Successful Steaming
Posted: Sat May 09, 2015 3:41 pm
I placed a new valve between the injector water intake and the hand pump (the air leaking culprit). I just knew that would solve the plaguing problem but it did not. I had two 5/8 Penberthys and neither worked so I decided to take the smaller one 1/2 in. off of my smaller boat. It had never failed me. I plumbed it in, pressured the boiler to 40lbs of steam, and it would not work either. I wanted to smash it in a punch press but i didn't. My mechanical engineer pride (not smarts )wouldn't let me give up. I decided to try again at 100 lbs. VOILA, it pumped. I remember the 1/2 in. injector working on the small boat at 20 lbs. I do not know why it would not work on "Fearless". INJECTOR ghosts. I put the new 5/8 on and it worked at 100 lbs. I let the boiler cool down to 80 and tried it again with success.
With my first alternate boiler replenishing device working, I headed for the river where I met another mechanical engineer and an MD friend. My launch method is to put a rope on the front of the boat, tie it to the back of the truck, launch with a good shove and then pull the attached rope over to the dock. I backed in, perfect backing, not too far down the ramp, the boat floated off of the trailer. Beautiful except the boat slipped the noose. There goes "Fearless" un-tethered, coasting across the inlet. S**t! I was ready to swim in but there would be no way to get a rope on her from "within the water". Fortunately, a fisherman in a flat bottom boat saw my plight and came to the rescue. He took me out to the boat and I tied the rope around the rear cleat. Man did I tell that guy how thankful I was.
We three boarded and I fired the boiler with charcoal (not such a high energy fuel but burns well). At 100 lbs, we took off. The boiler was about 1/3 full so I tried the injector successfully and with 5/8 a boiler full of water we took off.
With a new drive chain on the condenser pump and the supply pump, I headed out with confidence up river to the Lee Creek tributary. The River was flowing at 72,000 cf/s (40,000 is high) so going up river was a challenge. Occasionally I sighted a point on shore to make sure we were in fact moving up. We were out for 3 hours shocking folks with the whistle and cruising about. All worked well. We loaded the boat up at 8:45 PM, just as dark was creeping in. It was the first successful steaming on "Fearless". And it was great!!
With my first alternate boiler replenishing device working, I headed for the river where I met another mechanical engineer and an MD friend. My launch method is to put a rope on the front of the boat, tie it to the back of the truck, launch with a good shove and then pull the attached rope over to the dock. I backed in, perfect backing, not too far down the ramp, the boat floated off of the trailer. Beautiful except the boat slipped the noose. There goes "Fearless" un-tethered, coasting across the inlet. S**t! I was ready to swim in but there would be no way to get a rope on her from "within the water". Fortunately, a fisherman in a flat bottom boat saw my plight and came to the rescue. He took me out to the boat and I tied the rope around the rear cleat. Man did I tell that guy how thankful I was.
We three boarded and I fired the boiler with charcoal (not such a high energy fuel but burns well). At 100 lbs, we took off. The boiler was about 1/3 full so I tried the injector successfully and with 5/8 a boiler full of water we took off.
With a new drive chain on the condenser pump and the supply pump, I headed out with confidence up river to the Lee Creek tributary. The River was flowing at 72,000 cf/s (40,000 is high) so going up river was a challenge. Occasionally I sighted a point on shore to make sure we were in fact moving up. We were out for 3 hours shocking folks with the whistle and cruising about. All worked well. We loaded the boat up at 8:45 PM, just as dark was creeping in. It was the first successful steaming on "Fearless". And it was great!!