May 7 2008
May 7 2008
The Engine Room:
Dave Munroe shows Kate Hendry the central nervous system of the engine room.
The people vital to the smooth running of the Palmer, the engineers.
The large, Caterpillar engines that drive the turbines, with Kate Hendry for scale!
Three of the four large generators that provide all the electricity on board.
All the fresh water used on board is made by reverse osmosis of seawater in these silver domes.
One of the ship’s MT’s, Josef Kuehnast, cleaning the aft control room windows!
On Level 0, where all the scientists work away in the labs, there a door off the corridor that we are not ordinarily allowed to go through. This door leads down some steps into a whole different world: the powerhouse of the whole operation. Chief Engineer, Dave Munroe, took Dann Blackwood and me, Kate Hendry, on a tour of the engine room and told us all about how the ship is kept in motion!
The first thing that strikes you when you walk in is the noise: the powerful engines and generators, providing electricity for everything from heating to winches to computers, thunder out deafening rumbles 24 hours a day. The engine room is manned by two people all the time, 24 hours a day, every day the ship is at sea, and anyone on duty really has to be careful about their hearing: ear protection is compulsory for everyone anytime they are in the engine room. They have to rely on signals from different coloured lights to tell them if the phone is ringing, or if there’s a fire alarm. It was so loud that Dave, Dann and I couldn’t talk to each other after we left the control room.
The three silver domes of the water makers meet you when you leave the control room into the main works – all the water on board is purified from seawater by reverse osmosis, which removes the salts to make it drinkable. The ship operates on about 4000-5000 gallons of water each day, feeding everything including the laboratories, galley, laundry rooms and showers in each bedroom. In the same room are four large generators, two of which are operational at each time (unless a particularly energy hungry activity is going on, such as piston coring, when three generators are needed - but we’re not doing anything like that on this cruise). Each generator can produce 1070 kW, but when transiting the whole ship operates on about 700 kW.
You then descend into the depths of the engine room and see the large, main engines. There are only two engines operational at one time, unless the ship is breaking ice, when all four are put into full throttle. The ship uses about 7000 gallons of fuel per day when the two engines are in use: this goes up to 10-12 000 gallons when breaking ice (and the ship can power through three feet of ice at three knots!). The engines have a combined power of nearly 13 000 horsepower.
Linking the engines and the propellers off the stern are enormous shafts, which have been painted with yellow stripes so anyone can tell immediately if they are turning. In fact, the effect is quite hypnotic, like a barber shop sign! The same room also holds the seawater pumps – these provide uncontaminated seawater to feed into the labs for experiments and monitoring, and into the aquarium to keep sea life alive. The last room, leading back into the control room, is the relatively quiet workshop.
Climbing up the stairs back into the familiar labs and corridors, I couldn’t help reflect on the fact that we will be continuously moving for 37 days at sea, always on the go, someone always awake making sure everything is going smoothly, be it science or power supply or navigation. We certainly would not be where we are today without the amazing engineers aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer, who work tirelessly day and night to keep the propellers turning! So, thanks guys!