Any chance of having any drydock photos of any of them. I’m a professional model builder and SeaLand Exhange is my subject. Have plans on the way from Vancouver. Or possibly know someone or a place to find photos. Thank you, Keith Bender, Newark, DE

 

CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin. ...
Magleby Maersk. ...
Barzan(UASC) ...
CSCL Globe- MV CSCL. ...
MSC OSCAR. ...
MSC Anna. ...
MOL Triumph. ... is the world's largest cargo ships.

 

The most powerful Steam Turbine plant at Sea was the SS UNITED STATES Liner she held the Blue Ribbon. 220,000 HP. not sure of her engine plant. Its doubtful a bigger marine plant will ever be built larger. The max single diesel currently in service is a Wartsila ( Sulzer ) 105,000 hp. on a Container Vessel. Most Modern liners have Multiple Medium Speed Diesel Electric plants. So Main Propulsion and Aux power can be supplied from one source.

 

Thought BenLiners built in late 60's, twin screw steamers, were to have service speed of 36 knots. Know they were soon re-engined with twin MAN main engines and 6 diesel generators. 4th engineer went from 1 purifier (Gearcase LO puri) to 17!!
Dannic

 

Several Companies re engine their Steam and GTV Vessels due to the high cost of fuel, which dropped later making the Re Engine investment a poor choice. Also the choice of engine was limited to medium speed diesels which were not quite as reliable due to the fact they were operating in over load conditions at lower power outputs as the owners kept the original fixed pitch props. Medium speed work best with a CPP so that the pitch can be controlled to operate the engines in their optimum power curves.

 

I remember seeing them at Hong Kong Container Terminal in the late 70s I met a couple of their Engineers ashore at the Seaman's Club. They were amazed the we were on a Fully UMS Vessel and carried only four Engineers. They had that many on each Watch. They were running at reduced "Economical Steaming Rate" and already had issues with Turbine Blade erosion due low speed Steaming.

 

Sl7

I made 2 voyages on the Sealand Resource in 1981. They were the last 2 commercial voyages before selling the ship to the US government for 34 million dollars each. 120,000 hp
Burned 4000 barrels a day at full speed. 2 boilers each generating 500,000 pounds of steam per hour
Twin 60,000 hp turbines
Twin screw. Basically 2 power plants side by side in the same engine room.

 

I sailed on the Sealand Resource as Chief Electrician; my 4th ship as a merchant mariner. What an experience after working on old C-4's. Huge ship, quarters like a motel, (instead of minimum luxuries). crossing the Atlantic at 33 knots, 3 1/2 days pilot to pilot NY to English Channel. They were originally built for the Pacific trade where their speed really paid off, and there was talk of when some originally came over to the East coast, that those "cowboy captains" beat the **** out of them in the North Atlantic; bent bridge wings, knock the glass out of the wheelhouse, and losing anchors. When they first dropped the pilot, you could physically feel the ship accelerate, not just vibrations!. coming into NY, a pilot would be stationed on the bridge and on the after house. we had a tight fit entering Elizabeth where we would have to line up perfectly to go through the old railway bridge (rumors that the stacks had to be shortened from original to fit under the lift. It was very close). the tugs would have to disconnect before passing through the bridge, so they had to line us up very carefully.
The forced draft fans were larger than the generators of most ships. the second engineer, oil king, seemed to always be transferring fuel.
the ships were very well built, but they did cut alot of corners with "options". the lifeboats were higher from the water than any I had seen and were not fitted with electric hoists, but a huge pneumatic gun was fitted on a stand to help bring them up. lack of automation in the engine room with HUGE manual steam stops. The ships rolled heavily. I was onboard for 4 trips about the time the fuel conservation came in. two trips were high speed, and two on 1 boiler where we still ran 25 knots. 2 time zones a day were killers. Everybody talks about them being "White Elephants" because of fuel consumption, but I later talked with some of the port engineers and they say Sealand made a fortune with those ships and never lost money on them, not including how well the sale of them to the government worked out for Sealand. Remember, these ships were not subsidized and were built in Germany.
I also sailed on another right out of the shipyard from being converted for the government and crossed the Pacific a couple times taking military toys to Korea for exercises. And did a very short sea trial as Engineer on another. It was a much more automated boiler control by then.
I know that they have been converted to DFM and back to Buncker C and back to DFM again. they had a lot of boiler problems after the government got them. explosions from DFM (purging procedures), boiler lay up problems, and the strut bearing were always a problem on those ships. There were "plans" to convert them to diesel, (I, personally thought gas turbines would be better if they were to be converted); but these proposals never developed further. the government loved them until the LMSR's came online and they fell out of favor because the LMSR's were 26 knot ships that carried alot more cargo, newer, and loaded and unloaded much faster. Marad has them now, but I've expected them to go to long term layup for years now.
These ships were very impressive and the king of the hill in their time. I'm lucky and proud to have served on them.

 

Last sea trials a couple of years ago the ones I upgraded the steering on we're doing 31-33kts. I believe fuel consumption was around 760 tons a day.

 

They seemed to be all engine room and not much room for boxes. The rumour we heard was that at full full-away the cavitation damage to the propellers was a problem.

 

I remember being told by a Ben Line C/E that before they were re engine the big ben steam turbines could do 30 kit. but at a very high fuel consumption of 500 tons per day.
jim

 

Spent many happy hours on four, Denebola, Antares, Pollux and Regulus upgrading their gyros and autopilots. They got their money's worth out of the old Sperry units. The Sperry units had a helm limiter in that limited the max rudder angle to about 10 degrees when above about 13kts. I like some of you always thought the aft house was on backwards too. Sailed on Denebola last year from Baltimore to Cape Henry pilot station to trial the new steering. Being a bay trip she didn't break any records but it was nice and quiet up forward. It was all at night which was a shame. Very impressive ships. Quite a lot of differences between the German and Dutch built ships which created a few problems running new wiring.

 

I saw these ships off Berry Head where they picked up or dropped the Channel Pilots at Brixham. One afternoon in '72 or '73, we saw one approaching down Channel as we were on the way to the River Dart. We had passed Berry Head, and watched her slow down enough to drop the Pilot. We thought we were making good speed with our new Gardner diesels humming away, pushing us along at 12 knots or more.
By the time we were at Froward Point, about three miles along the coast, the container ship was abeam, with a large bone in her teeth. We altered course towards Castle Ledge buoy, and watched her race off towards Start Point. We were at the buoy when her wash caught us up, which was quite interesting.

Roy.

 

I served on the Sea-Land Commerce for six months in the year 1976 as the 12-4 Second Mate. The "Commerce" is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the fastest crossing from Yokohama to Seattle. I can't remember the stopping distance from full sea speed (33 Kts +) Can anyone help me with that?

 

Stopping distance



Sailed on the Galloway for over 1 year and one month straight. On the alarm panel in the engine room there was a pla
que with some spec's on it. Stopping distance from full sea speed was 7 miles. When the Navy people were aboard checking the ship out, prior to purchasing them, we were at 144 r.p.m.'s which we were told was in excess of 48 knots. The Navy guys in the white uniforms were jumping up and down with joy. They were congratulating themselves quite a bit. With the cheapest fuel Sealand could get, virtually asphalt, engine crew worked non-stop the entire watch.

 

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.

 

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.

That piqued my interest:

http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/590562/title/sealand-galloway/cat/513

The after house certainly looks back to front!

Rgds.
Dave

 

Steamer659

I do recall the SL-7's masters, including my brother-in-law plus a classmate (Neil Grueland) telling me they were wonderful handling ships at sea. I never had the pleasure of standing a bridge watch on these vessels, or I would have learned to appreciate their capabilities more. Nonetheless, during manuevering and docking, they were truely awful! There were several near misses making the entrance to Oakland on these ships. As a result, their arrival times were set up after these incidents to mitigate their poor handling capabilities so as to transit the entrance with less current.

I was on the after tug made up on the transom on one occasion making the entrance where I was told later that we missed the corner of PCT by about 40 feet. The ship was deep and transiting the entrance at high speed with subsequent squat. The ship failed to answer her rudder until the tug was ordered "hard right, full ahead". I remember it distinctly as I had the engine on the Resolute hooked up and the quarter bitt of the tug buried as the boat heeled over to answer the command. I was told that the pilot was in the "machine gun position" on the center line waiting for the ship to come around. As the ship slowly started to come left and they passed the corner, the second pilot on board told him, "you owe that guy a bottle of booze."

Afterwords he came up to me in the office and said, "Thanks". As I wasn't aware there had been a problem, I asked "what for". His reply was, "for keeping my name out of the newspaper."

Good ships, but not good handling ships.

 

Although not the most powerful cargo ship built, It might be worth mentioning here that the 10,000 grt cargo ships Southampton Castle and Good Hope Castle were built as twin screw vessels powered by two sulzer RND 90,s giving a BHP of 47,000 and a service speed of around 30 knots.

 

The Union-Castle liner service to South Africa was dependent upon the receipt of a handsome subsidy in the form of a mail contract. The renewal of the mail contract, which came into effect in 1966, required an accelerated service time of 11½ days to Cape Town, instead of 13½. Durban was reached in 16½. To achieve these times a service speed of 22½ knots was needed. The pre-war passenger liners Stirling Castle and Athlone Castle could only make 20 knots, while the 22½ knot Capetown Castle was getting towards the end of its life. Fortunately the accelerated schedule could be maintained with 7 ships instead of the 8 needed for the previous schedule.

Nevertheless two new ships were required at a time when passenger numbers were rapidly declining. The problem was solved by building two 22½ knot cargo liners – Southampton Castle and Good Hope Castle.

The two new cargo liners were designed for a service speed of 22½ knots and a trial speed of 25 knots. They regularly operated at 25 knots to recover service delays, and may have achieved even higher speeds, but I think that 30 knots was not a common service occurrence for these ships.

 

Wally: Correction- SL-7's are not good handling ships in maneuvering situations.

Are you familiar with the following formula- Ar = T(LBP) /100 [1+25(B/LBP)2] ? And the normally added surface area of 30% for a twin screw vessel with a single rudder...

Typical rudder area coefficients for twin screw vessels are usually between 1.5 to 2.1, your tug boats 3.0 to 6.0,

Shiba correlated the effect of rudder area and deflection angle on turning diameters in as early as 1960-

The tactical diameter /L at low v/ square L is of course a function of the type of rudder, number of rudders and screws, length/beam and etc....

Unfortunately, those of us in our respective career paths are usually locked in to observations within our realm of expertise...Have you ever been outside of the sea buoy on these vessels? If not, how do you know how they handle underway at sea speed? What would you believe the drift is during tactical? Turning Rate as part of rudder movement and the effect of SMALL rudder corrections while at steady sea speeds with regard to fuel rate?

Granted, your experience is well founded within areas of ship controllability during MANUEVERING and DOCKING, which occurs less than 10% of the time with respect to total operating characteristics, unless you're aboard a ferry, tug or pilot boat.....

As a Chief Engineer, ex ABS Surveyor and a currently studying for my Naval Arch P/E License- I am only too well aware of the constraints of rudder size, placement and the effect of low stall drift in channels...Cheers(Pint)

 

Steamer659

You're obviously very enamored with your ship, as well you should be. The SL-7's are remarkable ships, but not good handling ships.

I piloted the SL-7's (including your ship) on many many occasions, and I stand by my previous remarks that they are very poor handling ships. All the ships you refer to, including the SL-7's, required very high horsepower to attain the speeds required for their intended use. Multiple propellers were required to attain this horsepower. Certainly designing for twin rudders would not have been advisable for their intended use: high speed transits across the ocean.

Nonetheless, at the reduced speeds required when transiting within harbors, almost all twin screw ships with single rudders are notoriously poor handling. They generally require multiple tug assist to safely transit most harbors. As you point out, they spend a minimal amount of time manuevering, so the sacrifice to design for twin rudders was not advisable. They may make wonderful turning circles at sea where their high speed allows high water flow over their rudder, but they handle very poorly when at slower speed in restricted waters. With regards to their outboard turning wheels, since they were placed so closely together, the ships do not "twin screw" at all.

The SL-7's were fine ships, but not good handling ships.

 

Yes, the SL-7's were originally built for 35' Container Cells, I think that the rationale was that only Sea-Land could use them, chassis and all- so that the vessel's always had an adequate supply, and that the shoreside logistics stream wouldn't be able to hold the vessels up waiting for containers- they guaranteed 5 day reefer container delivery on the Atlantic side and 7 day on the Pacific side as I have been told. The reefer container load was a real money maker...

 

Appropos of nothing, but I went to high school with Malcolm's daughter Nancy in Short Hills, NJ. She used to have numerous parties and I met him several times. Of course I had no idea how important he was, but it was obvious they had $$$$$. Ok, back to a serious thread.

 

35' Containers ??

I have to agree that Naval Vessels and tugs can not haul those size of containers but would also suggest that container ships do not haul those either now-adays

 

R:

About 669 tons per day at 33 knots, 7% slip...

 

Hmmm, the SS United States, SS Normandie, RMS Queen Mary, RMS Queen Elizabeth were quadruple screw single rudder vessels. The RMS Queen Elizabeth II is a twin screw single rudder vessel.

Given the "fineness" of the SL-7 Hull form, it would be impractical, albeit counter productive to change the size of the transom and stern design to incorporate a twin rudder approach- this would dramtically alter the transom width as well as the water flow characteristics to the propellers, which by the way are outboard turning.

These vessels were built to sustain high speed and carry containers 90% of the time, and to maneuver less than 10% of the time. The original captain's observations were very correct- with respect to handling, turning circles and general sea keeping- these are excellent ships....

Naval vessels and tugs can't haul 1880 35' containers at 33.25 knot operating speeds!

 

The SL 7's were regular callers in San Francisco when Sea Land was operating them. As noted, they were twin screw steamers with very high horsepower. What has not been noted is that they were single rudder. Their Captains thought they were very good handling ships, but this was not true at the lower speeds required in harbors. Making the entrance across the Oakland Bar Channel into Oakland Outer Harbor was very difficult with these ships. Speed had to be kept quite low due to interaction with moored vessels. We would make up a tug on the transom to act as a rudder if required. The ebb current runs across the entrance to Oakland at speeds up to 3 knots and it was necessary to reduce the ship's speed to about 6 knots due to interaction. The pilot would hold the ship angled up into the current as she transited the Bar Channel. As the vessel neared the turn into Outer Harbor, hard left rudder would be ordered and the port propellor stopped to give additional drag. If necessary, the tug on the transom could come hard right and full ahead to provide additional lift. If the turn was started too early, the ship would ground outside of the channel. If the turn was started too late, she'd hit the corner of PCT.

Twin screw ships with single rudders are notoriously poor handling ships. The thrust from the propellors doesn't hit the rudder like it does with a single screw ship. Naval vessels and tugs normally have twin rudders placed behind the propellors which result in a very good handling ship.

 

For the record- this one holds the Transatlantic Westbound Crossing since 8/73 at 34.97 knots average- the turbine nomograph has marks which indicated a SHP of about 137,000. One of the eight (can't remember which one) made over 39 knots after her conversion at Avondale in 86. The superheaters on these vessel are said to be notoriously fickle- but we take great care when raising steam from dead plant. New boiler automation and burners /burner controls- have solved most of the economizer and superheater problems- also new feed pumps were installed in the 80's- the largest Coffin Feed Pumps ever built. Our on hire speed is 27, regular transit speed 30, and maximum is limited to 130 RPM or 33.25... And yes, the boiler furnace bottom deck is a good ten to fifteen feet below the mud drum. Cheers...