Welsh City (3)

Comments from the forum - 3

AO engines. Christmas morning 1972,on the equator on passage from Cairns to St.John, New Brunswick with bulk sugar. Just getting ready to go up to the "Old Mans'" cabin for a drink before Christmas Dinner, the port engine decided to break down. On inspection, it was found that there was a scavenge fire in the after scavenge space of the engine. Training had taught us that in the event of a scavenge fire on large crosshead type engines the engine was to be kept turning over till the scavenge fire was extiguished and the scavenge space area cooled down. The AO Ruston was a medium speed two stroke engine, not many around, what to do? The decision was made to stop the port engine and run on the starboard engine only and let the scavenge fire burn itself out.
Those not on duty went and had their Christmas Dinner. After Christmas Dinner when the port engine was cooled down, three of the after units were opened up, liners removed and the scavenge cleaned out. When the repairs were completed, we proceeded towards the Panama Canal en route to St.John, New Brunswick.
There must be other disaster stories that can be told about the AO Rustons.Trevor Graham-Russell. Posted on forum 23rd Novemberr 2011.

I have been browsing through this forum, unfortunately the memory is not quite what it was. I joined RSL in 1968 as a junior engr. signing on Welsh City at UCSY for its maiden voyage, what an introduction to marine life. I enjoyed it so much I signed up for a 2nd trip witha certain Mr Poingdestre(sp) as my Chief Engineer. Eddie Hume. Posted on forum 31st January 2011.

We certainly had quite an eventful voyage on the Welsh City on voyage 2 and I was on there for a couple of trips. When you were there was that the time that we added all the extra trunking to give extra air to the turbo-chargers whilst we were in the Gulf?
In 1996 I received a letter from Tom Major. He was clearing out his old paper work at home and had come across one of my very long end of voyage reports. It makes interesting reading and even I had forgotten how many problems we really had.
I think it was on my second voyage when we had a varity of different types of piston. We had a different type fitted in Immingham and we had six Ruston fitters on board instead of the usual two. We were burning off 600 gallons of lubricating oil every 24 hours. We had a white plume of smoke disappearing over the horizon. We had to put into Dakar to take on many barrels of lub oil and these had to be stowed on deck as everywhere else was filled up with boxes of spare parts.
Unfortunately in those days we did not take many photographs. Eric Poingdestre. Posted on forum 31st January 2011.

I too have many conflicting memories of the Welsh City, working and sweating like a dog but the cameraderie was 2nd to none.The trip with you was when we installed the trunking to the turbo chargers. I also remember spending a lot of time between the engines trying to keep the scavenge belts cool. Happy days indeed,popping salt tablets like smarties and the occasional beer of course. Eddie Hume. Sent by email 2nd February 2011.

When I was 2/E on the Welsh City, we had the same sort of problems with the pistons and lub. oil consumption.
Our major problems were that we had two types of piston that we could fit.The connecting rods had to chosen carefully,one with stress reversers and one type without. I remember having very big torque spanners to acheive the required torques while assembling pistons and conn. rods. Matching piston to connecting rod needed lots of attention. To make matters worse, at one time one of the port engine bearing journals had been damaged, this had been ground undersize. So we also had a connecting rod that had been machined so that undersize bearing shells could be fitted. That was a factor that had to be taken into consideration.
We had also, Nitrided Cylinder Liners with Cast Iron Rings and Cast Iron Cylinder Liners with Chromed Rings. You can imagine the fun we had keeping on top of all the variations.
It was a hardworking, but a happy ship!
This was the last voyage of the Welsh City with AO Rustons. We did not have any Ruston Technicians or fitters with us, but we kept the AOs running. All the officers and engineers were relieved in Calcutta. Danny Trigg took over as C/E to take the ship to Japan for the engine change. T Graham-Russell. Posted on forum 31st January 2011.

t was in September,1971 that the bearing in the Port engine was damaged, No. 8.
We had been alongside Durban for three weeks waiting to load sugar impregnated with molasses for Japan.Sailed after ceremonial last few pounds were chucked into a hold got somewhere near Madagascar when that engine threw the wobbler.Decision was taken to run on one engine but halfway across Indian Ocean started to experience problems with Starboard engine.Stripped out units changing liners,pistons,o-rings and injectors,seemed to be working 18 hour days with 6 hours sleep!Nursed the starboard engine and deviated to anchor off Kuala Lumpar where the Starboard engine was opened up and checked over,crankcase given a good clean out and oil dumped,we too were burning excessive amounts of Lub. oil.
Two Swedish engineers joined us and brought and set up the gear for grinding big end round again and we sailed for Singapore where we nearly killed the two Swedes.
A load of engine spares arrived on board and as a liner was being lowered to the stores on the crane-the crane cable snapped and the liner fell the height of engine-room.Panic!th0ught that we hit one of the Swedes but,fortunately,hadn't.Another "brown knickers" moment amongst many on that voyage.The outside of the cranes lifting cable was perfect but the inner core was rotten and reason why it snapped.
George Ellerby M.B.E. was Master Dave Senior 2/E,..Hodgson 3/E,Ron Glendinning 4/E,I was J/4/E,Rob Worgan J/E,and an Eng. Cadet who may have been Dickie Ash,can't remember Chief's name but his nickname was "Injector-san" because his theory was that the problems with the engines were caused by an injector fault. I believe that he lived in West Wales.The Mate was the ex-Staff Captain off the "Queen Elizabeth". Mike Snook. Posted on forum 31st January 2011.

Just discovered this site-I was most interested to see Mike Snook's posting on the Welsh City. I joined in Durban as he paid off, in 11/71. I relieved Dickie Ash as J/E. The undersized crank connecting rod piston bolts loosened a few months later, and fortunately the port engine was stopped in time. Dan Trigg set the rod up on the lathe, and Andy Perrott machined it true. Back in the engine, and on our way again. I am currently living in Canberra, and work as a C/E in the offshore industry, based in the Timor Sea, after many years in the BHP Ironships fleet. An excellent site.
Welsh City 11/71-4/72
Joe Thornhill Captain, R Butler Mate, Clancy Collins, 2/M, Joe Challacombe, 3/M, Eddie Mullin, Cadet, Taffy ? Cadet, Dan Trigg C/E, Gavin Tattershall 2/E, Andy Perrott, 3/E, Kevin Walmsley 4/E, Colin Hayles, J D Warne, John Gleeson, Junior/E, Keith Bean Electrician, Bob Peach C/S, plus 2/E (Alex) and Mate's wives. John Gleeson. Posted on forum 18th August 2011.

Disclaimer: The statements on this page are the views of the person who posted them on the forum. The events took place many years ago and in most cases rely on those people's memories, and so we cannot guarantee the accuracy although every effort is made to check it.

Welsh City. Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
Memories from RSL staff. Page No. [1] [2] [3]		 Welsh City/Cornish City Data. Page No. [1]