The Solstice, or On the Road Again ...
5 hours ago
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Friday, October 21, 2016
The Russian Navy Needs to Have a Propulsion Examining Board
As an old steam engineer, let me say this: There is no excuse for an oil-fired warship in good condition to send up black smoke, especially in this quantity.
Shit, coal-fired ships often didn't smoke that badly.
The smoke suggests to me that either the plant design or the snipes of the Admiral Kuznetsov suck. Proper naval boilers have economizers; the hot flue gasses from the boiler fires pass over the economizer tubes to pre-heat the feedwater prior to it being fed into the boiler. The fuel savings of economizers are significant, something like 10%, but that level of efficiency can't be achieved if the economizer tubes and their vanes are covered with soot.
Even if the ship was "blowing tubes" (using steam to blow the soot from boiler tubes), for that much soot to be blown off indicates that the plant is running too rich a mixture. There should be no smoke visible from a properly-fired naval boiler.
This article may overstate things, but I am prepared to believe that the Kuznetsov is a piece of shit.
Shit, coal-fired ships often didn't smoke that badly.
The smoke suggests to me that either the plant design or the snipes of the Admiral Kuznetsov suck. Proper naval boilers have economizers; the hot flue gasses from the boiler fires pass over the economizer tubes to pre-heat the feedwater prior to it being fed into the boiler. The fuel savings of economizers are significant, something like 10%, but that level of efficiency can't be achieved if the economizer tubes and their vanes are covered with soot.
Even if the ship was "blowing tubes" (using steam to blow the soot from boiler tubes), for that much soot to be blown off indicates that the plant is running too rich a mixture. There should be no smoke visible from a properly-fired naval boiler.
This article may overstate things, but I am prepared to believe that the Kuznetsov is a piece of shit.
Monday, October 3, 2016
The Morning Watch at OCS
This is from something I've been noodling at:
Officer Candidate School maintained a quarterdeck watch at King Hall, its barracks building. There was a Officer of the Day, who was usually one of the company officers.[1] The OOD had a little bedroom just off the quarterdeck. It was the job of the Messenger of the Watch on the forenoon watch to find the OOD around 1115 or so, salute, hold the salute, hand the OOD the muster and sick reports and say: “Good morning, Sir. The Officer of the Deck sends his respects and reports the approach of the hour of twelve. All personnel are present or accounted for. Request permission to strike eight bells on time, Sir.” Then one dropped the salute.
When it was my turn, I was deathly afraid of screwing up my lines, so I rehearsed them, a lot. My turn was on a Saturday morning. The OOD, as it turned out, was badly hung-over. I barely said “Good morning”, when he moaned and said “permission granted.” I was having none of that, for I had worked hard to get the lines down and I was determined to say them.
I did. The OOD sat on the edge of the bed, with his head in his hands. When I finished, he moaned again and said something that sounded like “strike the fucking bells, damn you.”
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[1] Each company had a post-sea tour lieutenant as its company officer.
Officer Candidate School maintained a quarterdeck watch at King Hall, its barracks building. There was a Officer of the Day, who was usually one of the company officers.[1] The OOD had a little bedroom just off the quarterdeck. It was the job of the Messenger of the Watch on the forenoon watch to find the OOD around 1115 or so, salute, hold the salute, hand the OOD the muster and sick reports and say: “Good morning, Sir. The Officer of the Deck sends his respects and reports the approach of the hour of twelve. All personnel are present or accounted for. Request permission to strike eight bells on time, Sir.” Then one dropped the salute.
When it was my turn, I was deathly afraid of screwing up my lines, so I rehearsed them, a lot. My turn was on a Saturday morning. The OOD, as it turned out, was badly hung-over. I barely said “Good morning”, when he moaned and said “permission granted.” I was having none of that, for I had worked hard to get the lines down and I was determined to say them.
I did. The OOD sat on the edge of the bed, with his head in his hands. When I finished, he moaned again and said something that sounded like “strike the fucking bells, damn you.”
___________________________________________
[1] Each company had a post-sea tour lieutenant as its company officer.
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