The Steamboating Forum

When you take two boats-both doing shake-down cruises only one thing can happen "The Great American Steam boat race"! Just wait til' they are dialed in![/img]

This is a video click on it!
Feel free to peruse the rest of the pics and videos on my site at photobucket [there are about forty from McConnel Is 2010

Hi Den & Friends

I just loved the boat race! However, I do wonder what the other boat was burning for fuel. That black smoke looked pretty dire!

Just to point out that I'm not being a fuel snob - I have recently read the bit in the SBA Steamboating Handbook (2nd Edition) about firing and the importance of the colour of one's smoke as an indicator of the effectiveness of combustion. Not sure if I wholly understood it all, but apparently light grey smoke is the best.

Regards


Pete

Pete You are quite correct. I'm sure Stoker Stan was pouring the oil in in a bucket!! In defence of the boat this was a shake-down cruise and it was observed that the steam lines to the injectors [two of them!] were too small and not atomizing the fuel correctly. But imagine the horsepower that could be developed once the boiler is dialed in! The engine is a "Navy K" Den

As an aside the boat I was in "The Real McCoy" has a twelve volt Becket burner,is all automatic,has a nozzle set for 3 gal [american] per hr and makes no smoke,just clear heat waves-and not much heat leaves that "Scotch" boiler!

Thanks for posting these Farmer Den!

Always nice to see some steam at work!

Well Real McCoy's opposite looks like Bob Dessert's Magic. They competed in a tug of war last August at the NWSS Meet in Blaine, WA. I was standing on the dock watchin watching and while Magic started out doing the pulling, it wasn't long before Real McCoy was towing Magic backwards.

Just some stats: Magic is 22.5 feet LOA, has a 3-1/4" + 5-5/8" x 5" compound swinging a 21" x 30" five blade wheel (aperture won't permit more) at about 380 rpm. Engine was one of five built by T. Patchet in 1892 for the Columbia Exposition.

Regarding color of smoke: If it's black, the air is too lean and the hydrocarbons are unburned, sooting the tubes, decreasing heat conductivity, and ultimately leading to a burned out boiler; if the smoke is non-existent, there is too much air and the excess oxygen will cause the boiler steel/iron to oxicidize, resulting in a "weak" (read, "explosive") boiler; if there is a SLIGHT coloration to the smoke (an "efficiency haze") the air/fuel mixture is about right - just a "little bit" short of air, but not seriously so, and the smoke condition is easily observed.

Well you are half right Ron.It is Bob Dessert at the helm-but it is Lou Pisani's new boat "2J's" Den

farmerden wrote:Well you are half right Ron.It is Bob Dessert at the helm-but it is Lou Pisani's new boat "2J's" Den

Ahhhhhhh.... Surprised Lou would let anyone "soot up" his boiler so badly!