OT: Jeremiah O'Brien

I was at the Jeremiah O'Brien over the weekend. I was with a few other Maritime Academy cadets who volunteered to help out. We were credited with some sea time, and got to help run the engine room. Part of it was just looking around and asking questions, but there was some good work to be done.

We showed up on Friday evening, and spent our time touring the ship and listening to sea stories from the crew. While hanging out on the after 5" gun, one of the crew members tried sending Morse code to a nearby ship with a rave party going on, but got no response. He later showed us how to operate the breech of the forward 3" gun and unlocked the elevation (rotation is unlocked, but elevation is set so parents are less likely to hit their heads when their kids swing the gun around). It was like we were a pack of kids all over again. "There's a pirate ship at Hyde St. Pier! Load! Fire! There's a ninja hiding on top of the Ghirardelli sign! A flight of GU-11 dive-bombers with B1-RD fighter escorts overhead!"

Saturday morning, I got to see them start up the engine. They had to warm up the whole steam system first to avoid water hammer. They didn't put any steam into the engine to warm it up until after some visitors had already arrived and come down to look. When they cracked the valve, one of the pressure relief valves for the low pressure piston tripped. There was a dad and his young son visiting, and I could see their reaction change when they saw all the engineers and cadets pointing at the big cloud of steam and they realized it wasn't a normal part of the operation. The look on their faces was even better when one of the other cadets who had been descending the stairs emerged from the cloud of steam (he wasn't burned, the steam rapidly cooled as it expanded). Soon enough, the engineers got everything sorted out and the Watch Engineer got to chew out the Chief Engineer (an old Scot everyone calls Scotty) and First Assistant
Engineer for working some of the valves without telling him.

With that behind them, they started to warm up the main engine by rolling it back and forth using the Reversing Gear, which can be run continuously by a steam engine or be turned by hand. The engine block took a bit to warm up so the steam wouldn't cool and lose pressure, and the crank shaft finally turned over. They maintained 10-15 RPM the whole time, which allows them to run the engine without breaking the mooring lines. I helped out a bit with the fireman, lighting off some of the burners, adjusting the air to maintain proper pressure and temperature, extinguishing burners, and cleaning them with 450 degree steam and old-fashioned elbow grease.

One of the students helped work on the Main Circulation Pump for cooling the condenser with seawater, and got it up and running (they were using one of the two General Service Pumps instead). Shortly after getting it up and running, they realized that it had trouble before because it had the wrong packing on the piston. The same was true of the General Service Pump they had switched to, and they had to switch to the second General Service Pump for the rest of the day.

After lunch, one of the engineers gave a lecture on boilers, describing some of the basics, tips on what to look for when operating one, and what might cause an engineering casualty, how to prevent one, and how to deal with one. It mostly focused on maintaining proper combustion, with enough, but not too much, air, and on maintaining even heating. One amusing tip on dealing with a damaged tube was to stick a wire all the way through so you can be sure you don't work on the wrong tube, which apparently happened a year or so ago.

While shutting down, one of the engineers wanted the Low Pressure Piston to be all the way down, but they couldn't precisely position it using just the main throttle valve. We had to use the Rotation Gear, which apparently hadn't been run in years. The Rotation Gear is a series of worm gears that can move the crank shaft during maintenance. Since having a worm gear in position all the time would prevent the shaft from rotating, it is normally removed from the engine. We had to use a chain hoist to lift up the pin so we could install the worm gear, then the engineers started working on the small drive motor. It took a bit to blow out all the condensate, lube up the piston again, and get it running, but soon enough the crank shaft was in the right position and we had to pull everything apart again. After shutting everything down for the night, Carl joined us. We don't have many chances to work on our ships, so he spent the day working on new rotation for our VU's new front guns.

Sunday morning they started up the engine without incident. While Carl started on the same stuff I did yesterday (seeing how things work, helping out with the boilers, etc.), the other cadets and i were assigned a project to work on. The big one was extending one of the suction pipes from the bilge for Oily Water Separator. It didn't extend low enough into the sump in the bilge to reliably suck up the bilge water. After taking it apart, we found that the grille over the sump didn't have a hole large enough to allow the pipe through, so we had to
cut a new hole. While I was helping with that and some of the other cadets were cutting and threading a new length of pipe, some of the engineers tested out one of the safety systems for one of the boilers. Carl has more information on that, but apparently it didn't work right. After dumping steam into one of the tanks, it condensed into water again and apparently gave the ship a minor list.

We got off a bit early on Sunday, and most of the cadets took off back to school. Carl and I had enough time to get over to the San Fransisco Maritime National Historical park. We saw a group of elementary students getting brought on board the square-rigger Balclutha for an overnight class trip. Carl and I went on one just like that in fifth grade on the schooner CA. Thayer. At this time, the Thayer is completely dismasted and being worked on. Apparently most of her timbers were rotted and needed extensive work. We also got around to the old tug Hercules. We asked about how to volunteer to help with that boat (she also uses a triple expansion steam engine), but none of the engineers were there.

Overall, it was a great experience. I think more CMA students are going to do this again. I need to check the dates, but we should be back from first cruise so we can help out with the JOB's cruise to CMA, where visitors will spend two hours getting tours of the campus and simulation facilities. I'm hoping to be able to help out with that trip, too.

 

I was able to visit the Jeremiah O'Brien back in July, 2001 on vacation in California; that ship was really cool to tour! I ran the entire length of the driveshaft to extreme end of the stern just because it was open and you could. It was cramped in there, but such a neat experience just being in that engine room, even though it was idle at the time. My Dad and I manned one of the AA guns; back then both the weapons were fully maneuverable, or at least the smaller one was, and we 'shot down' a seaplane that was cruising out in the bay. I was also able to tour the USS Pampanito with my grandfather; now that was something else, at least for me.

Thanks for sharing your story!

 

That is fantastic. So when are you going to repair the engines on the Texas?