Naval Stores

There’s a story doing the rounds today about how the MOD has “lost” £6.3 billion in assets. Let me tell you. They are unlikely to find them. The reason being that the twats in the civil service can’t even put a readily recognisable name to much of the stuff.

Examples:

The humble round rubbery think that most of as would know as an ‘O’ ring for the sake of clarity is called ‘Ring Sealing Toroidal’.

A hose clip or “jubilee clip”, as it is usually known,  is “Clamp, hose, wormdrive”

An electrical plastic tie wrap thingy is given the grand name of ‘Strap line Supporting’.

You want a 16mm nut to fit a 16mm bolt? Then look at ‘Nut, Machine’. Mind you that is also the name for every other size of nut as well. May take you some time.

Ever tried your hand at plumbing in the MOD? Just try and find an ‘Olive’ for a compression fitting.(That is the normal description used by plumbers world wide). Found one yet? Me neither. I spent 43 years of my time looking and I still never found what the cretins called them.

Then there is the packaging. Everything received by the MOD is removed from the perfectly able manufacturers packaging and guess what? Repackaged.  Take one 13 amp household fuse. First it is wrapped in tissue. Next it is sealed into a plastic bag. After that there is a wrapping of oily green plastic. Place oily green packaging in corrugated cardboard and seal the whole caboodle in a cardboard box. Finally give it a silly name and a nine digit number. Oh and make sure you obliterate the manufacturers part number while you are about it.

I made the stupid mistake of ordering 200 of the above. I ended up with a mountain of packaging and a small mole hill of fuses.

Don’t get me started on the MOD transport system. I once ordered a complete Reverse Osmosis Plant to be fitted to a ship in refit in Falmouth. After waiting for delivery for days and trying to placate some very angry contractors I eventually tracked the equipment to Faslane nuclear submarine base. And it was only coming from the Depot in Plymouth. 

Engineering as it used to be Part 5. Continued

Now where was I………………………………..?

Oh yes I was in the boiler room. It has been pointed out in the comments that I haven’t given a good description of the properties of superheated steam. Most of us think of steam as the wispy stuff emanating from the spout of the kettle. Wrong. The wispy bit is actually water vapour condensing from steam. It’s the bit you can’t see close to the spout that is steam. 

Pure steam is a transparent gas. At standard temperature and pressure, pure steam (unmixed with air, but in equilibrium with liquid water) occupies about 1,600 times the volume of an equal mass of liquid water. In the atmosphere, the partial pressure of water is much lower than 1 atm, therefore gaseous water can exist at temperatures much lower than 100 °C (212 °F) (see water vapour and humidity).

In the above paragraph you’ll note that you can’t see real steam.

The one thing that may save your life is your hearing. Superheated steam at 600 psi (41 bar) and at a temperature of 800 deg F (426 deg C), makes a noise when it is issuing from a small hole or leaking gland. As I said in my last post don’t believe that noise is a drunken motorman whistling. Another valuable aid involves a piece of stick and a captured sea gull. *Now you really think I’m losing my marbles*  It’s really quite simple. Take one feather, attach it to the stick, hold stick in front of you, and when the feather magically disappears you know the rough vicinity of the steam leak.

Technical bit over for now.

Damn. Lost my train of thought.

Anyway the ship set sail for an exotic location. So I thought. I was wrong. Instead we sail across the Indian Ocean till we nearly hit Africa. Then we stopped. What was our purpose you ask? We were to maintain a blockade of the Rhodesian (Zimbabwe)  port of Beira to stop the import of fuel to the then, white Government of Ian Smith who had declared unilateral independence.

All in all we spent months of that coast. Sometimes at a crawl up the coast, sometimes drifting, even sometimes going in large circles just to break the monotony. Occasionally we would meet up with other ships in the task force and competitive sports would be played. deck Hockey being one of them. All to win that most coveted prize. “The Beira Bucket” (Mentioned in my last post).

The trophy for these sporting activities was a battered old metal bucket which at the end of each sporting contest was hung triumphantly from the winning ship’s yardarm. Now housed in the Portsmouth Naval Museum it remains as a reminder to crews and naval personnel of those Indian Ocean patrols in the years 1966 to 1971.

Decorated with ships names and crests, the bent and battered Beira Bucket is an unusual reminder of those years in the Mozambique Channel, and has been the subject of a number of fond reunions in the past years.

After months of patrol I would happily have kicked the sodding thing over the side.

*Technical stuff alert*. Look away now if you hate technology.

The one thing that I had plenty of time do though, was to actually find out how all this strange machinery worked. Right we’ve had the steam in all it’s forms bit so I’ll give you and idea what to do with it.  First it would meander it’s way through large, lagged pipes until it arrived at the throttles in the engine room. (Think huge tap) . The two throttles, one for forward and one for backwards (Even ships need a reverse gear. Especially if someone shouts out “Iceberg ahead”), were controlled by what looked like large steering wheels.

An actual picture of the control station of The Tidereach

The steam (superheated type) would then whiz over and into the turbine which is made up of steam injection nozzles and rows and rows of  rings with blades on them. Pretty much the same as a modern jet engine.

 

Of course this turbine would spin at several thousand RPM which is not a very practical speed to turn a ships propeller. A bit akin to permanent wheel spin. So just like a car you need a gearbox to achieve an output speed somewhere in the region of 100 RPM.

Whilst all this is going on all that steam wizzing out of the boilers causes the water levels to drop therefore it needs to be replenished. This is where those handy little items, condensers and feed pumps come in. The steam leaving the turbine is no longer superheated, as it has given up much of it’s energy to produce motion, and is now a saturated vapour. This vapour is cooled in the condenser by sea water(Plenty of that. The volume of the oceans and their seas is nearly 1.5 × 109 [sic] cubic kilometers"), and then pumped back into the boilers.

Now you know as much as me about steam engineering. After all I’m qualified as a Motor Engineer.

Are you bored yet?

Next time on Lost Fe’s adventures at sea will be Sembewang, voyage on a destroyer, a broken light bulb (You think I’m joking. Oh No), Japan, and  Ladies of the night, and Portland harbour.

Mind you I might just blog about the local elections or the Royal wedding. Your choice. You have been warned. Don’t blame me if it ends in tears.

Gagging at the MOD

 

It would appear that our lords and masters (Gag) in the Government, want to airbrush any mention of bad news about our armed forces during the election campaign.

Nick Gurr, the MoD's director of media and communications, says 'embeds' for all British news broadcasters and national journalists will be prohibited during the election campaign, expected to begin later this month.

Mr Gurr's memo, written last week, is entitled "Purdah (the period generally known to be between an election being called and taking place)* - Key Principles for Defence Communicators."

It details a string of steps the MoD is taking to minimise the chance of embarrassing disclosures. Information on MoD and armed forces websites, it says, must be 'cleansed.' Official blogs and website must 'report factual information only.' Even internal MoD and service journals must be 'submitted for approval before publication' with 'controversial issues avoided' because 'these get into the public domain'. Another order is that 'Any activity that can be delayed should be.'

Well lads and lassies in government, the media, and especialy the armed forces (I've been there). If you disagree and need a voice contact me here (Either in the comments or via my Email) and I will post it here for you. The Blogosphere will not be silenced just because the government wants an easy ride to a labour victory.

 

H/T to Subrosa

A day in the life of a Marine Engineer

I'll just explain how hard working I am.

Glossary:


FE.......................Filthy Engineer (Me)
Bow....................Pointy bit at the front end of the ship.
Stern..................Blunt bit at the back of the ship.
Poop Deck.........At the back, and the only place to have a fag.
MCR...................Machinery Control Room.
HQ1....................Part of the MCR where firefighting and DC incidents are controlled from
DC.......................Damage control.
R.O. Plant..........Magical fresh water making equipment.
Down below.......Nautical term for Downstairs.
Up Top...............Nautical term for upstairs.
Smokoe..............Strange name meaning Tea break.


0645. Alarm goes of and theFilthy Engineer leaps out of bed. (That bit was utter twaddle).

0700. Make a cup of tea.

0715. Down to the poop deck for a fag or two.

0745. Down below to the MCR and settle down with one of the computers to read E mail, and hide in the background .

0800. The working day starts. Boss starts by asking who has any priority jobs. FE sticks hand up from where he has been busy on the computer pretending to read pompous E mails from his boss.

"Please Boss, I've got some essential maintenance to do on the Refrigeration plant."

Now FE knows that the Boss has never done the refrigeration course and considers that this is one of the black arts akin to alchemy, Turning heat into cold. All I have to mention is that the superheat on the evaporator in the deep freeze room needs resetting and the next hour is mine to do with what I want.

Luckily the Refrigeration Machinery room is close to the poop deck, so a quick fag is in order.

Ok, must show willing, down to the Fridge plant, look in, all is well, but the peeps in the central store are looking bored, so better wander in and chat with them.

Time goes by.

Another Fag on the poop deck.

After Smokoe, Boss nearly catches FE playing solitaire on the MCR computer, but quick as a flash, FE lets it be known that he was just checking the Fresh water tank levels, and that the tanks need filling.

Now as you may realise we all need fresh water to survive. (FE needs water for the copious amounts of duty free whisky he needs for his personal survival). Therefore water making is important. Water making on ships used to be by using steam powered evaporators but is now produced from Sea water using RO plants. (If you have been too lazy to read the Glossary, please do now).

These RO plants look incredibly complicated, and of course my Boss has only worked with an Evaporator and knows nothing about RO plants. Good, thinks FE, I'm on to a winner here.

Right then, off to make water, but first things first. FE sidles over to HQ1 and does the first step in making Fresh water. Turn off the surveillance camera that monitors the RO plants.
Next put on ear defenders. Not because off noise levels in the Machinery space but to stop the Boss from telling FE that he has something else to do like clean out the shithouse treatment plant.

This is where FE should panic. The RO plant looks incredibly complicated with pipes, pumps, valves, wires, filters, membranes, teamakers (made that up), and all sorts of sundries. However FE is an avid reader and has read the instruction manual page 33. The first 32 were dire warnings from the HSE about fires, floods, and pestilence. No need. The RO plant has a touch sensitive display, looking complicated at first glance, especially to the Boss, only needs one command. Press "Start". Voila, off it goes, and there's the FE's morning completed. Fag break beckoned after such hard work, then off to lunch.

Maybe I'll let you know what I did after lunch.

(If the Commodore reads this, tough shit you Tosser, I've retired, and no bullshit about you've signed the official secrets act)

They're dead right.

From an article in the Times today shows that even the MOD are overstaffed with civil servants.

The Ministry of Defence is so stuffed with civil servants that they outnumber the combined manpower of the Royal Navy and the RAF.

The statistic, produced by the Conservatives yesterday to attack the Government’s record on defence manpower, followed condemnation by General Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, a former Chief of Defence Staff, over imbalances between uniform and non-uniformed personnel.

Liam Fox, the Shadow Defence Secretary, said that 16 per cent of the Civil Service resided in the MoD, and that the number of civilian officials (86,620), was about 12,000 more than the Royal Navy (34,830) and RAF (39,260) put together.

I work for the Royal Fleet auxiliary, and worked ashore for a couple of years in an office helping to manage the re-fitting of ships. My job was to collate the work for each ship's refit in my group, and edit each job specification to weed out cost overruns.

Now as most engineers know, it is not an exact science and you can't plan for every eventuality. Because of this we expected a cost overrun on several jobs.

For instance, if you open up a pump for survey you may find that the wear is far more than predicted, therefore extra cost incurred.

To this end we were allowed a package of extra money, usually between 5% and 15% depending on the age of the ship to be refitted.

Our outfit was comprised of 50% uniformed staff and 50% civil servants.

One part of Office was entirely staffed with civil servants devoted to writing specifications for alterations to the vessel, ie new equipment to replace the obsolete stuff. (Every thing wears out in time and can't be fixed)

What shocked me was the length of these specs. Sometimes 20 pages or more with endless waffle. The number of lines stating the bleeding obvious such as, "The contractor will carry out the following work", beggared belief.

Needless to say, often these specs arrived at my desk only just in time to be sent to the various tenderers, which procluded me from giving them the real once over.

5% or 15% overrun?

Bollocks! Some of these came in at 150%. What made it worse, is that for a lot of the specs, they called in outside contractors to write them.

Just to end it all, (Not me) when I went into the office there were 21 ships. Now we have 16 and the office has expanded their personnel by over 25%. Make sense to you? Me neither.

Here is the Time article

I'll write a post about the shipboard workplace sometime.

I've got to fly

Readers may know that I work for the Ministry of defence, and that occasionally have to go and do some work. ( Have I any readers? who cares?)

Anyway, I've to join my ship on the Island of Crete. Simple you would think. Oh no it's not, Not if you work for MOD.

If I was to book my own flight I would have a direct flight lasting 6 hours.

The MOD has arranged this:

Leg 1. Depart Heathrow 1710 hrs
Arrive Amsterdam 1935 hrs

Leg 2. Depart Amsterdam 2035 hrs
Arrive Athens 0050 hrs

Leg 3 Depart Athens 0550 hrs
Arrive Chania 0640 hrs

That's nearly 12 hrs to do the same journey. I cannot believe that's the cheapest option. Apart from the fact that I've got to hang around Athens airport for 5 hours in the middle of the night. I did that in Johannesburg a while back, no fun believe you me.

Mind you, they've contracted out our travel arrangements to a private travel firm.

Mmmmm