Tugboat Startup Procedure

Tugineer:

Those are great engines and are very common on tugboats.

I can e-mail you a 171 page manual in pdf form on their application and installation, It has plenty of diagrams and relevant information that you will find useful.

If you email me here at CR4 with an email address I can send it to, I would be happy to do so. If you click on my name it will bring you to my CR4 info page and then click on "Send Greg G a message".

Regards,

Greg

Don't you think that the employer would have such information available for a new hire? I wouldn't have sent him any info unless I knew he was legit!

Bayliner:

Of course I considered everything you mentioned, and a lot more: you don't just stumble into a responsible job on a tugboat, without some knowledge and/or experience. But this is a casual forum, so how in the world would you go about verifying that someone posting here was legit? I've been fooled many times, but I follow my instincts and they have served me well overall. In this case, the consequences of me being fooled were (except for a few wasted minutes) zero. He came here with a specific question and a request for "any info". So although, like you , he was a first time poster, he passed the "sniff" test if you will, for what I sent him. I have no reason to believe he is not legit. If I can help someone whose request seems "reasonable", I will try.

By the way, do you by any chance sell manuals? Why in the world would it bother you that I sent him something? Could that be what this is about? Or do you suspect something sinister afoot? I considered that also, but the chances are small and the information was relatively innocuous from that standpoint. Additionally, his question wasn't exactly of the "I want to learn how to take-off and fly a jet liner but not how to land it" variety. If I do think someone is trying to pull something, I'm not at all shy about saying so.

Try to "lighten up" a little, there are no certainties in this life .... except that it will end.

Welcome to CR4!

Greg

just a quick reply to ease bayliners concerns. i have worked on tugboats for many years, but this type of electrical engine will be new to me. i am very dedicated to the work i do and just wanted to learn as much as i could before starting the job.

Tugineer:

I sent the manual to the email address you provided.

Its a 5MB file. If you have any problems receiving it, get back to me, and I can re-send it.

Good Luck!

Greg

Hi Tug Boat Engineer

If you have specific questions, once you get into this, I can likely help. It's been a few years since I played with 3508s, but I worked for a large Cat engine dealer and my memory will return if jogged. There is nothing special to do with a 3508 (not like it's older brother the D379) to start / stop it each day other than normal walk around and fluid level checks and a cool down period while you tie up.

Turbochargers get pretty hot, although yours are likely water cooled to keep the engine room temp down, as well as exhaust manifolds water shielded, and shutting down any diesel engine hot (hot meaning after a hard pull where the oil temperature is hot) is bad for the following reasons. It is hot lube oil that kills you, not hot jacket water, on a hot shutdown. The hot engine oil lubricating a hot turbo bearing will turn to coke and block up the oil pressure line if you shut 'er off screaming hot.

The time you spend pulling into a dock and tying up is plenty of low load time to cool down the lube oil. Lube oil is obviously a lubricant but it is also a coolant to cool turbo bearing center cartridge and the under side of your pistons. The oil picks up tons of heat and exchanges the heat to the lube oil cooler which is cooled by the closed circuit engine jacket water which is in turn cooled by the keel cooler.

The power the propeller(s) takes varies with the cube of the speed of the propeller so you can see that if you make low turns coming in to dock the load drops off VERY rapidly. Low engine load equals low piston crown temps, low bearing loads and low oil temps.

Maybe Greg's 3508 pdf file manual will have an "Installation Checklist" or "Before Each Start".

Forgot to add . . . you might find something fun in the drilling rig daily engine report log:

http://www.iadc.org/cgi-local/product.php3?ID=FENGINELOG

$10. Cheap.