July 2025

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Following the dry visual inspection by the Boiler Inspector, our 1935 Admiralty-built boiler was passed fit for service subject to a successful steam test. The only matter for attention was to the Boiler Room pressure gauge, which when separately tested appeared a little ‘slow’. This was packed off to Messrs Instruments and Gauges of Banks, Southport, who had recently overhauled our set of Engine Room gauges, for overhaul and re-calibration. This was returned suitably certificated and duly refitted. The boiler was filled; the top and bottom access doors refitted with new joints and various covers and the funnel cap removed for steaming. This took place during the week commencing Monday 21 July, small fires being lit over successive days with steam being raised for the Boiler Inspector’s Thursday inspection. With dampers wide open and large fires in both furnaces in order to produce maximum steam generation, the safety valves lifted at 180psi with their usual ‘bang’, the pressure being held well within requisite tolerances before shutting with a ’pop’ as dampers were shut. All very satisfactory. This necessary steaming gives us the opportunity to test and run all the vessels steam plant including the main engine, general service and boiler feed pumps, the 24-volt Stuart steam generator, bilge ejector and boiler feed injector. All was satisfactory apart from the main engine crosshead-driven condenser water circulator pump. This had not been on the list of items to be overhauled over the last winter, so it was decided to strip down and check the pump pistons and valves. The latter are vertical valves comprising of a heavy-duty rubber disc that sits up against a circular metal cage which allows seawater from the keel suction to be pumped through the condenser cooling steam from the main engine to water and returned to the boiler. As can be imagined, raw sea/river water carries all sorts of muck and silt which builds up in the pumps impairing their performance somewhat!! Once all surfaces are cleaned and components overhauled new piston rings will be fitted and we should be good to go. Up on deck, the paint system applied to the funnel seems to have survived its first steaming, so we are keeping our fingers crossed that we have found the solution to the scabbing episode.

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