Whessoe Gauge

Patalavaca · Feb 25, 2006

Stuart ,
thanks for posting this . I spent a LOT of time winding these damn things up and down tanks and repairing them when the runners broke or the float got stuck. For those of you who have not worked on VLCC's we had to ballast the tanks to an appropriate level , launch an inflatable dinghy and PADDLE it across the tank to carry out structural inspections or repairs to leaky joints etc.
What fun ! Two men in a boat - me and the C/E !

Incidentally we lightened the " Oloibiri" in Lyme Bay about 1980 whilst I was on the " Halia".

Regards,
Rick

giorgio · Sep 15, 2006

Hi guys I spent 5 years on board Oloibiri at mooring buoy in Nigeria as 2°Mate.
Many times I fixed those Whessoe gauges when the wire of the floating body broke down.
The system was to use a special big fishing hook for catching the floating body in the tank from the deck.

John_F · Sep 15, 2006

When I first came across one of these things in 1962 aboard the British Queen I thought that they were the answer to every tanker apprentice's prayers. No more fumbling with ullage tapes & torches, no more ullage sticks & cotton waste! How wrong I was! When they worked they were excellent. Unfortunately, the floats were very prone to sticking & it was a foolish apprentice who relied on the reading from the Whessoe gauge without checking the level through the sight port in the tank lid.
Regards,
John F.

Gulpers · Sep 15, 2006

..... No more fumbling with ullage tapes & torches, no more ullage sticks & cotton waste! How wrong I was! When they worked they were excellent. Unfortunately, the floats were very prone to sticking .....

John,
Yeah, how true - I remember I saw one working [COLOR="Yellow"]once[/COLOR]! (Jester)

john shaw · Sep 15, 2006

Herewith my recollections, posted in response to "Norm"'s Q re anyone using his Teledep equipment. Guess the consensus then is that all these gauges were of little use, ---he said understating wildly!

I believe I had the misfortune to use Whessoe or Teledep on some tankers-- my recollection is that they rarely worked,so one could have no confidence in them, thus effectively rendering them a waste of time.Ullage tapes were the order of the day.

I think that this (somewhat indistinct) attached extract from a pic of the deck of Solvent Explorer shows a KROHNE gauge-- it is my dim and distant recollection that these were so called-- the ships were German built. They too were ullage gauges-- bloody pain in the neck, weights hung on wires in tubes which needed winding up to stow them,and VERY carefully down to seek the liquid surface at which point they became automatic (hah!)-- the weights always came off-- the THEORY was that one could "closed load" such nasties as we played with (acrylonitrile, phenol etc etc)-- yeah,right-- I spent more time ullaging over ports with a mask on than trusting these things-- not too much fun when you're 3rd Mate loading 6 different parcels simultaneously, and lots of separate ullage tapes needed.

al mac · Sep 15, 2006

hope the pic was taken with an intrinsically safe camera.....!

Had many encounters with whessoe's also, but on gas tankers. Reading this thread really brings back some interesting memories!!

alick

Whessoe Gauge

Patalavaca

giorgio

John_F

Gulpers

john shaw

al mac

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