MARCO Shipyard Delivers Ahead Of Schedule

A few weeks before scheduled delivery of the first of two new 104 ft. (31.6 m) pilot for the San Francisco Bar Pilots, Marco Shipyard Seattle managers were anticipating a smooth, ontime delivery — but everything changed during the vessel's first sea trial.

"At that late date we realized that the keel coolers that we specified and purchased were not adequate to cool the diesel generators. After we had already purchased the generator sets and the keel coolers, the diesel engines' specifications, including heat rejection, were changed by their manufacturer," says Bob McMahon, Marco Shipyard's vice president and general manager.

McMahon contacted Duramax Marine, the manufacturer of the new DuraCooler keel coolers used on the pilot boats. A few days later Marco had new keel coolers with special, extralong nozzles to give the coolers more stand-off from the hull and extra tubes for more cooling capacity.

The second vessel is scheduled for trials the end of March, and both boast Lo- Rez soft mount systemfor twin propulsion engines. The Lo-Rez system utilizes six BR4-TLS steel-spring isolators and a 25-RT flexible coupling for each of the four engines.

Constructed completely of steel, the twin-screw San Francisco has a beam of 30 ft. (9 m) and a depth of 13 ft. (3.8 m).

A pair of diesel engines provides a combined 2,200 hp to drive the vessels 64- in. diameter Sound Propeller NiAlBr props through Twin Disc gear boxes.

Other equipment-makers onboard include Furuno, Transas, SEA.

For more information circle the corresponding numbers on the Reader Service Card:

Other stories from June 2001 issue

Content

Maritime Reporter

First published in 1881 Maritime Reporter is the world's largest audited circulation publication serving the global maritime industry.