Snafu wrote:
How the heck do they crank it to get it started??


Air .....lotsa air... most big diesels on ships, have limited amounts of
starts when maneuvering. However, this has greatly improved with newer
ship. They generally have over a dozen, before they run out and have to
wait to rebuild supplies.

Thanks for the info.

Just looking at the pix at the massive size, it has to take incredible air
volume and pressure to get that huge crankshaft rolling. I'm guessing that
once you get one of these things running, you don't want to shut down very
often.