Had the opportunity this past Monday to work on the American Mariner freighter. What an amazing hulk of a ship. She is stored at dock in Toledo, OH for the winter. All pumped dry and emptied out the ship sits so high out of the water that precisely 1/2 of the prop sticks out of the water. The rudder is so long and wide it boggles the mind when compared to our tiny rudders. Everything on the ship is commercial/industrial size. Its all welded plate with lots of nondescript linoleum.
There is 1 shore cord that looks about 3" diameter. There is no water as everything is winterized.
Only 1 man is employed as "ship keeper" to keep ship during layup. He has to put plastic bags in toilet to do #2 and throw them in dumpster next to boat. I found that amusing. I didn't ask how he showers. The bridge, or pilot house as they call it, has arcade style/size instruments. You step up onto platforms and hang onto handles on either side of the screen to view the information. Electronics are made by Sperry Marine (Northrop Grumman). Bow and stern thrusters are controlled on each side of pilot house and at the center front window. The actual wheel is a little yoke in the center of the pilot house on an elevated platform. The most entertaining object was the recliner on a raised wooden platform with a wooden coffee tray bolted to the side. I can only assume the captain takes his place in the recliner once underway and enjoys the ride. Along with the specs on the website the ship has twin 48,500 gallon fuel tanks. They have all the ship specs on the back wall in the pilot house. I had to read the thing a few times to be sure about the capacity. Imagine footing the bill for that fill up? That's allot of Speedy Rewards.
Also have the crank style intercoms. Turn the dial to the corresponding room# and wind the crank several times to place a call.

Our task was to replace the satellite unit so the crew can watch their TV. Apparently the ship will NOT leave the dock if the satellite does not work. If the radar is down or anything else they will still leave but if no satellite, no leave dock. The right to sat TV is stipulated in the union contract. You can see the little sat dome on a couple of the pics up top of the pilot house.
I counted 12 omni antennas and 8 sat mushrooms on the roof. They don't do a very good job of removing old, non-functional antennas. I was quite amazed at how "rigged" some of the stuff was. For example, they ran extension cords and power strips outside on the roof to wrap heat tape on the horns. Needless to say the extension cords and strips are exposed and damaged by weather and just hanging by zip ties.
It was still an interesting experience and would love to take a ride on one of these behemoths.

http://www.boatnerd.com/...eet/americanmariner.htm

-Karl

Well, according to the website..."Driving 2 controllable pitch propellers are twin 3600 horsepower V-20 GM diesel engines giving her a rated service speed of 13 knots". Only problem is I only saw 1 prop behind the rudder.
Though we boarded through the engine room door I didn't have time to get down into the guts of the ship.
The boat is supposed to resume service sometime next month. If I get back before she leaves I'll try to get some more info.

The prop looked like that from the Hunt for Red October but not as many blades. I'm curious as to how the pitch is controlled.

-Karl

30 years ago I spent 2 or 3 years on the M/V Buffalo. The Buffalo was the predecessor to the Mariner. The only difference was the Mariner had both forward and aft looking wheels (steering wheels). After spending the previous 7 years on "normal" lakers I was totally amazed at how she could navigate the Cleveland Creek. With both bow and stern thrusters we NEVER needed to call a tug and were able to back out of Cleveland...I think it was Republic Steel.

One winter ice was so bad that the USCG breakers were stuck. Capt. Eddie Storer pumped all the water out of the forward tanks and brought her flat bottom 5' out of the water. Then he just ran her up on the ice and the 730' of ship did a better job than the USCG could do and we broke a couple of breakers loose in Lake Erie.

Another time when we needed to replace a prop blade the procedure was reversed and a barge was pulled in and moored below the prop and off with the bad one and on with the good. No dry dock OR comercial divers needed.

Not very pretty as a laker goes but very practical

Engines were EMD's...16 cylinders each. They were changing power paks at about every other port.
Noisey as hell...took a while to get used to sleeping with them running.

we had twin EMD's on the uscgc bitter sweet aswell Fastjeff tey are music to mine tooooo when ran up from idle duna,duna,dunnna

Worked on the Calumet 3 couple weeks ago.
http://www.boatnerd.com/...ures/fleet/calumet3.htm

We waited for her to tie up at the Marblehead dock aka Marblehell, as its the worst dock to traverse with a bag of tools and equipment.

Had to check out a imaging problem with the DECCA radar. Climbing to the top of the spar was a trick.

Also had to run some leaky coax in the engineroom and the hold to pipe VHF down there for the crew.

Twin 16 cylinder ALCO'S. The engineroom looked like something from Das Boot complete with the engineer smoking a cigarette. Under the entire steel grating floor was all oil mixed with water. Most of the lower deck looked like several projects there were partially completed and left for another day. I got the feeling there were not enough crew to really keep up with everything. Probably cost cutting measures by corporate.

The bridge was interesting and just like the American Mariner this one had a recliner too. I guess its a captain thing.

-Karl