Scavenge fires.
 

My experience of Scavenge fires was limited to watching while the lifeboat covers were burnt away and the whole place looked like fire-work night, but what was it like in the engine room? Am I right in thinking that Blue Funnel were good at this?

I'd say "interesting" would be appropriate. Kept one amused for hours :shock:

Spent nearly 40 years working with diesel engines and the only scavenge fires I encountered were in Reeds and C C Pounder. Am I unusual?

I remember we came out of the canal into the Red Sea, we did put NUC up as everything seemed a bit burny, but what was going on down below? I don't imagine buckets of water would do the job, but what was the job?

Certainly ES. But what has that to do with the topic?

I remember, when I sailed in the Rhexenor 1954/6, scavenger fires seemed to be almost routine for a while, it must have been very worrying for the engine room staff, probably frightening??. We, the deck dept. became used to the fire alarm sounding in the middle of some sultry night in the Red Sea or Indian Ocean, the engines stopped, the ships whistle signalling the location of the fire, (I am not sure what the signal for the engine room was), jumping out of our bunks and joining the fire party. I know that I was in the smoke helmet party for a while, often having to wear the helmet. It looked spectacular especially at night, great flames leaping out of the funnel, lighting the night sky. I don't know what the passengers felt, were they worried? or did it add to the adventure of voyaging on a cargo liner? Bruce

The topic ??? The topic ??? I didn't get where I am today by sticking to the topic. Sticking to the topic is for the little people, not for a swashbuckler from the bottom plates.

Quite right too. The hazelnuts get stuck between my teeth these days. Much prefer CDM

What's got a handful of hazelnuts in every bite?

If I remember correctly in our AMEC course was that the BoT solution was to reduce to dead slow and increase the cylinder lubrication. It was also taught that this was guaranteed to make the problem worse as the luboil feeds the fire. Never saw one in life but then only sailed proper on three motor ships.

a chocolate covered Squirrel...... AND I cleaned up that answer from the original :big_tongue:

The sole of discretion and good taste, but I would expect nothing else.

Regular inspections of the scavenge manifold and if any sign of increased oil/sludge/carbon then send for the Engine Serang and his merry men. Bit of overtime and bobs your uncle.

My last ship had two 20K HP B&W diesels. Never had a scavenge fire but it fell to me to periodically check the bank of CO2 cylinders there to smother the fire if it ever happened.
Why?
Well we had a device using a radio-active isotope and geiger-counter which fitted around a cylinder and by sliding the probe up and down one could locate the level of liquid CO2. Everyone else on board was terrified of it in case they became sterilized or developed radiation sickness!

As expected from yourself the above is the correct answer, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness" when it relates to the Engineroom and the equipment.
A bit of O/T keeps the spirits up no matter how dirty the job.

I always said, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness", but not on my ship.

What a ball-ache that device was - I found (and got Lloyds to approve the use of) that the hand held IR thermometer could reliably detect the liquid gas interface by the change in temperature due to the differing SHC of CO2 gas and liquid - still use it on camping gas cylinders!! (Lidl have the guns in occasionally for about £18)

I was the Jun. Enginer on the 8/12 on the M.V. "Wanstead" (Doxford engine). I was looking at the engine water temps when a spark hit me on the arm, stung a bit. I told the 4th but he didn't belive me but I insisted. He told the 2nd and I got the 3rd degree from him again The bridge rang, it was the 3rd mate asking what we were doing as there was clouds of smoke coming out of the funnel. It was a fire in the generator exhaust. I also had a small burn on my arm. The 2nd said just let it burn out

I should have added that the spark came out of the engine room vent.

The Shell tanker SS Hemitochus had a good one in 77 after she left the Black Sea. Over 100 tubes burnt out which were repaired at sea. She lumped back on auxillary boiler. It was 12 noon as she passed GiB and blew the tubes and just about blacked outside the Gib Strait I've read since that same ship had a very similar fire alongside Singapore a few years previous. A few months later the good old rust bucket 'Trochus' as she was affectionately called crossed the bar in Kaochiung Taiwan after a Far East Hongkong, Bangkok, Singapore luboil run. RIP 'Trochus'

That sounds more like an hydrogen fire, Lucy K. Much rarer but usually much more damaging. Stonehaven had one (not my turn aboard. Early 70s). Next voyage (my turn) Nicoverken troop from Finland retubing main boiler while continued to trade on the auxiliary. Nice chap Fred Turnock C/E carried the can - the source of my "Punshment ship, Chief? Punishment ship! What the f.... do you think you're on now?"

That now jars. I think it ws the baby boiler. The problem that got Fred the can was because it was used normally as a steam-steam generator and it's absence from service caused a long delay in them getting the plant back on from the main boiler without it.

I am surprise no one else from her saw that and put me right.

My first trip to sea - Junior Engineer on the Australia Star [1] July 1955.


One Sunday afternoon, two days out from Aden where we had refuelled, we were chatting in my cabin when the hooter sounded. At first we took no notice because it wasn't Friday [boat drill day]. When we realised it was for real we hared off to the engine room to find the whole of the front side of the port engine ablaze, burning residual fuel oil that had ignited from an overheated scavenge trunking. It took nearly four hours to put the fire out and get things back to normal.

I spent the best part of those four hours in the corner of the engine room, recharging fire extinguishers.

Varley's reply was the standard practice: Engine revs to Dead Slow, increase the lubrication of affected cylinder to prevent seizure of the now overheated unit. When the fire has subsided (and patience must be exercised here, it could take a while) the engine can be stopped and the turning gear used right away to keep it turning (don't do that part in heavy or following seas). Open the affected scavenge space and remove any smoldering gunk, use a water spray to cool it but DO NOT use CO2 as it will crack the liner!

In my experience with Doxfords scavenge fires were initiated by the crud in the scavenge space drying out(insufficient cylinder oil) and excessive piston blow-past. 5+mm liner wear on the 750 bore engines and things could get exciting so it was definitely time to up the lubricators before the entablature paint started to change colour!

Like Engine Serang, I never experienced a scavenge, or any other fire, in my 22 years at sea. So, ES, you're not as odd as some people might think!

What seems like 100 years ago ( but was actually only just over 50!), we had been cobbling together the repair to a fractured 75LB6 Doxford crankshaft and we were preparing for the first engine trial. We had been stopped 3 or 4 weeks and had the same T47 Allan generator running with very little load.
Being a 2-stroke, it didn't like that very much and in protest pumped lub. oil into the exhaust manifold which lay there quite happily until the load leaped when we started the two big starting air compressors. At this point the exhaust bellows decided to fracture and a stream of oil came out which, by now, was on fire. This narrowly missed the Lloyds surveyor who was already a bit nervous but he was quite impressed when the 3/E very quickly produce a oil drum in one hand to catch and contain the oil and a fire extinguisher in the other. He did ask however if this was a regular occurrence as it seemed to be a well practiced response!
Many years later we had an anchor handler with four Wichmann 9AXAG 2-stroke engines that had been idling for hours and then went to full load. Same problem as above but a different result - the burning oil in the exhaust manifold on one engine turned the turbocharger into a gas turbine. It took quite a few minutes to blank off the air intakes to extinguish the fire.

It happened on the Barber Perseus too! Sulzer 9RND90 engine. After "slow steaming", the turbo coked up and, so, when they went to FSA one of the three BIG turbos blasted off! A mate on board at the time said he was mesmerized with the tacho going off the clock and bending the pointer until the 2/E screamed at him "to take cover" [edited for people of a sensitive disposition] in case a blade "excursion" occured! As you said, the solution was to remove floor plates an slide them, slowly, into the airtake and strangle the TC.

After that, we were advised to go to full ahead for short periods during slow steaming to "blast the crap" [technical terminology!].

Rgds.
Dave

Don't remember what happened to the T/C on the Wichmann but it couldn't have been very good for its health as the engine was out of service for quite a while. I do remember however that this engine was fated as later a balance weight came adrift and did a couple of circuits around the crankcase before it escaped into the engine room

I sailed on a container feeder vsl around the Gulf to India and Sri Lanka. Main engine was a clapped out Mitsubishi UE, liners all overworn, no spare rings or liners just the UBG as best we could find. First scavenge fires started crossing to India from Dubai. We probably had three and followed all the recommended procedures, slow engine, increased cyl lube, boundary cooling carefully allow to cool out, open up space carefully and clean gunk out etc. On the way from Colombo to Muscat we had 14 fires. Procedures changed fairly quickly and descended into to stop engine, identify unit with fire, open scavenge inspection port and shove fire hose in. Put fire out scrape rubbish out box and off again. A three hour stoppage changed to a half hour and get going and we never cracked a liner or damaged anything. Company never did give us any liners or rings whilst I was there and we did every unit at least once to try to keep her going.

I was 14 years at sea before going to rigs and sailed mostly with Sulzer and B&W engines on motor ships also never saw a scavenge fire although as had been said before I did read about it in text books.

I saw one galley chip pan fire on the Euroliner extinguished by the C/E using fire blanket and one switchboard fire on the Chemical Explorer causing a blackout this fire was put out by myself and the J/E using CO2 extinguishers. Never saw a fire on rigs in 26 years .