Ships Nostalgia banner

TV Morar

12K views 51 replies 17 participants last post by  Stephen J. Card 
#1 ·
hi all has anybody got a photo of the tv morar its the only ship i sailed on that i havent got a photo of ken powell
 
#2 ·
#5 ·
Hello albatross1923, I would be very interested to here about the Turbine Free Piston Gasifiers in the "Morar" I saw one in David Rowan's engine shop in 1961-2. I have been puzzled all these years why it was there and for what purpose. Possibly it was for the sister ship "Arisaig" if the first gas turbine had been sucessful, or possibly it was a spare. I know she eventually had a Diesel installed in her.
I remember opening one up end for some suits to view and take pictures of, then I closed up the end cover and replaced the tarpaulin never to be exposed again. I was told that it had been tested in the shop and that the noise and vibration blew out the windows in the test bay.
Amy comments.
 
#8 ·
Sad news Kevin. I sailed with him in 1973 on Troll River. I was Cadet at the time and didn't have many dealings with him but, he always struck me as being a jovial gentleman. If I remember correctly he lived in Ayr.
 
#7 ·
Hello JOE
here is as much as i can rember about the morar built lithgows 1959.scrapped
1980 original engines by rankine blackmore 4 free piston gas generators
1 gas turbine re engined 9 cyl werkspoor diesel problem how do you go astern
i think it was done by masking of the ahead set of blades from astern blades
gasifiers always died out when manouvering albatross1923 84yrs old tomorrow
 
#11 ·
Hello Albitross1923 Happy birthday, you are 20 years my senior and we are all getting on, so that is why I am inquiring about this unique type of power generation. I still don't know how one of these gasifiers happened to be in storage at David Rowan's engine shop in 1960-1 or what ever happened to it.
I found a Posts dated 29th. & 28th. Dec 2005 from DCMARINE and neil maclachlan regarging this ships engine. One clue is that she the 'MORAR' in March 1961 had engines replaced, detaild as original engines plus one additonal gas generator. The replacement diesel engine did not take place until 1967, possibly the additional generator came from Rowan's.
The dimensions given for the gasifier bore is 340mm. X 550mm. this must be the combustion chamber as I remember the end cover or bounce piston end to be about 600 to 700mm. in diameter or larger. It must have been a bummer to start and control the fuel supply.I have a photograph of a Pratt and Whitney gasifier from Pescara, but it looks quite small compared the ships engine.
I look forward to any other information that I may have jogged youe memory.
Joe Freeman.
 
#12 ·
hello joe
you have bounced my memory we broke down at narvik i think it was damage to the rotor and had spare flown out funny you mention spare gasifier i only rember three so it could well be after isigned of at greenock29.7.61 that the fourth one was fitted if rowans did not make it rankine blackmore must have
to start gasifiers you had to bump start from a certain position albatross 1923
 
#14 ·
Hi again, for some unknown reason I don't think Rowan's built it as it had a little wooden backboard and lamacoid name plate attached to the support stand, and I never took in all the information but I think it said Experimental.
One outstanding thing it came with a Torque Wrench in a fancy wooden box with chrome sockets and squirreled away out of reach of any light fingered punter.
I had the opportunity to open one end for some gentlemen in suits to view and take photographs, that is how I kind of remember the size of the cylinder.
It appeared to be as large as the bore of a Doxford liner that sat quite close to it. The Americans also tried the free piston gasifier for a turbine in a Liberty ship called the William Patterson, there was an article in TIME magazine in 1957 April 16th. It also was unsucessful, had poor fuel economy and sluggish response at low speed. However, there is a young fellow in Germany who is about to produce a freepiston engine for a car. If you are interested you can find it at : www.stelzer-motor.de/html/english.html
Cheers for now,
Joe Freeman
 
#15 ·
tv Morar free piston gasifiers

Hello it's me again. I have been reading with intrest several replies to threads from ARRANMAN35, neil mac and ALBITROSS1923 regarding the turbine vessel Morar's free piston gasifier turbine engine. Over the years I have become quite intrigued by this unique type of marine propulsion, as it appears to be the only British Merchant Vessel that utilized this type of main engine.
According to an article in TIME magazine in 1957 an American built liberty ship the William Patterson utilized a free piston gasifier turbine engine that developed 6,000hp. Similarly it too was unsucessful due to high fuel consumption, sluggish response at slow speed, heavy and frequent maintenance all helped to cause it's demise.

I briefly worked on a single free piston gasifier unit stored at David Rowan's engine shop in Elliot Street Glasgow about 1960-61. From the information provided by ALBITROSS1925 I think this unit was eventually installed or used as a spare in Morar about 1961.
There appears to be virtually no do***entation or any photographic record of this type of propulsion as installed in Morar other than a vague mention in the Clydesite database on the ship itself and engined by Rankin & Blackmore.
ALBATROSS1923 was able to provid me with some statistical records do***enting the ships history and a few comments regarding the engine reliability and breakdowns. The information supplied by ARRANMAN35 and neil mac support the other members observations of frequent breakdowns and heavy maintenance.

Could you provide me with any other information regarding the gasifier operation, such as, how was the piston speed controlled? Were they operated individually or in a group? Could the gasifiers operate on heavy fuel? Was the turbine speed reduced through a gearbox and was it directly connected to the propellor shaft or through a hydraulic or pneumatic clutch? Did they vibrate and were they loud?
The other diesel engines on board, were they auxiliary generators or were they also utilized as prime power?
As an ex marine engineer I am concerned that without some more detailed information or photographic record regarding this particular ships engine, the historical record of this unique piece of Scottish Marine Engineering may soon pass into history unnoticed.
I thank you gentlemen for your comments and any further information
Joe.
 
#17 ·
I was 2nd.Mate on Morar in early sixties. Lots of port time for deck dept. but when underway had standing orders to keep at least 5 miles off everything! I remember engineers were eligible for a bonus after 6 months, but don't believe anyone ever collected. I was in Narvik when they shipped the rotor up to the local garage for repair! It fit nicely in the bed of a small truck.The build philosophy was to allow more cargo space with a much smaller E/R, so replacing the main must have been a challenge. There was another ship around that time with similar propulsion, but with VP prop - apparently more successful.
I remember 4 gasifiers with only three supposed to be on line. I also remember British Polar Diesel being one of the prime contractors.
 
#19 · (Edited)
Hello Ranger66, would you happen to remember the name of this other ship with a similar power plant. The only other ship that I have found was an american liberty ship William Patterson, that I mentioned previously.
The gas turbine had three gasifiers to generate high pressure gases to produce the power. The other gasifier was most likely the spare.
Thanks for the information. I sailed with Ben Line Steamers as 4th. engineer for a couple of years before emigrating to B.C. Canada in 1967. Do you happpen to know Trevor Caldwell I think he is a Mate on one of the BC Ferries.
Joe.
 
#20 ·
Sorry Joe - Don't remember the name of that other ship. Just remember that she was mentioned by engineering as a more successful application of the technology.
I don't recognize the name you referred to but I have been retired since 2000 and lots of people there now that I don't know. Still working summers up in the Charlottes on small passenger ships - that's where old ferry captains go to die!
I am enjoying browsing the Denholms posts. Most of the references are after 1966 when I left for BC, but there are quite a few names that I remember - most of them fondly!
Happy days indeed, or maybe time just filters out the bad stuff.
 
#25 ·
Yes gentlemen you are all correct there was a ship called gtv REMBRANDT 3 powered by five free piston gasifiers. This information was provided by a member Baltic Wal in a thread that I discovered from viewing a picture of this ship in the photo gallery.
From Baltic Wal's experience it seems that this ship also had troubles with her gasifiers giving the deck boys lots of time ashore.
The ship was built at Smith's docks and owned and operated by Bolton's and was the second British Merchant Ship with a gas turbine powered by free piston gasifiers.
I would be pleased to hear from any engineers or mates who sailed on Rembrandt 3 during the time she had the gas turbine engine.
Thanks again,
Joe.
 
#27 ·
I am almost certain that The Free Piston Engines were the subject at one of the student lectures at the I.Mar.E. in 1957/58. And I recall that the French Navy were carrying out trials with them at that time. Sadly I threw my copies of the lectures away when I moved house!

Gerry
 
#30 ·
Free-piston machinery

Gentlemen

I have an article on the subject entitled "Gas Turbine and Free-piston Machinery" published in the motor ship in 1955 and 1956. I would be happy to transcribe this and post it in a new thread if there was enough interest or if it would be of any use to anybody.

Cheers
Kris
 
#31 ·
Marconi Sahib,

I would be interested in a copy of the article if one is going.

Also In the gallery you posted a photo of Bert Hesketh, I am sure there can only be one from that mould. He was a Production Supervisor on the Umm Shaif Complex (Abu Dhabi) when I was out there from 1977 onwards, what a star and a gentleman he and I got on really well! Thanks for the memories.

Regards.

Gerry Taylor
 
#34 ·
Marconi Sahib & Gerry,
I certianly would be interested in reading a copy of this article as I can't find very much of anything on the Web. Any technical information or photographic do***entation seems to be nonexistant and it would appear that there are not many marine engineers around any more who know much about these free piston gasifiers. Hopefully I am wrong about the marine engineers and possibly some information still exists.
Regards,
Joe.
 
#41 ·
Gentlemen

No reply from the Motor Ship. They obviously don't care.
Attached is a copy of the page showing the "Morar" installation under test.

If anybody wants a copy of the 6 page article I've got it as a 2Mb Acrobat "PDF" file that prints up quite well. Any smaller and it gets too blocky, especially the illustrations and technical details. Next size up is 3.5Mb which may take a while to download/ use up online time.

If anybody wants a copy send me an email or PM me with your email address and I'll reply with the 2Mb copy attached.

The same volume of Motor ship contains a wealth of information including detailed articles on just about every marine diesel available in 1960 and nuclear ship propulsion.

Cheers
Kris
 

Attachments

#49 ·
Free piston gas turbines

Seem to remember(in the mists of time)Shell were one of the first to experiment with this type of propulsion.They re-engined one of their existing vessels-didn't last very long and they dropped the idea.France-Fenwick(not sure about spelling)also ran one-sailed with a chief engineer who sailed on it-dont remember the name-the chief ended up having a nervous breakdown followed by a period in the funny farm,subsequently recovered.Alan Rae
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top