palmtreedreamer wrote:
The reference was to a hospital boat that runs on HFO

Sorry but according to NAVSEA there are no naval ships in US service
that burn HFO or bunker oil. Haven't been since the early 1980s.



... My
statement was that the media was complaining that it took nearly a week
to get it going.

AFAIk the complaints were that it took a week for the orders to be cut.

... Anyone that knows ships knows that you have to first,
get orders/charters/papers or whatever.

On many steam ships, first you have to wrap up ongoing repairs and
off-line maintenance. That's one big reason why steam ships are out of
favor nowadays.


... A week is very fast to do all that, don't you think?


Shucks, the destroyers I steamed for Uncle Sam occasionally got under
way with two hours notice. On one memorable occasion (which I'd rather
forget) we went from a complete tear-down of all 4 boilers to getting
underway within 30 hours.

As a civilian contractor on MSC ships, I often worked on the big steam
plants and conducted training for the crews. A week to get underway...
unless there was a really serious problem... would produce a blast from
the top brass... if this is what happened, the contractor should be
dropped and made to pay a non-performance penalty.

On Topic- anybody ever think of cruising in a steam boat? At one point I
was contemplating putting a small steam plant in an old sailboat I
owned, burn trash for fuel!

Fresh Breezes- Doug King