rgano
Guru
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2007
- Messages
- 5,187
- Location
- Panama City area
- Vessel Name
- FROLIC
- Vessel Make
- Mainship 30 Pilot II since 2015. GB-42 1986-2015. Former Unlimited Tonnage Master
I have had lots of experience with engine/boiler exhausts from topside stacks. Probably the worst experience was when I was the conning officer taking the battleship USS IOWA BB-61 through the Panama Canal. The captain decided that the ship needed to be conned from the upper conning station on the 08-level WAY up in the superstructure instead of from the normal conning station on the 04-level navigation bridge. We had used the 08-level station only one other time in my three years aboard, the first time we got underway from Pascagoula for a sea trial. This day in the canal the wind was astern and yes, we were above the tops of the two smoke stacks. The stack gas wafting over us left us gasping for breath and trying to find clear air, and my white uniform was gray when I came off watch that afternoon. In the five steamships I was assigned to in the Navy, all tended to be somewhat less than clean topside as a result of soot expelled from the stacks when boiler tubes were steam cleaned once a watch. Oh, we tried when at sea to get a course with the wind off a bow in order to clear the soot from the ship, but eddies would form somewhat thwarting the effort, and one can guess at the resulting mess when tubes were blown in port when shore power was not available! Even aboard the modern gas turbine powered destroyers I worked aboard until 2012 you can get plenty of whiffs of exhaust when on deck aft. Now fast forward 35 years to March and April this year as my wife and I brought a dry exhaust boat with a stack for one main engine and two generators just aft of the bridge from Norfolk to the Gulf Coast. The engine in this ioat had been serviced including new injectors and certified ready to go by the JD techs in Norfolk, and the gens were run with good load. Nevertheless, after 30 days in which we did get some rain, the fresh US flag placed on the flagstaff aft on the upper deck at the start of the voyage was gray where it was supposed to be white, the dinghies carried up there were sooty and the deck area was obviously in need of lots of scrubbing. Then too there was the almost subliminal, tinny noise one gets from such an exhaust, especially when the pilothouse doors or windows were open. Walking on the main deck on the downwind side, I could usually smell the exhaust as eddies swirled around. Just some idle thoughts for anybody considering a vessel with a topside rather than side or stern exhaust.