Losing sight of the target

[Rheged]

Oil fired = no stokers.

You still need a chief engineer in dirty overalls to supervise.  Overalls MUST be filthy....the theory in RN was that every time Chiefy put on clean kit, there was a mechanical catastrophe that meant he had to get oily again putting it right. 


We even have the submarine engines that wouldn't work on Sundays ,   or any other religious occasion according to  Lt-Cdr John Pratt (author John Winton)   Apologies for appalling infestation of Thread Drift Virus  as quoted below:-


The two experimental HTP submarines, HMS Explorer and HMS Excalibur, also suffered from considerable problems once they were commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1956 and 1958. Both submarines were designated primarily as anti-submarine targets, but they were rarely used due to the high cost of HTP. HMS Explorer only managed 22 hours of exercises during its first commission, while HMS Excalibur only achieved 100 hours. They were also unsurprisingly regarded as unsafe. In Explorer, the hydrogen peroxide was fed into a catalyst chamber where oxygen became disassociated from water with a great release of heat. The resulting steam and oxygen were then passed into a combustion chamber where sulphur-free fuel was injected which burnt and considerably raised the temperature. Water was then injected to cool the gas, producing yet more steam, which was then used to drive a turbine. The steam was subsequently condensed in a condenser where carbonic acid was removed and then injected back into the combustion chamber again while the carbonic acid was pumped into the sea. The whole process of starting and running the HTP machinery in Explorer was known as 'fizzing' and to the unwary bystander 'fizzing' in harbor was 'like a preview of doomsday.' The sight of exhaust gases, emerging at speed, towered above the submarine in great plumes of grey smoke, and was accompanied by a roar which shook windows a hundred yards away. When Explorer first 'fizzed' after joining the 3rd Submarine Squadron at Faslane, HMS Adamant's officer of the watch was so convinced that the submarine was about to explode that he called out the fire and emergency party and summoned the local fire brigade.

Explorer was eventually confined to a small timber jetty a few hundred yards from Adamant and awarded the nickname 'Exploder' and her sister Excalibur.... 'Excruciator'
   
At sea, however, HMS Explorer's performance was both impressive and complicated. The HTP propulsion machinery gave short periods of very high underwater speeds. The same weight of hydrogen peroxide provided 35 times the energy that could be stored in an electric battery. But the HTP system suffered from repeated breakdowns and was notoriously unreliable. Those in charge of operating and maintaining it resorted to unusual practices to carefully nurture the equipment. 'If I, as Engineer Officer, failed to do my usual rounds and do my daily obeisances, the turbines would not perform' remembered John Pratt (hereafter referred to under his pen name, John Winton), one of the specially trained and highly attuned engineers who served on board HMS Explorer. 'They would not, in any case, perform on Sundays or holy days; break-downs on those days happened too often to be coincidence. Once, after we had slogged for 36 hours into a raging Atlantic gale, neither turbine would start. Later, I checked and found it was Yom Kippur.' It sometimes took weeks for Explorer to accept a new operator and superstition was widespread. Some members of the ship's company were forbidden to move aft of the Control Room bulkhead while Explorer was 'fizzing' because of the so-called 'evil eye' effect. Despite the dangers inherent in operating both Excalibur and Explorer, their crews grew very fond of the two submarines. 'We did not look upon her as being dangerous. The crew took the bangs and fires as a matter of course,'

[zenrat]

John Winton.  I'd forgotten about him.  Excellent writer.  I'm not sure if I actually have some of his books or if I got them from the library.  I'll have to have a look on my shelves.

[Scotaidh]

John Winton.  I'd forgotten about him.  Excellent writer.  I'm not sure if I actually have some of his books or if I got them from the library.  I'll have to have a look on my shelves.

I love his books.   

Sorry for perpetuating the thread drift ... <insert penitent emoji here>