T&T: Cleaning fuel tanks in other days

[Elliott Bray]

John's ("Seahorse") comments on cleaning fuel tanks brought back memories
that I thought should be shared.

There will be a quiz at the end to guess when these events occurred....

While an undergraduate I worked on Sabine Transportation Co. oil tankers (3
summers and 2 Christmas holidays) to pay for school. One summer while
working as an Ordinary Seaman on the day shift we were scheduled to go into
Galveston's Todd shipyard for a new bottom and repairs. In order to go into
the yard all the tanks had to be aired out and cleaned.

This whole evolution started as soon as we left Charleston Harbor headed for
Galveston.

While the engineers pumped seawater into the center tanks (to the point that
there was a 4" head of water pouring over the lid of the tank tops - several
feet in diameter- and flowing across the deck and over the side) the Bosun,
the other deckhand and I started running the Butterworth machines.

Butterworth machines:
Picture an opposed pair of bronze fire hose nozzles rotating vertically and
that base rotating horizontally. Thus, the machine sprayed water in a
spherical pattern.

Washing the tanks:
The Butterworth machine was attached to a 3" flexible hose which in turn was
attached to water lines running under the center catworks. I suspect these
were fire suppression lines and hoses. We would lower these hoses through
access ports on the deck (each tank had several) and the engineers would
pump hot water (I seem to remember hot, soapy water) through the nozzles.
The tanks were 40' deep and after they had sprayed for awhile toward the top
of the tank we lowered the nozzles  down another 15-20 feet to get the
bottom. This process was repeated for each of the access ports in the tank
and then repeated for the other tanks (29 tanks on a T2 tanker).

There were several parts of this phase that were less than pleasant.
The ship had an active motion due to the small amount of ballast, water was
streaming across the deck from the tank tops, and the Bosun was in such a
hurry to get this finished that he wouldn't wait until the water had drained
out of the hose when it the time came to move the hoses. Pulling 30' of hot
water filled hoses out of one access port to move to the next was a good way
to keep fit. It didn't seem worth asking where the washwater went.

Airing the tanks:

There were wire cables strung about 20' above the tanktops from the After
house to the Midships house and forward to the Forecastle. Big canvas chutes
(big Windsocks) were suspended from these cables and dropped down into the
tanks through the tanktops. The chutes had wings at the top which could be
oriented to catch the breeze. If recollection serves, there was one
windchute per tank and they were put up at least a day before actual tank
cleaning began.

Tank cleaning:
The tanks were 40' deep with steel stairs starting at the tanktops. The crew
were sent down with little metal dustpans and little wire whiskbrooms. We
would scoop whatever accumulations of rust and debris we found between the
stringers into 5-gallon paint buckets which were hauled to the top and
emptied over the side. Occasionally you would find gasoline/water mixture
filled rust blisters as you went about cleaning.  Talk about a cheap drunk!!

I don't remember seeing any breathing apparatus although I seem to think
some were available if rescue were necessary.

This whole endeavor took up most of the voyage.

There should be clues enough to at least get close on the time - at least
the decade.

Thanks for the bandwidth.

****************
Elliott Bray, wintering in Austin,TX
M/V Letitia - Gulfstar 44 MC
In heated storage in Whitehall, Michigan
www.loopcruiser.com
****************
>
> Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2007 09:02:16 EDT
> From: Truelove39 at aol.com
> Subject:

> In  the three years I spent as an oiler, preceding my engineer's ticket, I

> spent many hours cleaning inside the double-bottoms of a  tanker and in
the FO
> tanks of other commercial boats, so I feel as though I can  write about it

> with some experience. There  is only one "right" way to clean  a fuel
tank. Open
> the tank and get in ityou can and clean  the gunk out by hand.