On 03/22/2017 03:11 PM, Vic Smith wrote:
On Wed, 22 Mar 2017 11:20:53 -0500, philo wrote:

Right now I'm reading the book "The Sand Pebbles" a Navy tale that took
place in 1926 China.

Though the author, Richard McKenna give a great explanation of the
ship's engine I really wanted to see the thing so found this:




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xsfEv0v5bA


That's a small one. I was a watertender (CG license lingo for
boilerman) on a couple Great Lakes ships with triple expansion steam
engines. The Standard Oil "Indiana" and Cleveland Tankers "Rocket."
There were a number of them steaming circa '71.
I think they were all scrapped by the '80's.





The one in the video, if it's like the one in the book was from about
the year 1900. The story takes place in 1926 and the engine is described
as obsolete.

Amazing how little I know about steam engines.

As to the Great Lakes, I've lived in Milwaukee 80% of my life and love
the Great Lakes...to me all the other lakes in this world are just puddles.

A friend of mine who works at the airport said a guy came in from New
Jersey and asked him what ocean was that out there.