Roger Pellett

My “Nobody” was an exaggeration.  Of course there are steam ships still operating today.  There’s about half a dozen still sailing here on the lakes although one fleet (Interlake) has been converting their’s to diesel.  And was earlier pointed out to me, there are special situations such as LNG vessels where Steam make sense by utilizing otherwise vented natural gas.  If I remember correctly, the ships in the MSC reserve fleet include high speed steamships “inherited” from US Container operators who found them to be uneconomical.
 
The bunker C comment is that of Marine Engineering experts at the University of Michigan.  It’s cheaper because it’s a residual fuel left over from the refining process. As such, it has a lot of undesirable pollutants, notably sulfur.
 
A factor not discussed is engine room manning.  World War II Navy ships had large crews, and I would assume that this would include those in the engine rooms and fire rooms.  25 years ago, there was a move by two Great Lakes Steamship operators, the ex US Steel Great Lakes Fleet and Interlake to automate the 1950’s vintage steam plants in their ships.  I had some very minor involvement in this effort.  I met one of Interlake’s vessels when it arrived at Two Harbors, MN to load ore in order to figure out the piping changes that would be required.  I believe that one ex US Steel Ship, The Calaway? was converted.  Interlake, chose instead to convert to diesel.  Great Lakes vessels have one fire room and one engine room.  United States has several of each.  Her operators would, therefore, be faced with either a huge automation project or sailing with a large engine room/ fire room crew.
 
With the exception of special situation vessels, the question is would anyone invest a huge amount of money to build a new steamship or revive a 1950’s era one sailing under US Flag rules to compete with foreign flagged passenger vessels.  I don’t think so.
 
Roger

My “Nobody” was an exaggeration.  Of course there are steam ships still operating today.  There’s about half a dozen still sailing here on the lakes although one fleet (Interlake) has been converting their’s to diesel.  And was earlier pointed out to me, there are special situations such as LNG vessels where Steam make sense by utilizing otherwise vented natural gas.  If I remember correctly, the ships in the MSC reserve fleet include high speed steamships “inherited” from US Container operators who found them to be uneconomical.
 
The bunker C comment is that of Marine Engineering experts at the University of Michigan.  It’s cheaper because it’s a residual fuel left over from the refining process. As such, it has a lot of undesirable pollutants, notably sulfur.
 
A factor not discussed is engine room manning.  World War II Navy ships had large crews, and I would assume that this would include those in the engine rooms and fire rooms.  25 years ago, there was a move by two Great Lakes Steamship operators, the ex US Steel Great Lakes Fleet and Interlake to automate the 1950’s vintage steam plants in their ships.  I had some very minor involvement in this effort.  I met one of Interlake’s vessels when it arrived at Two Harbors, MN to load ore in order to figure out the piping changes that would be required.  I believe that one ex US Steel Ship, The Calaway? was converted.  Interlake, chose instead to convert to diesel.  Great Lakes vessels have one fire room and one engine room.  United States has several of each.  Her operators would, therefore, be faced with either a huge automation project or sailing with a large engine room/ fire room crew.
 
With the exception of special situation vessels, the question is would anyone invest a huge amount of money to build a new steamship or revive a 1950’s era one sailing under US Flag rules to compete with foreign flagged passenger vessels.  I don’t think so.
 
Roger

Bill, thank you for your service!
 
I’m always a little embarassed when people say that to me.  Compared to people of my age slogging through jungles, or serving at sea, my service was more like a (good) Govt. job.
 
aaRoger 

With the port side also ready, the standards are made to height. A simple way to measure, is to use a wooden plank as a template.

 
A mold for the semi-circular gun ports. This is slightly conical, so up to the arrow and no further, otherwise the hole is too big.

Ready.

This is how far we have come, next is the last piece of planking on the bow.

Thanks for following

The futtock staves were made from 3” served rope and are located as far below the trestle trees as the top of the mast is above the trestle trees, approximately seven feet.  For ease of installation, I used served 24 gauge wire, rather than rope.  They were lashed to the shrouds.  The picture on the left shows the lashing in white for clarity and the finished product on the right.
 
And now it is time for the dreaded ratlines.  There are some lines on a ship that are a do not change with the size of the ship, such as the footropes and ratlines, both of which must hold a seaman’s weight.  The ratlines are made of tarred 1.5” rope.  At this scale, I simply tied, rather than lashed, them to the outer shrouds.  They are secured to the inner shrouds with clove hitch knots, a drawing of which is below.  This picture is also from The Boy’s Manual.

Ratlines are spaced 12-15” apart and are parallel to the waterline.  The easiest way to keep them even is to make a line jig.  There is a tendency to pull the shrouds inward as the ratlines are added.  I like to secure a brass rod or stick to the outer shrouds to keep them straight.  This is my setup.  The clips are holding the line jig in place.  The ratlines are parallel to the waterline, not to the deck. After several hours, 220 knots and fifteen scale feet of rope, the ratlines were finished. 
 
Catharpins are ropes with an eye at each end which extend across and are seized to the shrouds at the level of the futtock staves.  According to Steel, sloops were not equipped with catharpins but I included them in the kit to illustrate their construction.  I made them from 22 gauge wire with a loop on each end.  As there is no tension on them, I did not solder the loops closed.  The catharpins are served and the ends are painted black to simulate the eye splice.    The first catharpin is located just aft of the mast and the other two are spaced out evenly along the futtock stave.

This completed the standing rigging of the lower mast.  As mentioned earlier, because this is a cross section model, lines that would not terminate on the model, such as the stays and backstays, were omitted.

Exactly, my USNavy experience was 4 years as a junior officer working as a Naval Reactors Engineer.  Yes, the famous or infamous “NR.”  All experience was with submarine reactor plants:  S1W, S2W, S3/4W and after Bettis Reactor Engineering School, S5W.  I also spent time at the D1G prototype so am familiar with that plant too.  I was disappointed when cost considerations required abandonment of nuclear surface ships other than the large carriers.   I know little about Savannah’s plant except that it was a pressurized water reactor.
 
There has been a significant development that could change the economics of nuclear ship propulsion;  the “life of the ship” core.   As you know refuelings were costly, complicated, and lengthy and were originally required every couple of years.  The navy now uses technology to produce reactor cores that do not have to be refueled during the vessel’s expected lifetime.
 
While this might cause the navy to eventually take a look at other combatants,  the business model for merchant shipping is a race to the bottom when it comes to cost.  This would preclude hiring the highly educated and trained crews that have and still do man the US Navy’s nuclear powered ships.
 
Roger

I receive a quarterly magazine from the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Department at the University of Michigan. As might be expected published by a university it is heavily slanted towards current issues and  research.
 
Advances in Naval Architecture are often incremental.  Marine Engineering on the other had as undergone a series of distinct changes:
Introduction of Steam Propulsion
Compound Steam Engines
Steam Turbines
Diesel Engines
Unmanned engine rooms/ direct bridge control
Gas Turbines (Naval Vessels)
Nuclear Power (Submarines)
 
Each of these technologies did not emerge fully developed.  For example, the first steam turbines were connected directly to the ships propellers.  A machine that operates best at high speed was attempting to drive one intended to run at low speed.  It took 15-20 years to adopt the geared cross compounded system used by the US Navy during World War II.  The machinery in United States is the end point of this mature steam turbine technology.
 
When I went to school, Marine Engineering involved designing a unique steam plant to fit within the confines of a hull designed by the Naval Architects.  The switch to diesel engines for propulsion of much of the world’s merchant vessel tonnage and gas turbines for naval vessels changed all this.  The Naval Architects sometimes joked that marine engineering had become a “catalog punching job.”
 
Marine Engineering I now back in the news with a lot of questions to be answered.  Among these are:
 How to eliminate residual oil fuels
How to best utilize hydrogen as a fuel
Electric propulsion and hybrid electric propulsion
Even Nuclear merchant ship propulsion and sail assist
 
These ideas are obviously not all applicable to large ships traveling long distances and some are maybe just Pie in the Sky, but the point is that United States’ machinery is seriously out of date and pollution from shipboard commerce is now considered to be a major environmental problem.  Even if her owners could strike a deal with KFC to burn their used frying oil in their boilers, major changes to her machinery would be required with the possibility of completely new power plant.  This alone would probably preclude her return to service.
 
Roger
 

Well, in a very broad sense, she has always been effectively USS.  She was conceived by Gibbs in the 1920’s but it took another 25 years or so to get her built.  This required a huge amount of congressional lobbying and justification as a high speed troop transport in time of war.  This allowed her to receive large US Government construction and operating subsidies.  Each year while operating, her owners (United States Lines) prepared a cost analysis separating operating costs associated with her troop ship features.  Most of these involved her propulsion plant.  These were paid by the government.
 
Roger

Me too 😂

I was thinking the  same  but  did not want to  comment.
 
OC.

You were there in 1918?   I'm hoping that's a typo as never thought you were that old.  LOL
 
As far as Catch 22 fors, here the Wikipedia logic....  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22_(logic)  As I recall, it existed in Vietnam and continues even today.

My son found this in a shed at a work site and was told he could have it.  I spent some time sanding with emery cloth to get all the rust out.  I used a small wire brush in my Dremel to get into the deeper pitting. Then it was onto some Gun Bluing and oil.  The handle was done with sand paper and WOP.  I think it turned out ok.

Roger,
 
My naval experience was 24 years as a Hospital Corpsman, 20 of those years were in submarines. I retired as a Senior Chief Petty Officer who turned down a promotion to Master Chief in order to retire. Thank you for your service.
 
Bill

The broad strakes were fairly straightforward to cut and fit, though they were offered up multiple times each to permit making tight fits to the previous plank.
.

Once the planking sequence had moved beyond the curve of the forefoot, the landing for the keel was planed flat athwartships and a suitable thickness of stock was offered up to be scribed to the needed shape.  Here it is clamped in place to lay out the location for a stepped scarf to be cut for connection to the stem.

The next photo is actually posted upside down but it permits viewing the structure in the aft end of the hull (as well as a lot of drip-and-squeeze-out to be cleaned up).  The small "box" under the deck aft holds the rudder servo. I had meant to simply build the box into the stern prior to fitting the final piece of blocking and then remove the servo to keep it out of harm's way. However, I made it too tight of a fit and the servo remains in place.

The planking continued to be fitted working toward the stern's "knuckle" and the keel was tapered and glued in place. The design of the hull incorporating the"knuckle" was a suggestion of Bill Garden's for allowing some width to the deck level aft while letting the run easily release the water's flow without dragging a transom.  The "knuckle" blends into the rounded bilge as it goes forward by about station #6.

And as the plank strakes "turned the corner", this became clearer after the first topside plank went into place.

By April 25th, the rest of the planks to the level of the deck edge were in place and the stem had been bonded in place. Final fairing of the upper edge of the stern "block" awaits the turn-over of the hull as will the bulwark planking.
 

Exactly, my USNavy experience was 4 years as a junior officer working as a Naval Reactors Engineer.  Yes, the famous or infamous “NR.”  All experience was with submarine reactor plants:  S1W, S2W, S3/4W and after Bettis Reactor Engineering School, S5W.  I also spent time at the D1G prototype so am familiar with that plant too.  I was disappointed when cost considerations required abandonment of nuclear surface ships other than the large carriers.   I know little about Savannah’s plant except that it was a pressurized water reactor.
 
There has been a significant development that could change the economics of nuclear ship propulsion;  the “life of the ship” core.   As you know refuelings were costly, complicated, and lengthy and were originally required every couple of years.  The navy now uses technology to produce reactor cores that do not have to be refueled during the vessel’s expected lifetime.
 
While this might cause the navy to eventually take a look at other combatants,  the business model for merchant shipping is a race to the bottom when it comes to cost.  This would preclude hiring the highly educated and trained crews that have and still do man the US Navy’s nuclear powered ships.
 
Roger

Exactly, my USNavy experience was 4 years as a junior officer working as a Naval Reactors Engineer.  Yes, the famous or infamous “NR.”  All experience was with submarine reactor plants:  S1W, S2W, S3/4W and after Bettis Reactor Engineering School, S5W.  I also spent time at the D1G prototype so am familiar with that plant too.  I was disappointed when cost considerations required abandonment of nuclear surface ships other than the large carriers.   I know little about Savannah’s plant except that it was a pressurized water reactor.
 
There has been a significant development that could change the economics of nuclear ship propulsion;  the “life of the ship” core.   As you know refuelings were costly, complicated, and lengthy and were originally required every couple of years.  The navy now uses technology to produce reactor cores that do not have to be refueled during the vessel’s expected lifetime.
 
While this might cause the navy to eventually take a look at other combatants,  the business model for merchant shipping is a race to the bottom when it comes to cost.  This would preclude hiring the highly educated and trained crews that have and still do man the US Navy’s nuclear powered ships.
 
Roger

I have a Sherline Lathe with a milling column.  It is a well made machine. I am glad that I bought it.  The milling column fitted with Sherline’s sensitive drilling attachment is by far the best way to drill small holes with wire sized drills.  Sherline seems to have learned from the old Lionel electric train company as they also sell an endless variety of accessories.
 
Sherline lathes have one feature that I don’t like.  The usual way to turn a taper is by offsetting the tail stock, and then turning the part between centers.  The Sherline tail stock cannot be offset.  Sherline overcomes this problem by advising users to rotate the headstock.  In normal usage, the headstock is rigidly keyed to to the lathe’s bed with a spline.  With the headstock rotated, the spline must be removed and the headstock/bed joint relies on friction alone.  I have found that this is not sufficient to accept the side forces from taper turning. Sherline does offer an accessory cross slide that will supposedly turn tapers.
 
Roger

Greetings Kirill. Thank you very much for your response, you hit the spot where I was wondering about mast height. I calculated the masts according to the table in the book "Mondfeld - Historic Ship Models" and the dimensions fit the plan.

However, the lower parts (main mast, fore mast, mizen mast) still seemed short to me. I compared the masts with the masts according to the Zeehaen plan and they turned out to be about 10 percent longer. So the masts are raised.

The Main yard and Fore yard locations will now sit as well..🔥

Exactly, my USNavy experience was 4 years as a junior officer working as a Naval Reactors Engineer.  Yes, the famous or infamous “NR.”  All experience was with submarine reactor plants:  S1W, S2W, S3/4W and after Bettis Reactor Engineering School, S5W.  I also spent time at the D1G prototype so am familiar with that plant too.  I was disappointed when cost considerations required abandonment of nuclear surface ships other than the large carriers.   I know little about Savannah’s plant except that it was a pressurized water reactor.
 
There has been a significant development that could change the economics of nuclear ship propulsion;  the “life of the ship” core.   As you know refuelings were costly, complicated, and lengthy and were originally required every couple of years.  The navy now uses technology to produce reactor cores that do not have to be refueled during the vessel’s expected lifetime.
 
While this might cause the navy to eventually take a look at other combatants,  the business model for merchant shipping is a race to the bottom when it comes to cost.  This would preclude hiring the highly educated and trained crews that have and still do man the US Navy’s nuclear powered ships.
 
Roger

The NMM branch in Falmouth is nice to visit.  I was there in 1918 and was interested to see the Titanic Lifeboat replica recently built in their shop.
 
Your B25 model reminds me of the book Catch 22.  The guys in the book were flying B25’s from a base in Italy and the Catch22 referred to some crazy ( I don’t remember the details) rule #22 that ensured that they could never fly the required missions to go home.  
 
My son recently inherited a scrapbook from someone in his wife’s family who flew in a B25 squadron based in Italy.  It is remarkable as it includes bomb aerial photos and maps for each mission flown.  He really needs to find someone knowledgeable to evaluate it.
 
Roger

I receive a quarterly magazine from the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Department at the University of Michigan. As might be expected published by a university it is heavily slanted towards current issues and  research.
 
Advances in Naval Architecture are often incremental.  Marine Engineering on the other had as undergone a series of distinct changes:
Introduction of Steam Propulsion
Compound Steam Engines
Steam Turbines
Diesel Engines
Unmanned engine rooms/ direct bridge control
Gas Turbines (Naval Vessels)
Nuclear Power (Submarines)
 
Each of these technologies did not emerge fully developed.  For example, the first steam turbines were connected directly to the ships propellers.  A machine that operates best at high speed was attempting to drive one intended to run at low speed.  It took 15-20 years to adopt the geared cross compounded system used by the US Navy during World War II.  The machinery in United States is the end point of this mature steam turbine technology.
 
When I went to school, Marine Engineering involved designing a unique steam plant to fit within the confines of a hull designed by the Naval Architects.  The switch to diesel engines for propulsion of much of the world’s merchant vessel tonnage and gas turbines for naval vessels changed all this.  The Naval Architects sometimes joked that marine engineering had become a “catalog punching job.”
 
Marine Engineering I now back in the news with a lot of questions to be answered.  Among these are:
 How to eliminate residual oil fuels
How to best utilize hydrogen as a fuel
Electric propulsion and hybrid electric propulsion
Even Nuclear merchant ship propulsion and sail assist
 
These ideas are obviously not all applicable to large ships traveling long distances and some are maybe just Pie in the Sky, but the point is that United States’ machinery is seriously out of date and pollution from shipboard commerce is now considered to be a major environmental problem.  Even if her owners could strike a deal with KFC to burn their used frying oil in their boilers, major changes to her machinery would be required with the possibility of completely new power plant.  This alone would probably preclude her return to service.
 
Roger
 

I receive a quarterly magazine from the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Department at the University of Michigan. As might be expected published by a university it is heavily slanted towards current issues and  research.
 
Advances in Naval Architecture are often incremental.  Marine Engineering on the other had as undergone a series of distinct changes:
Introduction of Steam Propulsion
Compound Steam Engines
Steam Turbines
Diesel Engines
Unmanned engine rooms/ direct bridge control
Gas Turbines (Naval Vessels)
Nuclear Power (Submarines)
 
Each of these technologies did not emerge fully developed.  For example, the first steam turbines were connected directly to the ships propellers.  A machine that operates best at high speed was attempting to drive one intended to run at low speed.  It took 15-20 years to adopt the geared cross compounded system used by the US Navy during World War II.  The machinery in United States is the end point of this mature steam turbine technology.
 
When I went to school, Marine Engineering involved designing a unique steam plant to fit within the confines of a hull designed by the Naval Architects.  The switch to diesel engines for propulsion of much of the world’s merchant vessel tonnage and gas turbines for naval vessels changed all this.  The Naval Architects sometimes joked that marine engineering had become a “catalog punching job.”
 
Marine Engineering I now back in the news with a lot of questions to be answered.  Among these are:
 How to eliminate residual oil fuels
How to best utilize hydrogen as a fuel
Electric propulsion and hybrid electric propulsion
Even Nuclear merchant ship propulsion and sail assist
 
These ideas are obviously not all applicable to large ships traveling long distances and some are maybe just Pie in the Sky, but the point is that United States’ machinery is seriously out of date and pollution from shipboard commerce is now considered to be a major environmental problem.  Even if her owners could strike a deal with KFC to burn their used frying oil in their boilers, major changes to her machinery would be required with the possibility of completely new power plant.  This alone would probably preclude her return to service.
 
Roger
 

Well, in a very broad sense, she has always been effectively USS.  She was conceived by Gibbs in the 1920’s but it took another 25 years or so to get her built.  This required a huge amount of congressional lobbying and justification as a high speed troop transport in time of war.  This allowed her to receive large US Government construction and operating subsidies.  Each year while operating, her owners (United States Lines) prepared a cost analysis separating operating costs associated with her troop ship features.  Most of these involved her propulsion plant.  These were paid by the government.
 
Roger

There is an old expression about a boat being a hole in the water into which you throw money.  Unfortunately, United States is just a bigger hole to fill.
 
IMHO there are engineering, business, and legal reasons preventing her from sailing again:
 
Business:  The passenger ship business seems to be aimed at two different demographics; at one end those that want to join 4999 others aboard a floating theme park/ 24-7 floating casino and at the other end those wanting a quiet experience aboard a small ship.  United States would seem to appeal to neither of these groups.  The United States, while a big ship carried 1000-2000 passengers. Fares would, therefore, be high, so she would have to tap into the small cruise ship market.  Would ongoing demand be high enough to allow her to book profitable passenger loads?
 
Engineering:  She is a steam ship!  Nobody, operates steamships any more.  She has a 900psi US Navy plant.  The only steam plants operated today in US Navy vessels are in nuclear powered vessels; different animals.  Her boilers, if they can even be brought back to life are equipped to burn bunker c oil, a nasty pollutant that the rest of the world is trying to eliminate from their merchant marine fleets. The state of the art today in marine engineering for passenger carrying vessels seems to be an integrated system where electricity from one source is distributed to both the propulsion system and the system supplying on board hotel services. This also allows use of electric driven trainable pods to improve maneuvering.  Even if it could be brought back to life, United States’ machinery is 70 years out of date.
 
Legal:  She is an American Flagged ship.  The Jones act would require her to be manned with an expensive American crew.  She could be reflagged under a flag of convenience; Liberia, Panama, Bahamas, etc. but would she then be the United States?
 
Better for whoever owns her to admit defeat and as Bob Cleek says turn her into razor blades.
 
Roger
 
 
 
 

I receive a quarterly magazine from the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Department at the University of Michigan. As might be expected published by a university it is heavily slanted towards current issues and  research.
 
Advances in Naval Architecture are often incremental.  Marine Engineering on the other had as undergone a series of distinct changes:
Introduction of Steam Propulsion
Compound Steam Engines
Steam Turbines
Diesel Engines
Unmanned engine rooms/ direct bridge control
Gas Turbines (Naval Vessels)
Nuclear Power (Submarines)
 
Each of these technologies did not emerge fully developed.  For example, the first steam turbines were connected directly to the ships propellers.  A machine that operates best at high speed was attempting to drive one intended to run at low speed.  It took 15-20 years to adopt the geared cross compounded system used by the US Navy during World War II.  The machinery in United States is the end point of this mature steam turbine technology.
 
When I went to school, Marine Engineering involved designing a unique steam plant to fit within the confines of a hull designed by the Naval Architects.  The switch to diesel engines for propulsion of much of the world’s merchant vessel tonnage and gas turbines for naval vessels changed all this.  The Naval Architects sometimes joked that marine engineering had become a “catalog punching job.”
 
Marine Engineering I now back in the news with a lot of questions to be answered.  Among these are:
 How to eliminate residual oil fuels
How to best utilize hydrogen as a fuel
Electric propulsion and hybrid electric propulsion
Even Nuclear merchant ship propulsion and sail assist
 
These ideas are obviously not all applicable to large ships traveling long distances and some are maybe just Pie in the Sky, but the point is that United States’ machinery is seriously out of date and pollution from shipboard commerce is now considered to be a major environmental problem.  Even if her owners could strike a deal with KFC to burn their used frying oil in their boilers, major changes to her machinery would be required with the possibility of completely new power plant.  This alone would probably preclude her return to service.
 
Roger