stack effect" for the Sectional Header Boilers and reduce the net horsepower needed from the Sturtevant Steam Turbine Driven Forced Draft Blowers- because the size of the blowers caused the first boiler operating end point to be reached early (endpoint of combustion- combustion air)...This was what I remember...


My dad was on that ship 1969-1970 as a pipefitter. He told me the bottoms of the holds had been filled with poured concrete.


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## steamer659 (Mar 18, 2009)

Eric;
Small World..Yes, the "Kingsport" was converted in 1964 to a Range Instrumentation vessel and the conversion probably included the installation of permanent ballast, it was converted again later for "survey" work after the antenna's were removed in the 1970's....


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## kewl dude (Jun 1, 2008)

Searching Google for something else I ran across this today:

http://svsm.org/gallery/RedOakVictory

SS Red Oak Victory AK-235, Richmond, CA, by Vladimir Yakubov on

Silicon Valley Scale Modelers Website.

Hundreds of detailed pictures inside and out. From what I can see her kingposts and booms are not painted black on the ends, but then of course they probably do not blow tubes very often? 

Some of her gear in the pictures is set up to work cargo while others are lashed upright ready for a deck cargo.

I was onboard the Red Oak Victory in Richmond, she was tied up at the old Ford Motor Company Assembly plant pier in Richmond. My memory tells me it was longer than ten years ago? 

She was in ROUGH shape, especially the main deck, there were chalk walkways marked where it was reasonably safe to walk, outside the chalk paths the deck was in really bad shape including obvious holes. I was told she was the last of the Original Victories? IShe still had all of her original gun tubs and I was told that the guns were stored below in a tween deck. I was told WW II logs and paperwork was on the bridge when the volunteer group acquired her.

I am REALLY impressed with the pictures of how she looks now considering this is a volunteer effort.

I sailed the Duke Victory with a cargo of bombs from Port Chicago, although my discharges say:

19670126-19670210 Duke Victory 3A/E – Port time
19670211-19670217 Duke Victory 2A/E – Port time 
19670218-19670515 Duke Victory 2A/E San Francisco-Cat Lai-New Orleans

Duke Victory did not have all the gun tubs and such.

The 1 A/E and I worked six and six for the whole trip. Marine Engineers were at a premium then. I came aboard as a 3 A/E, but I was the only 3rd to report. Then when the 2 A/E quit I moved up on my Temporary 2 A/E license. 

The Port Engineer and his assistant “signed-on” as 3rds then “missed her”. Eventually the USCG revoked both men’s licenses, after they “missed” so many ships that they had signed on as 3rds that sailed short handed.

Greg Hayden


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## kewl dude (Jun 1, 2008)

I am REALLY impressed with this site.

http://svsm.org/

Silicon Valley Scale Modelers Website.

Just in case someone does not know Silicon Valley? 
It is down the Peninsula from San Francisco. 
Palo Alto, Redwood City, Mountain View, Menlo Park, Cupertino, San Jose, etc. 

http://svsm.org/gallery/

This photographer: Vladimir Yakubov has many portfolios.

American, European and Russian military and civilian water craft. 

Aircraft, automobiles and trucks, railroad equipment, agriculture and construction equipment,.military armor, etc. 

Pictures of the originals and models.

I wandered around the site unsuccessfully trying to find this link:

http://svsm.org/gallery/RedOakVictory

About 100 detailed pictures of HMS Belfast, London, UK, by Vladimir Yakubov. 

A couple hundred of USS Bunker Hill CG-52, June 2010, San Francisco, CA, by Vladimir Yakubov. 

Sixty six pictures Russian Protected Cruiser Avrora, St. Petersburg, Russia, by Vladimir Yakubov

Found it:

http://svsm.org/gallery/Ships

Down near the bottom of the page - attached

Greg Hayden


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## ssr481 (Feb 2, 2008)

During the rare times I go down below into the engine room aboard the SS JOHN W BROWN, whilst we're sailing, it's about 120 deg. F there. Being in the deck department, we usually run ice water down to the engine room gang.. I hang out there every so often to what the engine while underway.. very impressive. 

Still, I'm glad to get back on deck after a trip down below..


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## ernhelenbarrett (Sep 7, 2006)

Never sailed on Victory Ships but was on a couple of the Ben Line Liberty ships Bendoran ex Samauntless and BenVrackie ex Samaffric, accomodation wasnt too great but we did have coffee perculators and ice water fountains which NO British MN vessels had at that time, some funny things used to happen though like getting steam on deck in the Indian Ocean... and the derricks would try and top themselves or you would be walking up the foredeck and a great lump of steel would fall at your feet with a clang from up a mast, probably the lady welders missing a bit when the joined the ships together, they were real hot houses in the far east, you required quite a few Tennants to keep your fluid contents up
Ern Barrett


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## Billieboy (May 18, 2009)

A steam engine room below 100F can feel extremely cold to an engineer, 140F is warm and 160F is Hot. of course it depends on where and how hard the blowers are.


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## Wallace Slough (Mar 21, 2009)

Greg:
Thanks for posting the link to the photos of the Red Oak Victory. Wow, what a trip down memory lane. They have the original crummy radar that was put on the ships being pulled out of the reserve fleet. There was also a photo of my old foc'sle when I had my first third mates job right out of school on the Mercer Victory. They were sure cookie cutter ships! You have to admire Kaiser for what he did for shipbuilding!
I'd recommend a wonderful book "Build Ships" by Wayne Bonnett which gives a great description of the ship yard in San Francisco that sprung up almost overnight during the war to build these ships.


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## kewl dude (Jun 1, 2008)

http://www.rosietheriveter.org/

Ambitious "Museum" in Richmond California

Rosie The Riveter
World War II Home Front National Historical Park

Two, index page, screen captures attached.

I was at the Rosie The Riveter exhibit the same time I visited the Red Oak in my distant past at least ten years or more. There are a lot of pictures of the people who streamed in from all over the USA to build ships. Few to none of these folks had ever done this before. There was a tight knit community living in barracks. After the war some of it went away but not the big stuff.

Greg Hayden


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