Termites Looking for a New Home

Work on the tween deck today. We took down some old (but not historic) wood shelving.

Friends of Falls of Clyde’s president, Bruce McEwan, making the termites unhappy:

Oh the joys of termite frass!

Old signage Bruce found:

Removing the shelving also opened up that particular area. It’s no longer a dark, uninviting space.

Of course, I had to have a look around. Here’s the CLIFF manufacturer’s mark on angle iron riveted to the tank bulkhead with an interesting texture around the margins of the rivets:

The ship’s original iron frames and beams are stamped MOSSEND. Anything stamped CLIFF is an addition.

I wanted to move the rest of the shelving to have a look at the surface of the bulkhead behind it. Oops.

It was heavier than it looked, so I had to abandon that idea. I had visions of me being squashed under it…not good.

The new gangway was making mournful sounds…a distinct improvement from the elephant trumpeting of last week. From inside the ship it sounded rather like humpback whale calls!

Port tank #2 illuminated by sunlight streaming through holes in the deck:

More rust-tea:

Too lazy to empty.

The Shadow of 5:

I received a lovely gift today:

Mahalo Jenny! Beautiful work.

Elsewhere in the harbor…

Two types of rat guards on Rhapsody of the Seas:

And my old friend the needlefish, cruising around looking as toothy as ever:

It’s All a Blur…

One of my favorite pics from the past two and a half weeks: Chris at work in one of the tanks.

Pau

Today was the last day of the FOC photographic hull survey. Bittersweet. We accomplished a lot, but it was sad to see “the crew” leave for the last time.

Discussing the pumping system and remaining work to be done on it:

The last tank to be photographed was Tank 4 on the port side of the ship. We didn’t have time to pump out the ballast water, so we did what we could.

Broken stanchion and water:

Collision = bent and cracked frames. There is more damage beyond the bulkhead in Tank 5.

It has been lovely to have the ship buzzing with activity. I could not help but feel rather down, as I sat alone in my cabin for a while before heading for home.

The old man shouts, the pumps stand by,
Leave her, Johnny, leave her!
Oh, we can never suck her dry.
An’ it’s time for us to leave her!

Fun on a Friday

Some images from yesterday.

Measuring ullage:

Not just one, but two sections of pipe fell to the bottom of this tank.

This leads to the hottest new shipboard craze…

Forget planking! We’ve gone beyond that to…tanking!

Suction line with check valve and strainer in situ in tank:

Second section of pipe recovered and passed up to the weather deck through the tank hatch:

Examining patching (and repatching) done in Tank 5 (starboard):

Oops. It seems the patching has failed.

Looking up again. The only way in and out of the tank:

Finally, a manufacturer’s mark spotted on a steel frame in the tank.:

The steel was added when the ship was converted into a tank ship.

In the Tanks

When I arrived at the ship on Monday the 23rd, the ship was visibly listing to starboard. This was not a surprise considering that we were pumping ballast water between the cargo tanks in order to access their lower levels and that the tank bulkheads have holes in them. No cause for alarm, but strange to walk on a slightly tilting deck.

Over the past week, I’ve had the opportunity to climb down into just over half of the tanks. It’s one thing to look at photos and videos (Brush’s 2009 survey), but quite another to see things for myself…a sobering, but fascinating experience.

Here is the upper part of Tank 2 on the starboard side. Not so bad.

A different world waits at the bottom of the ladder.

Brush taking photos with Esmon and Tony from Leeward Marine assisting:

Interesting detail…bottom of the main mast, which was incorporated into the centerline bulkhead.

And, yes, that’s water leaking through a hole in the bulkhead. The tank on the other side has a higher level of water in it.

A view looking up to the access hatch, giving some idea of the depth of the tank:

Easy Tasks

Saturday turned out to be a lazy sort of day.

The tide was quite low when I arrived at the ship:

Oops. The location of the white paint mark is not quite right. I’m the one who painted it on the hull, so I can be critical. It’s supposed to line up with the vertical double row of rivets. It indicates the location of one of the oil tank bulkheads.

I didn’t feel like doing anything too strenuous, so I decided to do a bunch of whippings…easy, relaxing, and satisfying work. I also cleaned out one scupper that was partially blocked by debris. I need to inspect the rest this coming weekend.

The scuttlebutt is that the upper floor of the Aloha Tower Marketplace is being converted into dorm rooms for HPU students. Lucky sods.

After I left the ship, I went to take a look at Shonan Maru.

Rope mat chafing gear:

More chafing gear:

A fender, I think:

***

The pressure’s on! Slightly less than a month left to get everything ready for the photographic survey of the hull. Eek.

Union Iron Works

When Falls of Clyde was converted into a tanker in 1907, the work of constructing the 10 tanks in her hull was done at Union Iron Works at Potrero Point in San Francisco.

Signage at the SFMNHP visitor center:

Detail:

Some of the old buildings still exist:

The white section in the middle of Building 113 is indicated by a red arrow in the historic image above.

Unfortunately, a lot of the buildings in the area seem to be in poor condition and closed off:

I would have liked more time to look around, but it was getting late.

On another note, this raccoon was spotted taking advantage of a supply of food left out for feral cats:

A joke about it being Joe, FOC’s elusive ship’s raccoon, seemed to be in order. That is, until I looked carefully at the photo and noticed said raccoon appears to be a Joelle!

ETA: Pier 70 San Francisco – Historic Shipyard at Potrero Point

Tanks and Ladders

Another sunny day in Hawai‘i…makes for hot work on an iron ship.

The Friends of Falls of Clyde spent the morning inspecting and taking measurements of the ladders that provide access to the tanks that line the port and starboard sides of the Falls of Clyde.

Some of them were in pretty decent shape.

While others were…well…

New ladders will be installed!