Page 8: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (April 1969)

First of Four 15,000-HP Reduction Gears Delivered To Ingalls By Lufkin Foundry For 34,000-Dwt Diesel Propelled Tankers Lufkin Foundry and Machine Company has delivered the first of an order of four 15,000-hp Lufkin Mod-el HDL 6640 marine reduction gears which will be coupled with diesel en-gines for oceangoing tankers. This is the first such application of diesel power in major U.S.-flag commercial vessels of this size and capacity. The 34,000-dwt tankers will have an overall length of 669 feet 8 inches, a cargo capacity of 300,000 barrels and a speed of 16.6 knots. Their ultimate use will be as tank-ers chartered to the Military Sea Transportation Service. Owners of the ships will be Falcon Tankers. Inc., New York. Ingalls Shipbuild-ing Corp., Pascagoula, Miss., will build the vessels around the engine packages, which are too large to in-stall in completed ships. Lufkin's gear unit was sent to Pas-cagoula, where it will be coupled with the engine, built by Fairbanks Morse Inc., division of Colt Industries, with home offices in Beloit, Wis. Fair-banks Morse manufactures the 12-cylinder Model 38A20 diesel engines, which exceed the power output of any diesel engines now made in the United States. Rated at 1,250 hp per cylinder at 450 rpm, the engines are more com-pact than other current marine die-sels with a comparable power output, a feature expected to cut operating costs and increase the vessels' ca-pacity for cargo, fuel and equipment. Weighing a total of 196,000 pounds, it is the largest gear unit ever designed and built by the Lufkin, Texas manufacturing firm. The bull gear alone weighs 32,000 pounds and has a 46-inch face width and 91.267-inch OD. The gear box holds 715 gallons of lubricating oil. The main gear lube-oil pump is of the automatic reversing type, with a rated output of 140 gpm, an auxiliary electric motor pump rated at 15 hp and a 90-gpm capacity, which is utilized for standby and prelube. The unit was set up for unmanned engine room operation by means of monitoring devices added to the lube-oil system. Installed in a 16-foot by 16-foot by 9-foot gear box, the unit consists of one high-speed gear set and one low-speed gear set. It utilizes a Fawick dual-element 46VC1200 brake mount-ed on the reduction gear intermediate shaft. Power is transmitted to the gear box through a special combina-tion 18CB Holset coupling and Fa-wick dual-element 51VC1600 air clutch. It is a double-reduction in-line gear, providing 111.3 propeller rpm at an engine speed of 450 rpm. The overall ratio is 4.047:1. The propeller thrust is carried by a special Kingsbury 43-inch thrust bearing built into the gear unit. The bearing was designed to take a nor-mal thrust of 235,000 pounds, a bol-lard thrust of 300,000 pounds and a reverse thrust of 200,000 pounds. John Stevens Joins Ship Design Firm As Vice-President J. B. Hargrave, Naval Architects, Inc., of 205Sixth Street, West Palm Beach, Fla., has announced the appointment of John N. Stevens as vice-president. Mr. Stevens will be in charge of the commercial design section of the firm. The company, best known for pleasure craft designs, has ex-perienced a substantial increase in commercial work and maintains a full-time staff in that department. Recent and current projects include a fast aluminum ferry, a 300-pas-senger sightseeing boat, two drift fishing boats, a 72-foot fiberglass trawler and an 81-foot steel trawl-er. Large vessel work includes the structural design of a 44.000-ton oil and bulk-carrying barge. Prior to joining the Hargrave firm, Mr. Stevens was assistant vice-president, Far East operations, for National Bulk Carriers, Inc., in charge of shipbuilding in Japan. He had previously held positions as consultant to Mitsubishi Heavy In-dustries, Ltd., vice-president of Naess Shipping Company, New York, and assistant manager, Ma-rine Department. Standard-Vacu-um Oil Company. Todd Shipyards Corp. Buys Engineering Firm Sells Products Division Todd Shipyards Corporation has announced that it has completed the purchase of Designers & Planners, Inc., of New York and Galveston, a naval architecture and marine en-gineering firm, and has executed for-mal agreements for the sale of its Products Division to Combustion Equipment Associates, Inc., of New York. Designers & Planners was ac-quired for 18,000 shares of Todd Shipyards Corporation stock. The sale of the Products Division and investment in related subsidiary com-panies in England and Canada was for cash in excess of $2-million. John T. Gilbride, Todd's presi-dent stated that Designers & Planners will be a wholly owned Todd subsidi-ary and will increase Todd's marine de-sign and engineering capabilities in view of the anticipated heavy work-load in ship construction and conver-sion fields. Designers & Planners will, however, continue to operate autonomously in order to offer serv-ices to all segments of the maritime industry. The Products Division and the sub-sidiary companies manufacture and market gas and oil burning combus-tion equipment, which products do not fit into Todd's announced diversi-fication objective of further growth in the metal die casting and plastic injection molding equipment fields. Such equipment is now manufactured and marketed by Lester Engineering Company, Cleveland, Ohio, a 99-per-cent-owned subsidiary of Todd. Paceco To Build Alumina Unloader For Baltimore Pier The bulk handling division of Pa-ceco, Alameda, Calif., has been awarded a contract to design and manufacture an alumina unloader to be installed at Hawkins Point Cargo Pier in Baltimore, Md. The unloader will have a handling capacity of approximately 1,000 tons per hour, stand 105 feet high and have an outreach of 79 feet. It is being built under contract with Bechtel Corporation, which is serving as engineer-constructor for Eastalco Aluminum, Buckeystown, Md. Eastalco is a subsidiary of Pe-chiney Enterprises Inc. and Howmet Corp., which are building an alumi-num reduction plant near Frederick, Md. The plant will receive the alu-mina?a raw material basic to the production of aluminum?from Bal-timore by rail car. Paceco engineers are designing an elaborate dust collecting system for the unloader, since the powdery alumina easily escapes in the form of dust while being handled. Start-up of the unloader is sched-uled for early 1970. Jeffboat To Build Twin-Screw Towboat Jeffboat, Inc., Jeffersonville, Ind., was contracted by Humble Oil & Re-fining Co., Houston, Texas, to build a twin-screw towboat. Designated Hull No. 2247, it will have dimen-sions of 90 feet by 28 feet by 10 feet 6 inches and will be equipped with 1,700-total-bhp diesels. TOWING INDUSTRY SYMBOL?A mounted bronze propeller was presented recently to the Department of Transportation as a symbol of the nation's barge and towing indus-try. The propeller is from the tug Foss No. 12, a retired unit of the Foss Launch & Tug Company fleet. The propeller was presented to Secretary of Transportation John A. Volpe in ceremonies at the Department of Transportation. The presentation was made by Braxton B. Carr, president of The American Waterways Operators, Inc., the national association of the barge and towing industry, of which Foss Launch & Tug Company is a member. Participants in the ceremony were, left to right: Mr. Carr, F. A. Mechling, executive vice-president, A. L. Mechling Barge Lines Inc., Joliet, III., chairman of AWO's Legislative Committee; G. W. Gladders, president, G. W. Gladders Towing Com-pany, Inc., St. Louis, Mo., immediate past chairman of the board of AWO; George H. Blohm, vice-president and general manager of Cities Service Tankers Corporation, New York City, newly elected chairman of the board of AWO; and Secretary Volpe, with hands on the propeller. View of 1 5,000-hp Lufkin Model HDL 6640 marine reduction gears being shop assembled 10 Maritime Reporter/Engineering News