Steamship Documentary "Down In The Engine Room" 2017

[Music] [Music] hello and welcome to this behind-the-scenes look at Britain's largest working steamship this shield haul my name is Brian Girling and I'm one of the many volunteers who crew the ship and will be your guide on this trip onboard the vessel before we head down to the boiler room I'm going to give you a brief history of the ship she was launched in 1955 as one of the last steam reciprocating engine fitted ships and was built by the lab Ince and co of a REM few on the river clyde she was designed to carry sewage sludge from glasgow and dump it out at sea after 21 long years of service on the Clyde the short haul was then sold to the Southern Water Authority and used similarly to carry sludge from marcher at Mill Brook Hamilton in Southampton due to the rising cost of fuel the ship was withdrawn from service in 1985 pending its fate with the cutters torch this unique slice of British maritime history was almost lost however as a result of an initiative by the Sir Hampton city's Museum Services a Preservation Society was formed and shield Hall was purchased from southern water in 1988 for only 20,000 pounds today the ship is kept alive by volunteers running under the banner of the Solent Steam Packet limited and operates as a registered charity shield Hall is now a frequent sight on the Solent carrying passengers on excursions in the summer months here we are on the in the SSU tour in the boiler room about to start the process of raising steam from absolutely cold boilers we fit just about to fit an electric fan to the center furnace of each boiler and then once setup we just allow the fire the fire to just circulate and gradually get the boiler warm over a number so we're now going to with a system of Paul behind me here and I'm going to put the electric fan in the center furnace okay okay all set right folks through but the electric fan on purging the furnace of the boiler honest as a further explanation as to why we're burning diesel and using just the scent of homers because this is a chicken-and-egg syndrome' situation where unless we can get 50 pounds of steam in the boiler we can't run these reciprocating pots about villages a minimum is leave it plus we also need some scene for the boiler for the steam eaters so we will over a period of several hours today and tomorrow we getting 50 pounds per square inch olive oil and then we have the transition having enough students in the other one is you simply I'm listing pages and interesting the today is going to be that the first trip we're going to use diesel that may not require complete beating as we have done in in the past so we're going to hope that the box will pop the light afraid of fuel successful and the opposite end of the business end of the boilers are the two sets of gauge glasses and we're checking that we got sufficient water before we're before we light the fires so with all checks complete lots of water in the boiler and fuel available here we see Allen writing up the center furnace which is being supplied with air from the electric fan that we just see set up like you too much smoke for those not familiar with the ancillary machinery on the chute or here we are on the outboard side of the port engine stood next to the main circulating and co2 pump which provides large volumes of seawater through the condenser which is just behind us here the condenser and the vacuum pump air pump as we call it are linked together as a unit pump is creating a vacuum and the vacuums needed to draw out the last of the steam in the third stage of the triple-expansion steam engine those one of these pumps per engine and one condenser engine with respect to the sea water pump the sea water pump provides the cooling water it's a both engines so we have a spare sea water pump we can put on if any reason this one fails here at the ship's side this is the sea water in there you see what's a strainer and the suction pipe leading into the sea water the discharge on the other side of that here we have the two boiler feed pumps only one of these three pumps is required to be used in service to run the plant I find the pumps this is the hop well which is a reserve of feed water that the pumps can either draw from or they can draw from the reserve feed tank back into the engine room here is the ship's pump which was a vital part of the machinery used in the ship's former life when it was discharging sludge is used now to adjust that ballast tanks should then should believe your eyes here we have the chips general service which also has the engine room fire pump we have another pump for a bit of the ship and this is the discharge from the general service pop to the chips for everything draws seawater through the ship's hull through the suction valve through the ceiling for strainer into the suction side here on the starboard side of the instrument was the starboard air pump vacuum pump and just in front of me here the other condenser starboard condenser and the slobbered sea water pool okay having been round the engine room and look at the axillary pumps here we are between the two main engines this is a nerve center this is where we do all the driving and here you can see the two Telegraph's which we will answer according to the direction that the bridge are asking us to asking us to get to go so we'll just explain how the engine power the engine is driven as I said the bridge will give us a movement either head or a stir and this leader here is the reversing lever through the reversing engine and this will set the motion to go in the direction in which the bridge have requested so this is a neutral position you move it to a head there and then if the the Telegraph is rung ahead then we will be having set ahead we will then open up the steam accordingly looking at the HP casing pressure gauge here and basically we were set or am it steaming to the engine about twelve and a half pounds of square inch with dead slow 25 for half slow ahead 54 half ahead and 75 for full ahead and the movement on this throttle lever is is quite subtle there's not was not very much you have to move in order to be able to increase the amount of steam going to the engine if the Telegraph's are they move back to slop the first action to bring the engine control to stop and then just shut off the steam and wait for the second order basically as sistene goes through the engine we may have a pressure of 50 or 75 on the HP casing if it will reduce down as the energy is used in to the intermediate so cylinder and because of the action of the vacuum pump the steam in the LP casing is working usually a pretty much a vacuum approaching them a small small vacuum when we're doing maintenance in the in the winter layup season sometimes it's necessary to turn the engine very slowly and for that we have a turning gear which is driven by an electric motor that turning here then engages saw a gear wheel onto the crankshaft and we were able then to turn the engine very very slowly at this moment in time when the vessels in service it's jacked well clear of the of the crankshaft but it's something that we have to check prior to any engine movement to make sure that it is disengaged and there's no calamities okay here we are on the on the top platform of the engine and here for this was demonstrating to you the size of the cylinders my question cylinder is 15 inches and you can see intermedia is increasing in size to 55 inches and the LP cylinder increases in size to 40 so the C is passing from one cylinder to another as it does so the cylinder gets bigger to utilize the pressure that is reduced as an artist through the engine and here we are at the back page of the after end of the poor engine I'm now looking at the thrust block is a small thrust block here which takes the thrust of of the engine and then there's one shaft bearing here with the shaft going out through the bulkhead and the stern tube to the propeller here we are in the surrogate compartment of the SS util and this is what's known as a quadrant steering here here this thing is the pocket itself to the buyer to steam to steam engines which drive ultimately they here which engages in the gear drop the gear teeth here which then turns the ship's rudder which is vertically underneath this heat shaft next to next to here is the emergency steering gear mechanism this shaft requires releasing and dropping down so that engages into gear little here and on the other end of the shaft on the open deck above is they shift steering wheel which is then used to steer the ship emergence them with an emergency mechanism there is a means of disengaging they drive on the steam engines mice lacking in some bolts off actually on the base of the steering is thus disabling that drive to be to be gauche it takes about 15 minutes or so 10 to 15 minutes to mix a drill at this practice that we're hitting the same sailing season so I have to do the event of a steering failure of these steam engines before we sign on and this will probably feature later on in the in the video part of the pre-sale check this part of the steering gear is tested luckily the brake is released here and accompanying the moment the brake is engaged to stop this turning while the ship is in the harbor and we will engage the local steering we were we were through a port and starboard movement several times into an entirely happy that the exterior is working to our satisfaction in the engineering world and that will cool the bridge on the telephone and change the pin and make pasta suited to the rich so that they can and then we will witness and confirm that whether the two extremes of poverty that in actual fact the steering gear is doing the same thing once we are entirely satisfied with the student year is functioning correctly it is left in the remote position for a bridge to steer the list for a simple explanation of movement of the ship's wheel which is a hydraulic system that hydraulic system is passed down to the telly Munter receiver on the steering gear and that hydraulic signal is then through this shaft puts stroke on the two steam engines and then through this Drive will actually turn turn the coffee so the steam engine Stoke that should work until the hydraulic signal is applied by the bridge down through to the tekmoto wants the stroke house in the desired position is we put on then the steering wheel we're making at that until it's countered by on the bridge standing yesterday see what very gently about 50 pounds 13:31 bring the water stay tuned here we see the electric fan on the center furnace with the fire nicely established okay for those of you are wondering what a burner and those who looks like for these boilers I'm going to remove this one out of the start Mikoyan this hand will here acts as a bell but also locks thee garner in price somebody's here there's the burner tip and this is a size 12 burner which we use while we burning diesel and then we go into a larger capacity through book one size 14 for when we're on the heavier grades of fuel oil this leader here operates evolve laughs ow also prevents access to the hand wheel for the burner to be removed at this moment in time this furnace is got obviously be sit on the foredeck of the shield tool here which was sunni versus pair anchor for the for the ship one wonders how we would move that to get it on the end of the anchor chain we had to but there it is we're looking out here now is the stone gate spindle leading down into the tank we're just going to go in a short while this is the hand wheel for the dump valve which was operated by a couple of the crew members when the ship was discharging and dumping its cargo out through the bottom of the hole so it would be a two-handed job to open this valve allowed the target of two discharge through the local issue and here we are this is the manhole hatch which is used to descend down into the tank and here we are I mean just descending the ladder down from the main deck and we're now in the port side storage tank cargo tank that used to were carrying the useful the carrier the port the swatch you can see this is just the port side the starboard side using darkness at the moment police uses an engineering store but here and this side we utilized as a carpenter's workshop for the depth guides and seating around is very nice Carpenters workshop but this was the cargo storage tank on the port side there are holes through to the starboard side but it was basically one time and just gives you an idea of the volume worth of cognitive issue this ship used to use to carry this is for those of you who visit the ship unfortunately this is a non-public area but aren't you the short circuit this give you are near the storage capacity that the ship the ship had at the upper end of the vowel that we've just seen on the main deck this is the extended spindle coming down so that can be remotely operated or would have been remotely operated where the ship is in its former mindful of storing and darkness lunch this is about would have been opened to an amount of sludge to go out to the bottom of the ship we stood in this area the ship behind me is a small money drill and a milling machine and this forwarding of the Carpenters workshop belongs to the engineering department for for us to do machine you know as it were quite interesting lee in this corner here is the typical section of the ship that shows the construction the riveted place and indeed the rivets holding the place to the front this is a particular interest to some of the marine engineering trainees on the engineering side there I remember from my studies years ago had to draw a section of a ship through showing the plating the the the frames and the transverse structure in and around for joining for the deck to the hull plating so you can clearly see the rivets the mine of roots on the plating of down the front well of course this is a part of history because now ships are very firmly riveted well then should I say so it just gives an idea of the size of the rivets I mean deep but thickly softly on the 20 known the over that you get between the players whether pressure we go to school the other tip on priorities unless the poor boy though so please 70% [Music] so the simple round detects the size of the boiler country the boat so the curl garments we go we are running the nice and steady that's worth burning diesel today we got these losers steam to the heaters isolated what they feel is still passing through so we're just trying to clear the lines out a little bit bit smokey yeah so we first started today it's clearing now that the diesel is watching the heavy oil through the Oh there we are the on top of the courts boiler looking at the two safety rails and orders here's the - no file generally stop bounce mm and the steam generator but this one enjoy my colleagues are actually coupling the Oilers together and they've just opened up the Maggie's stop on the other boiler so it's equal pressure and the steam system now circular we've got this will be checking overboard to make sure that we've got a good flow of water through the condenser starboard vacuum pump these company at Sacramento join it's just me through then we sing Tony opening up the steam to the general service pump and getting it ready to run so we have here this is a pointing system oil and we have [Music] oh wait attach the wire the Wix app Co it up devar into the home then the wick Hortensio it up drips down the points on to the engine and that's our main NGO new bike welcome and here we are in the steering gear with Willie and Andy are warming through the two steam engines in readiness to test the steering gear in manual from hard a-port to harvest our bird to the satisfaction of the engineering department [Music] [Music] here we see Andy removing the pin from the local population position and putting it into the other end of the telomere enabling the bridge to take full control of the steering gear remotely with the pen now secure in the tele motor we can now contact the bridge and get them to test it red chest here again can you check seven beautiful space they cheated my yeah [Music] continuing on with the presetting checks having now seen the steering gear tested who you are testing the Telegraph's between the bridge and the engine room [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] with all checks now have you been completed we're now on the move from 1:10 berth down to 48 berth to pick up our passengers and here we see Peter J driving the starboard engine [Music] on the port engine Willie is doing the driving with me Brian recording the telegraph orders from the bridge and the time that they were giving [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Telegraph has just run half a head and here we see Willie looking at the pressure gauge and adjusting the throttle to admit 50 pounds per square inch into the cylinders okay so here we are in the engine room we left the berth about 20 minutes ago both engines are running on half a head and we're on our way from 110 burr down to pick up passengers up at number 48 berth and here we are safely on onside number 48 birth and are ready to embark our own passengers meanwhile next door to us is birth the Magnificent Queen Mary - who shortly to sail to New York [Music] here we see Rosia senior purser checking in our own passengers for the trip down to cows [Music] we have to wait for a short while while the Queen Mary 2 moves off her berth before we ourselves in sail as is customary the shield Hall and the Queen Mary to exchange greetings with blasts of the ships whistles [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] here we are on the bridge of the shield hall with the Queen Mary - now having departed it's our turn to leave the birth and commits trip down Santa morta and on the bridge we have Captain Peter and Captain on the table and recording the [Music] start with a dream coming to stir [Music] I'll start with please okay Desktop legend come to spell hard a-starboard [Music] here on the bridge now using the engines and the mooring ropes to ease off the jetty before finally releasing the ropes and maneuvering out into the mainstream [Music] VPS this is your Cinderella Cinderella leave ocean village and hearing over to watch the fireworks mooring up there now we've safely maneuvered away from the birth ropes have been released and engines going astern and the ship be maneuvered in an arc into the main channel so we're heading brows down Southampton water captain Peter sickening three blasts on the ship's whistle indicating two on the traffic cheerful going a stone for those in the porch swing just see you see the red they totally look because this morning I thought let's challenge oh yeah here we are well underway heading down Santa morta towards cows and the passengers all enjoying a new forest ice cream Queen Mary - navigating around the brothel bank heading out of the Soudan towards Portsmouth pilot the Solent scene here's the Red Funnel Ferry and overtaking it the red jet we are now anchored just off cows and here are the red arrows starting their flying display time now 2130 and at the request of the Harbormaster she'll call sounds her whistle to commence the start of the firework display [Music] okay well here we are it's hot past ten we've seen the fireworks we've seen the red arrows we've had a successful day still got the last of the visitors in the engine room just having a warm is gone a bit cooler now it's been a very successful day cows for I won't display well here we are in just a workshop area of the of the engine room it's quite amazing to reflect back now that the ship was built in 1955 was fitted with triple-expansion steam engine so had to service for many years prior to that date and here we are in 2017 this is a living working example of the type of propulsion that was common in ships in the 1920s and 30s indeed the Titanic had to triple-expansion steam engines even had an experimental steam turbine in her day soon termites have not been proven so it's quite remarkable that in 1955 the original owners of the show call decided to fix our very proven and tried and tested type of engine the triple-expansion angels and here we are today in 2017 and you can still see them working and working well and working hard we're doing 80 reps at the moment the revelations with each engine and then ourselves back to get ourselves back to harbor anyway I hope that you've enjoyed this video presentation of how we test it and run it successfully on one of the highlights of the trips of the year which is the cows counselling firework festival we've seen the red arrows today we've had good weather and it's been a successful a successful pointing from a 505 in shortly posing thank you for watching [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: 04clemea

Views: 453,771

Rating: 4.8697591 out of 5

Keywords: ss Shielhall, Southampton, Steamship, largest working, National Historic Fleet, Britain's maritime heritage, documentary, Down In The Engine Room, Engine Room, behind the scenes, Lobnitz & Co, Renfrew, River Clyde, Shieldhall, last reciprocating steamships, Triple-Expansion Engine, 800HP, Twin Screw, reciprocating steam, biggest ship, PS Waverley, Steam power, Crank, Boiler, steam boiler, flywheel, steam, pistion, ss great britian, Red Arrows, Cowes, Firework, whistle, QM2, Queen Mary 2

Id: wBEOSAI2je8

Length: 49min 34sec (2974 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 19 2017

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SS Shieldhall launched on 7th July 1955 http://www.ss-shieldhall.co.uk/technical-information