Sparks from the funnel

[Christopher Tennant]

To all you ex Fyffes engineers that served on the motor ships, do you recall seeing this?
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Not sure if the image attached but sure someone will let me know.

[Chris Allman]

Seen it on the L+H ship Ronsard - it was a Scavenger Fire - it also left very black and wet sooty stains on the boat deck, accommodation and everything aft of the funnel.which took ages to clean up.

[Russ Lowdon]

Re sparks from the funnel
Hi Christopher
I remember the sparks well, I sailed on Fyffes Mv Zent from 1959 till 1960 as a first tripper.I remember us having a few scavenge fires on our trips to Tiko West Africa.I was on the 12-4, The Zent had a 9Cylinder B&W main engine and the fire would start in either the 5 bank or the 4 bank of cylinders.
The third engineer would very calmly just lift the fuel valves from the cam, open the throttle a bit more and let the fire burn itself out!- ok except that the forward bank was very near to our fuel day tanks! and - The Chief Officer was not amused at the burn holes appearing in his newly erected tropical awnings
or the newly holystoned wooden decks!!

[happy daze john in oz]

I do recall something similar on a UCl when the chef burned the toast one day.

Set all the bloody fire alarms off.

[Ivan Cloherty]

or the newly holystoned wooden decks!!

I was one of those (not on that ship) that had just holystoned the deck and had to do it all again, the holystone felt bigger than me. Sailed on a number of ships with B & W engines and it was a frequent occurrence, mind you being evil little barstewards we always forgot to close the engineers portholes on the next mornings washdown

[Malcolm Lawrence]

Never sailed on the motor boats but do remember sparks and black smuts coming out of the Roatan and Rio Cobre steamer funnels, made a right mess.

[John Arton]

Sailed on a number of ships that suffered from scavenge fires but my question to the engineers here is, always had spark arrestor fitted in the funnel, were these effective in totally preventing the sparks from a scavenge fire shooting out of the funnel and did they need cleaning after each incident?
Rgds
J.A.

[David Sayer]

With the advent of heavy fuel as opposed to diesel scavenge fires were common on Doxfords.. Had been told you could blow/burn them out. Never managed it. Found it easier to shut down and get the residue out of the trunking then under weigh again. It also meant a re-ring job at the next port or if you were in calm seas at sea. cannot recall seeing flames/sparks out of the funnel as the exhaust was passed through the Boilers en route to the funnel, just a plume of oily black smoke drifting aft No problem for the C/O as I was on tankers(BP and LOF)

[Steve Townend]

Hi,
I was Cadet / Jun / 4th & 3rd Eng with Fyffes....... Scavenge fires were almost ( not quite ) common practice, we usually slowed down to a tick over and blew it out !!!!! Those were the days........ sailed on all the 'M' boats and of course 'Darien' what a mare that was !!!!! Any past friends still around ???

Steve

[Christopher Tennant]

Hi Steve: I remember your name on the crew lists but never had the pleasure of sailing with you.
I’ve seen a few names from our era on these pages. Ron Kirby and Nigel Hibbard.