See my comment to Larry, above -- triple expansion steam is great.

Both of us are machinery nuts -- Dee talks her way onto all sorts of vessels
just to see the engine room. We looked at a lot of tugboats in our search
for Fintry, and saw a lot of wonderful machines. Finally concluded, though,
that tugboats were all engine room and no space for anything else. Who
needs 2,000hp in an 80' displacement hull unless you're going to tow
something. Otherwise it's just a mechanism for converting diesel into bow
wave.


--
Jim Woodward
www.mvFintry.com


..
"Glenn Ashmore" wrote in message
news:9esrb.12620$62.6334@lakeread04...
I think the Cat is the wrong direction for your personality. I sense
that you are a gadget freak like me. Here is the repower option for
certain engine nervana. :-)

http://www.thesandpebbles.com/san_pa...blo_engine.htm

Jim Woodward wrote:

Thanks.

As I say on site, the Lister is a real conundrum. I love the thing. It
will run forever, even on three cylinders. Absolutely rock solid
dependable. It has three ways of cooling (three pumps have to fail to
shut
it down) and two ways of providing lube oil pressure, can run either wet
or
dry sump. It has a nice sound. It has temp gauges on every cylinder --
full
instrumentation both below and in the wheelhouse. I have an exhaust
valve
sitting on my desk -- 3.5" diameter x 10" tall. It's a wonder.

To start it, you go down in the engine room, turn on the lube oil
(remote
dry sump), the seawater main, and the 24v to the starter, spin a wheel
on
the front to decompress, bar the flywheel over a couple of times to make
sure everything's free, and push a button on the "Motormatic" box.
Relays
start clicking, the prelube pump (24v) starts, and oil pressure comes
up.
When oil pressure hits 50psi, the starter engages. After a quarter turn
or
so, you spin off the decompress and it starts. The prelube pump stops.
You
turn off the 24v to the starter and let it warm up for a few minutes.
You
can shut it down from the wheelhouse, but you have to go down and shut
off
the lube oil.

Now, this is a wonderful sequence, particularly the Motormatic (in this
age
of computer everything), but can you imagine trying to sell it as a
yacht
over here in fifteen years?

It has a number of little open catch basins for fuel that leaks off.
It's
hard mounted to huge engine beds, so the whole boat vibrates when it's
running -- four huge pistons, and while you can practically count the
strokes, they're very present. The official RN manual says that you
shouldn't run the boat between 7.5 and 10 knots, only faster or slower
(top
is 10.3), because of various resonances. Parts are beginning to be a
problem
(new starter $4,000).

And, as also shown graphically on the site, it's huge (see
http://www.mvfintry.com/pix/erplan800.png) -- the Cat 3406 is no little
thing, but look at the difference. While the engine room is 20 feet
square,
I've got a lot to go in it and removing the Lister helps.

And so forth. I'm sad, though. I'll miss it, except when trying to
sleep.





--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com