My old engine room

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  • My old engine room
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About 30 years ago I changed a motor on a fishing trawler , after cutting out the bulkhead and installing a gantry, lifting out a 12V71 on its end and installing a 8V91 , slight mod to the exhaust . And on a flash 450,000 boat nzd, in the 90s i made all the stainless handrails ,ladders , life saver ring holder , put rails around the stove , mounted the genset and did all the bilge plumbing by myself , not easy working on boats . Cheers .
 
If my blood pressure medication is too strong, my tinnitus disappears, but I get giddy. I was in Queensland on holiday two weeks ago. A pharmacey made an error with my blood pressure pills. While I was at dinner I had a cocktail and wondered why I was at the falling-over stage of drunkeness But my head was crystal-clear. I recognised the symptoms, because it had happened once previously, a long time ago,.
 
About 30 years ago I changed a motor on a fishing trawler , after cutting out the bulkhead and installing a gantry, lifting out a 12V71 on its end and installing a 8V91 , slight mod to the exhaust . And on a flash 450,000 boat nzd, in the 90s i made all the stainless handrails ,ladders , life saver ring holder , put rails around the stove , mounted the genset and did all the bilge plumbing by myself , not easy working on boats . Cheers
It was tough work sometimes. I know how it is.

Although good times were had working at sea for 20 years. I got to tell you it was hard work sometimes. That movie reminded me of when we changed out the generators. Had to take the funnel off, chain blocked the old gensets accross the engine room, so the crane could lift them out where the funnel was. Then the new Mercedes gens were lowered in and chained them across the engine room to position. Not an easy task. Had many mechanical adventures and critical breakdowns in the middle of nowhere. It was a lot of equipment to manage. We digitized a lot of the controls and monitoring by the time I was done.

I sailed across the Atlantic 14 times on that vessel.

I wore hearing protection, but even so, being in there with everything running was noisy and I am sure it contributed to the tinnitus that now bugs me 24/7.
 
So I found a box with loads of Sony camcorder tapes and had them converted. I thought I lost all these years ago. Here is another one from 30 years ago, what a trip

 
If my blood pressure medication is too strong, my tinnitus disappears, but I get giddy. I was in Queensland on holiday two weeks ago. A pharmacey made an error with my blood pressure pills. While I was at dinner I had a cocktail and wondered why I was at the falling-over stage of drunkeness But my head was crystal-clear. I recognised the symptoms, because it had happened once previously, a long time ago,.
As kids we'd have wanted mors.
 
Found a movie I made from 1991 of my old engine room.


At time of movie, looks like these things were running:
Alpha Laval
1 gen
Air con

This is fascinating stuff. I was offered an Engineers job on a vessel, briefly considered it. If I'd had significant rotary wing aircraft experience it would have worked.

Cool that you did this..
I have a lot of Q's if you are patient enough....
 
My dad was a stocker in the Merchant navy during the war, my brother join the RAN at 15, and I was planning to follow his steps but I lost my mother at 14 so after her death I also tried to join the Merchant navy and put my name down at 14 but there was a big waiting list did all the medicals and paper work, but when I turned 15 I got into motorcycles instead, but we always had a boat of some sort and did some work on trawlers and owned a small 27' timber bay cruiser, that was a great boat bringing up the kids and family as well mates fishing trips away, salt water is in the blood, but am glad I stuck with the motorcycles, I don't miss the haul outs and maintenance on the boat but.

This is a pic of my dad's ship not long after it was built and launched in 1939 and the second pic is when my dad was a stoker on it during the war and the third pic tied up somewhere at a coastal port on the Queensland coast 1944, my dad took the last pic, the last 2 pics in its war colour's he was 19 at the time.
My old engine room
My old engine room
My old engine room
 
This is fascinating stuff. I was offered an Engineers job on a vessel, briefly considered it. If I'd had significant rotary wing aircraft experience it would have worked.

Cool that you did this..
I have a lot of Q's if you are patient enough....
Yeah, it was a different life, I had a problem having one motorcycle, so I had them all over the place. I worked on 3 or 4 in about 18 years, the one in the movie was the last one I worked on, it had 2 Paxman motors, very good power to weight ratio. 1350 HP each. I was on that one a long time. I am not sure if they are still about, but motors were made in Colchester Essex. They also had that same motor in some US coast Guard vessels back then.

I also sailed around the world on 130 ketch as engineer. That had Mercedes’ motors.

The first one I worked on and was engineer on was the second fastest yacht in the med at the time, worked on it 4 years approx. It was about 40 meters and had 2x 2,600 HP MTU motors. That was fun. Capable of about 40 - 50 knots if I remember right, The only faster one was Shergar. Owned by Aga Cann. That had 2 boing jet engines it it with turbine drives. It was capable of over 60 knots.

Also I worked on a huge schooner for a while, but had to leave due to problems.

It was good tax free money. I was always paid in USD tax free due to being offshore flags.

Funny old life! I was very happy to stop working at sea in the end.
 
My dad was a stocker in the Merchant navy during the war, my brother join the RAN at 15, and I was planning to follow his steps but I lost my mother at 14 so after her death I also tried to join the Merchant navy and put my name down at 14 but there was a big waiting list did all the medicals and paper work, but when I turned 15 I got into motorcycles instead, but we always had a boat of some sort and did some work on trawlers and owned a small 27' timber bay cruiser, that was a great boat bringing up the kids and family as well mates fishing trips away, salt water is in the blood, but am glad I stuck with the motorcycles, I don't miss the haul outs and maintenance on the boat but.

This is a pic of my dad's ship not long after it was built and launched in 1939 and the second pic is when my dad was a stoker on it during the war and the third pic tied up somewhere at a coastal port on the Queensland coast 1944, my dad took the last pic, the last 2 pics in its war colour's he was 19 at the time.
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Very nice pics. thank you for sharing
 
Very nice pics. thank you for sharing
I was very proud of my dad and there is something about old ships with their classic looks, my dad was a big solid man for his age working down in the boiler room, the first boat he worked on was the steam tug boat Forceful he spent his first 2 weeks on that tug on the Brisbane River it is still running and is owned by the Maritime Museum in Brisbane and the boiler has always been fired up even when not being used, use to see it out in the bay many time when on the water they did a lot of day cruises on it , well before covid anyway.
 
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