Page 22: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (July 15, 1981)

W.B. Buhrmann Elected

President Of Newly Formed

U.S. Steel Companies

Thomas Marshall, group vice president-resource development of

U.S. Steel, has announced the for- mation of subsidiary companies to pursue commercial shipping and vessel management business on the Great Lakes. In making the announcement, Mr. Marshall said: "This move will enable us to fully develop profitable Great

Lakes shipping opportunities with outside parties as has been done so successfully in our ocean ship- ping business with the Navios group of companies."

USS Great Lakes Fleet, Inc. will contract with commercial shippers for hauling bulk mate- rial cargoes in both the Great ==MVI OILS—

Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway shipping trades. USS Great Lakes

Fleet Services, Inc. will contract with vessel owners to provide management services.

At the same time, J.P. Elverdin, vice president-shipping for U.S.

Steel, announced that William B.

Buhrmann has been elected pres- ident of the new companies, which will have their headquar- ters in Duluth, Minn. A veteran of 30 years of service connected with mill and vessel operations,

Mr. Buhrmann has been general manager-lake shipping since 1976.

William B. Buhrmann

He began his U.S. Steel career at the Homestead (Pa.) Works.

In 1955, he became a foreman in the structural mill, and two years later was named its general foreman-operations. In 1964 Mr.

Buhrmann became superintend- ent of the Homestead Works'

Wheel and Axle Division. Four years later, he returned to the main Homestead plant as assist- ant division superintendent, slab and plate, and in 1970 became di- visional superintendent in charge of that unit. In July 1972, he was promoted to assistant to the gen- eral superintendent of Homestead

Works, leaving that post in 1973 to become manager of operations for the Great Lakes Fleet.

Valley Line Asks Title XI

For $90.1-Million Barge

And Towboat Project

The Valley Line Co., a subsid- iary of Chromalloy American Cor- poration, 120 South Central Ave- nue, St. Louis, Mo., has applied for Title XI guarantees to aid in financing 240 new covered hopper barges and refinancing three ex- isting towboats and 53 used hop- per barges. The proceeds of the refinancing will be used to provide equity for the new barges.

The new barges will be of two different sizes. Thirty-five will be 200 feet long, the remainder 195 feet. Jeff boat, Inc., Jeffersonville,

Ind., has been named to build the 200-foot barges. St. Louis Ship, a division of Pott Industries, St.

Louis, will build 130 of the 195- foot barges. Cargo Carriers Inc.,

Pine Bluff, Ark., will build 60, and Twin City Shipyards, St.

Paul, Minn., will build the remain- ing 15.

The vessels are expected to be delivered by October 1981. They will be operated on the U.S. in- land rivers, the East and West

Coasts, in the U.S. Gulf of Mex- ico, and in the Great Lakes.

If approved, the Title XI guar- antees for the new vessels would cover $69,810,707, 87V2 percent of the barges' $79,783,665 esti- mated actual cost. The guarantees on the used vessels would cover $8,281,944, 75 percent of the tow- boats' and 871/4 percent of the barges' combined estimated actu- al cost of $10,329,253.

Shells MVI engine oils have helped the M V Gina Anne since early 1974. piston or liner. Normal wear patterns were evident. All bearings were in excellent condition. No hard carbon deposits. Alter almost 18,000 hours, this engine showed the normal wear and outstanding cleanliness typical of an engine on Shell's premium MVI oil. EMD recommends engine over- haul after 16,000 hours.

The top deck photograph of the port engine shows the cleanliness typical of premium MVI oil.

When the Gina Anne is fully loaded, she brings home 1,200 tons of tuna. That's enough edible tuna to make about 14 million tuna sand- wiches, if you figure four sand- wiches to an average can. And the leftovers would feed over 3 million cats a quarter-pound each, a fair- sized meal.

The far Pacific is no place for a breakdown in any vessel. Particu- larly if it's full of tuna. MVI Caprinus*

R oil helps keep the Gina Anne going strong. Shell Caprinus R is recommended for all major makes of medium-speed diesels, including

ALCO, Electro-Motive Division of

General Motors, Fairbanks-Morse and General Electric. 'Tomus and Capnnus are trademarks and are used as such in this writing

Shell Oil Company

Mgr. Commercial Communications,

One Shell Plaza

Houston, Texas 77002 i

Come to

Shell for answers

And when the Gina Anne was launched in early 1974 her engines were filled with Shell's MVI

Tomus®'' Oil. Then, in 1978 Cap- tain Manny DeSilva and Chief

Engineer Fernando Quaresma changed over to MVI Caprinus® R

Oil, Shell's newest and finest-ever

MVI lube oil for medium-speed diesels.

At 17,506 hours, the Gina Anne's starboard engine was torn down for routine overhaul. The port engine had 18,175 hours at that time. Both of the EMD 16-645 E7 turbocharged engines were running well and had no major maintenance, but the overhaul was done then for conve- nience. The Gina Anne travels far and wide for tuna. The waters off

Australia, Africa, South America,

Japan and the coastal United States are included in her fishing grounds.

Typical of operation with a pre- mium MVI oil, inspections showed that the engines were very clean with low deposit levels, and top decks were essentially free of sludge. Air boxes had light carbon- aceous deposits, with the paint clearly visible through the deposits.

Crankcases were clean and paint visible.

The #3 starboard power pack was dismantled for inspection (see photos). Silver-clad bushing, piston ring belt area, ring grooves, rings and the liner and head were examined.

The piston was free of lacquer and top ring side clearance was 0.016", very satisfactory at teardown. Ring breakage can occur when side clearance reaches 0.020". Chrome ring ratings were (from top com- pression down) 2A 2 and 1, repre- senting low wear for an engine at overhaul time. There was no evi- dence of scuffing or scoring on

Ring belt area of the #3 cylinder is free of heavy deposits and all rings are free

Nearly 18.000 hours

Ring groove fill was only moderate and side clearance for top ring was 0.016". On premium MVI oil

Top deck is clean with only light wipable sludge after almost 18.000 hours on Shell

MVI oils

Fresh tuna won't wait for downtime 24 Write 503 on Reader Service Card Maritime Reporter/Engineering News