The Steamboating Forum

Excellent, many thanks

Many thanks

This is a nice one which no doubt many have seen as it often pops up in searches. Notice no return to the hotwell (feed and filter tank here) after the feed pumps and then this being activated by a float switch, not sure how common this was in original ship steamplants.

For discussion only!

Thanks Bart! All good stuff. I might make up a new diagram with all these 'options' and some notes. It's amazing how many combinations there can be on these steamplants!

I saw on the Boiler Design Library of the SBA website that the weight for the VFT 102 was 300kg, is this correct? seems high?

Out of interest in terms of getting a feel for steamplant matches of engines to boilers, is this boiler a good size to run a small boat (16ft?) with (as an example) a Stuart ...

Thanks Mike, as I’m learning, I guess I’ve focused on larger systems, compounds, expansion etc, it’s really good to understand the small systems in comparison. Fascinating stuff.

That’s great, thanks for that.

'A' is simply the exhaust, I don't expect to see any kind of pump here.

In the attached image of a basic steamplant, I'd like anyone's opinion on the need for a pump (or pumps) at positions A and/or B (if at all). I appreciate the need for more detail, but at this stage I'm trying to learn how it all works at a high level. I have seen many mentions of an air/water pump ...