Chapter 4: Tanks a Lot

Chief Warren and I remain with the equipment to insure things get done correctly here while the Tynsalls get back to managing their business affairs in Houston. We use the crew-boat as a water taxi getting back and forth between the repair yard and “SPEEDY”. Speedy is the name the Tynsalls have elected to rename the AHTS. Not appropriate but distinctive.

The spud barge is being internally repaired, framing sistered, reinforced, and all heavily rusted metal like the chine logs replaced prior to the new bottom being welded on. Every morning and evening, I inspect the progress.

Mr Tynsall offered to rent us a car. Warren and I convinced him to buy us a cheap used pickup truck instead. Warren is fixing the pickup’s problems we inherited. Eventually it can be resold and the purchase price recouped. Several yard workers have already expressed an interest in buying it. Warren is a genius mechanic.

Speedy has steering problems. It takes two minutes to shift hard over to hard over. Unacceptable. There are two steering pumps and the slowness is the same with either pump actuated. Warren is investigating the pilot valves. Electric solenoid operated valves that direct the pump pressurized hydraulic fluid into one side of the double acting ram or the opposite side. The problem lies in the number of right angled elbows in the line between the pilot valves and the ram, is my suspicion. One one leg, I count thirteen elbows.

The other leg, I count eleven. Another aspect is the distance between the pumps, reservoir, and pilot valves in the engineroom and the ram back in the rudder room. That remoteness also accounts for needing all the elbows zigzagging around obstruction to bridge the distance. My suggestion to Warren is move the control unit to the rudder room, shorten the distance and flow resistance, and eliminate almost all the elbows. We need to extend wiring for the power unit and the old hydraulic lines can remain in place, but re-purposed as airlines. Steering controls from the bridge and auxiliary helm stations are air operated. So are the throttles. We agree this is our best option. First, we have to rebuild the disassembled 6-71 genset. Can’t go anywhere without at least one backup generator.

Neither Warren nor I are content with our pay rates. We are accustomed to being paid better. We are paid by the day, that’s standard practice. No overtime, since we aren’t paid by the hour. Ask yourself, how many unpaid extra hours would you volunteer for? We neither. We work eight to five. The boat trip to and fro, adds another half hour daily. We make sandwiches in our our hotel room to sackup and bring with us to work for our lunch. And a big thermos of sweet iced tea. I use the instant tea powder. Convenient, not good.

All the fuel on board is being centrifuged and pumped to the day tanks. The bunkers are being stripped. We plan to Butterworth the tanks. A Butterworth machine is a high volume, high pressure tank washing device, with multiple nozzles. It spins in all directions at high speed. It requires high amperage electricity, a continuous source of clean water, and a high volume pump out with oil water separation into separate storage tanks.

All this equipment is too heavy to manhandle. We need cranes.

The first crane I install is bolted to the bulwarks amidship. It’s a hand operated engine hoist, or 55 gallon drum hoist, designed for mounting in the bed of a pickup truck. With this small crane, I can hoist on board a larger hydraulic boom crane. That one’s big enough to lift aboard the components of a permanent sixteen ton stiff leg crane. It’s a bootstrap operation, see?

Day by day, we make progress. The fuel tanks and potable water tanks are sparkling clean. Heaters are now warming the interiors of water tanks to dry them out prior to painting with zinc chromate. We already ragged them as dry as possible.

Once again, Warren is polishing the fuel through the centrifuge and transferring it to a clean bunker. The day tanks will be Butterworthed next, when they’re empty. We are running the genset with fuel in a five gallon bucket that needs constant replenishing. The 6-71 60 kw genset burns about hundred gallons a day, between four and five gallons an hour. We only use it while we are aboard, eight hours a day roughly speaking.

Everyday, I jot down items we need or will need in the notebook I always carry. A measuring tape is always clipped to my belt, and a sheath knife. Sheath knives are illegal to be worn aboard US flag vessels. Ten dollar per day fine on the Master if he allows his crew to ignore the regulation. I ain’t crew. I AM the Master. The reason for discouraging sheath knives is to avoid knife fights. As the Master, I’m allowed firearms to quell mutiny. Certainly, I can carry a knife!