The Steamboating Forum

Hi Steamboaters everywhere

Good wishes for 2013 and may all your steamboating goals be met.

In the meantime, instead of all these celebrity and other trivia quuizzes, here is a daft question that might be fun to answer.

Imagine one was gifted the amount of aviation fuel that would be necessary to fly one of the typical short haul aircraft from Manchester (UK) to Heathrow (UK) [160 miles]. How many hours steaming would that fuel give in a typical small 20ft steam launch (say Rose hull) burning oil with an ST Swan (twin 2.25" X 2.125") running at (say) 300 rpm?

I will be interested to see your suggestions. No I don't know the answer!

Regards

Pete

Trick question? You say an 'oil' burning boiler, but AvCat is much lighter than either fuel oil or central heating oil...?!?

Greg

No, not tricky for Steamboating Forum folk, given the answers that seem to emerge to what seem to me to be much tougher problems.

Did we not have the Naptha launches that ran on petrol? Admittedly, aviation fuel would probably be a pretty dodgy stuff to use. How about re-working the idea using kerosene?

Scratching about on the Internet reveals that an Airbus A300-600 uses about 1600 gal/hr (6056.656 lit/hr). The flying time from Heathrow to Manchester is about 50 minutes to an hour. So as a first step that gives us about 1600 gallons with which to work.

If that was kerosene rather than AvCat the next issue would be how much steaming could one get from it? I'm out of my depth here...

Regards

Pete

One of our Scottish members, who shall remain nameless, had access to aviation fuel. For a meeting on Loch Lomond he thought this should generate plenty of steam. The smoke screen he set up would have been the envy of a WW2 convoy escort! Plus his boiler became completely sooted up in about 30 minutes!!
So the answer is - not very far.
Plus there is the time taken to clean the oily soot from the boiler and to clean oneself up afterwards. Plus the time taken to find a suitable place to dispose of the unused fuel in an environmentally friendly manner, without having to sell the boat to pay the costs.
Have a Very Good New Year everyone.
Gudmund

Wow!

I never imagined anybody would really try it!

I heard mention of about 2litres/hr for a typical oil burning SBA boat, so that makes 3,028hrs. At (say) 6hrs steaming in a day then one might get about 505 days.

Of course, my sums may all be wrong... Anybody do any better?

Regards

Pete

Hi Pete,

Avcat is made up of 8 to 16 atom paraffin molecules, used it by the thousands of gallon per hour when testing engines at Royce's. SG is about .8 and heat is about 46 Mj per kgm so the sums are easy if you assume 19,800 Btu per pound and a gallon (UK) at 8 lb. You could use a Lune Valley burner if you don't mind the noise!

John

I get about 1gal/hr with kerosene and a clear stack (vaporizing burner) at full throttle, which equates to about 1333hrs/20min or a little over 222days

Now, how far one would get all depends on the boat...

I would get around 11,333miles/1,760ft at my speed of 8.5mph with poor vacuum and only 125psi on the clock.

I'm closer to 10 lt per hour on oil but wouldn't consider gas because of safety issues. Have you noticed how many Naptha launches are left?? Den

farmerden wrote:I'm closer to 10 lt per hour on oil but wouldn't consider gas because of safety issues. Have you noticed how many Naptha launches are left?? Den

If you believe the above your probably also believe that there's a Grinch. But Christmas occurred this year and therefore there are no more Grinches.

Most Napatha launches did not burn to the waterline or explode. Their power plants were removed and processed to further the killing of people during WWI and WWII.

Thanks folks.

Nice to have something technical but not quite serious on the agenda for New Year's Eve.

Good job we have the Forum. I was in the mood to slump in front of the TV but despite all these channels, I cannot say there is anything I would wish to watch. I think conversation has a lot going for it, though my dearly beloved crew pefers to read...

Happy New Year to one and all.

Regards

Pete