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Herbiev

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Hi all. Just doing a bit of research on paddle-steamers on the Murray river here in Oz and came across this little gem of information.

The boiler of the Mary Ann 1853

William Randell’s PS Mary Ann was the first steamer to trade on the Murray. The only surviving relic of this famous boat is its boiler.


The boiler was generally regarded as the weakest part of the set up. “According to Mabel Kinmont, Randell’s grand-daughter, it seemed that when the boiler was fired up, it expanded almost beyond belief and made enough noise to frighten even the most intrepid supporter of steam power.”

To control it, a chain was wrapped around its middle and wooden wedges were driven between the chain and the sides, However, even with the chain in place, when the vessel was proceeding at high speed the sides and top of the boiler would swell in and out like a concertina.

“When the fire first started, the engineer, probably William’s brother Elliott, made a hasty retreat for the bank and from the shelter of a large gum tree waited until he could hear the regular beat of the pistons”

The deficienciesof the Mary Ann were soon realised and in the face of superior competition it was scrapped in 1854. For a few years its hull was re-used as one half of the twin hulled Gemini. The old boiler was simply ditched in the river.

About 40 years later, with the steamer industry at its peak, the historic value of the abandoned boiler was first realised. James Scott, an engineer working for William Randell, salvaged the boiler. Randell had told Scott that if he wanted to pull the boiler out it would have to be in his own time.

http://www.psmarion.com/images/images/william_randell/boiler_2.png

Thank goodness regulations are now in place ;D
 
Very interesting not many stays for a box boiler. There was no mention of the pressure but to me even 10 psi looks like a bad idea with that design. Are you going to build the Mary Ann or the Marion?
http://www.psmarion.com/html/william_randell.html

My trip down under in the 80's included checking the head waters of the Murray in the Snowy Mountains. I wanted to paddle it but it was raining every day and I could not talk my wife into paddling in the rain. I had my Klepper 2 seat folding kayak with me.

Dan
 
Hi Dan,

PS Marion has been fully restored and works as a passenger vessel out of Mannum South Oz. It's been a few years now but I have been engineer aboard her. She gets through around 0.5 tons of mallee wood per hour of steaming and by the end of the day your back sure knows it. The boiler is a loco type working at 125psig with a 2 cylinder simplex twin mounted on top of the boiler. The paddles were originally rope drive from the engine. In their "Wisdom" the restorers replaced this with a bull wheel and pinion. The major problem with this is the engine and boiler expand forward but the bearing and block on the end of the crankshaft holding the pinion is fixed to the hull. Loads the hell out of the mains and big ends.

You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink springs to mind

Best Regards
Bob
 
Hi Dan. I would like to build the Marion but I think I will stick with a convential round boiler ;D
 
Actually that has got to be the scariest looking boiler I've ever seen......

Dave
 
steamer said:
Actually that has got to be the scariest looking boiler I've ever seen......

Dave

I forget where but I remember reading that Square/rectangular boilers were limited to 4psig. No wonder the bloody thing groaned a bit at 10 :eek: :eek: :eek:

Groaning boiler reminds me of when I first went to sea, we had this massive scotch marine as our auxiliary boiler, It was around 20' diameter, 11ft long and wet backed it worked at 200psig. After refit one of the stokers was told to put warming flashes 10min on 10 min off until steam at the air cock. Then STOP.

I arrived late in the afternoon to find him with all 3 furnaces alight and going gangbusters. "I'm F$$$ed if I know, but I cant' get steam to the air cock." :mad: :mad: :mad:

This particular boiler had an Aulds valve for the air cock and likewise for the pressure gauge. They didn't have hand wheels but had a Cross on the end of the spindle. Both these valves had been replaced on the boiler 900 out of whack and couldn't be opened or closed due to a pipe fitting neatly into the "V" of the Cross. When I took the Crosses off the spindles and tried the valves with a shifter. The air cock nearly blew me off the top of the boiler and there was 150psig in the drum. Poor thing was still cool to the touch on the blowdown and not all that hot on the top, despite the pressure. When all was shut down and things were quiet you could certainly hear it protest groaning and cracking for the next 12 hours whilst things evened out. How we did not collapse a furnace, I don't know.

Best Regards
Bob
 
Dave,
Yes I have to agree that is the scariest boiler I have ever seen also. I knew about box or rectangular boilers as they were used on the early Civil War ironclads, but nothing that crude.

Here is a very interesting link with a lot of boiler drawings for early naval ships. It includes drawings failures of the box type boilers.
http://www.cityofart.net/bship/boiler_menu.html#nav

Dan
 
Bob, I was only speculating with 10 psig, it is not always easy to find the design pressure for old boiler drawings. It is stated in the report of the HMS Thunderer disaster as 30 psig. It is easy to see why new designs were needed.
http://www.btinternet.com/~philipr/thexp.html

To make this type of marine boiler even a bit scarier you have to think about the feed water. It was pumped from what ever water the ship was in. This means salt water for ocean trips. Even 30 psig can be way too much for plates wasted by salt water corrosion.

Dan
 
Dan,

During WWII the Royal Navy conscripted many of the then North Sea trawlers. Theses were almost universally powered by a scotch boiler and a triple or compound engine. They were also operated using sea water for the feed. As part of our training on using a boiler as an evaporator to obtain pure feed water, there was much discussion on the problems encountered with these trawlers, when it was attempted to take them off their sea water diet. Apparently the introduction of fresh, (let alone distilled), water gave rise to huge amounts of leaking tubes, as well smoke box to furnace, furnace to shell and wrapper plate rivet leaks. The solution, put them back on their sea water diet. Corrosion control such as it was, was achieved by using copious quantities of sacrificial zinc anodes inside the water space.

I think you hit the nail on the head when you referred to going from salt to fresh and back again. As I understand it this played havoc with the salt deposits on adjoining surfaces and Jenolan Caves was the result.

Best Regards
Bob
 
Bob,
Thanks for the information about salt water boilers. I had tried to find out when they went out of favor but my collection of old Marine Engineering text books do not have much on the subject. I would have thought they did not make it much past WW1. What pressure were the trawlers operating at?

Herbie,
I really like the simplicity of PS Mary Ann with open deck machinery. You could make a boiler that looked like the early boiler only make the round part the pressure shell and the box the casing.

Dan
 
Dan,

I don't know the pressure, but most of the coasters which came up the river Lune when I was a kid were around 100psig.

Best Regards
Bob
 
Hi Dan. Great website. I like the idea of the round boiler in the square case idea. :bow:
 
Dan,

Found some more bumf on operating boilers on salt water, Navy style

Cylindrical boilers may be operated on salt water for up to 500 hrs provide the density is maintained at no more than 350 Admiralty.

After a bit of faffing around, this equals an SG 0f 1.0875, which is some 12% by weight of NaCl or around 120000 ppm. Then a full waterside clean is required.

Just added all of that to Bob's glossary of useless knowledge ;D

Best Regards
Bob
 
After the Mary Ann's successful 1853 voyage on the Murray River, in Australia. William & Elliot were summoned to give evidence at an Inquiry Into The Navigation Of The Murray. They testified that, because of the 1/4-inch cast iron plate, the best available in the colony, that was used to build the boiler, they were only able to use 28psi, down from the 80psi that steam engine was designed for.

http://users.esc.net.au/~pereilly/wrr.htm

Peter.
 

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