I just discovered this thread. I sailed on the McLean back in '81 when she was moved from the west coast to the east coast and then made several Northern Europe runs. Just a couple of notes. When I was onboard, SeaLand had already sold all but two of the SL-7s to the Navy. When I signed on in Oakland, the McLean had just come out of lay up over at Hunter's Point. We made the run to the east coast without any cargo. Because of the fuel consumption and cost, we would only run on two boilers during maneuvering. Once clear of the sea buoy/light station, we would cut a boiler out and run on just one. Still made around 26 knots as memory serves. The feed pumps were fitted with helical flow turbines and were always a *****. I sailed on a couple of other ships with them and had similar (if not worse) problems. Later, during my ABS days, I was told that the change to Coffin pumps was a huge improvement.
With a boiler down during an ocean crossing, we spent lots of time doing boiler work. Got pretty good at cutting one in and out, too. Not that I could remember how to do it now. The biggest problem that I recall with the condenser was cracking of the heads. The sea water inlet and outlets were huge.
The standby generator was an EMD 645. 8 cylinder as I recall.
My cabin was on the top deck of the after house. With the way the ship rolled on Atlantic crossings, I figured that I traveled about twice as far north and south as I did east or west. . . .
It was a real pain when the elevator broke down when it was time to leave the engine room. . . .
I recall a rumour about why the aft deck house had the doors (and just about everything else) backwards. The story goes that the ships were originally to be nuclear powered, and were designed that way. When it was ultimately decided to make them conventional steam ships, the layout of the aft deckhouse had to be turned around. When looking at the deckhouse, it does seem to be backward. I understand that there have been times when the lifeboats were blown overboard because of this. Again, just a rumor.
I sailed as Day Third Engineer, and there were two of us in that position. We rotated duties. As mentioned previously, there was big money in the reefer containers. They were all over the place and above deck for operating reasons. Most were plugged into the ship's electrical system, but there were so many that some were fitted with their own diesel generators and had to have fuel pumped to them every few days. As with any machinery, there were also the odd breakdowns and other mainteance needs. One of us Day Thirds was assigned as the "Reefer Third". Also as stated previously, there were several second mates. One was the "Reefer Mate" and his primary duty was to walk the containers twice a day and write down the box temperature. At Coffee Time, he would put a list of the ones with high temps or other conditions in a box. The assigned Reefer Third would then have a list to deal with. There was also another "day" second mate who did the purser work. Of course his nickname was the "Paper Mate".
One last. If anyone has seen the movie "Contraband", the engine room and other machinery space scenes, as well as bridge and interiors, were all shot onboard an SL-7; in the New Orleans area.