{"id":433,"date":"2011-02-16T03:08:10","date_gmt":"2011-02-16T07:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/?p=433"},"modified":"2011-02-16T10:18:48","modified_gmt":"2011-02-16T14:18:48","slug":"three-cats-and-a-kitten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/2011\/02\/16\/three-cats-and-a-kitten\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Cats and a Kitten"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_437\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/IMG_5650.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-437\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-437\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/IMG_5650-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/IMG_5650-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/IMG_5650-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/IMG_5650.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-437\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Melville&#039;s Rudder Propeller<\/p><\/div>\n<p>My daughter is the real engineer in the family, but she has often commented that I could have easily been an engineer in another life.\u00a0 She is probably right, I love all things mechanical and I have spent the last thirty days talking to Chief Engineer Paul about the operational details of his ship.<\/p>\n<p>The first thing that strikes me is the scale of the ships systems.\u00a0\u00a0 The ship is powered by three, sixteen-cylinder, Caterpillar diesel engines and one, eight-cylinder engine, affectionately referred to as <strong><em>Three CATS and a Kitten<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 Each of<!--more--> the big engines produces 1800 horsepower that is used to generate about 1090 KW of electrical power.\u00a0 It takes two of the big CATS to generate enough power to drive the ship\u2019s propellers and provide the lights, air conditioning, and water for the scientists and crew.\u00a0 Under normal operating conditions the Melville is producing enough power to run all of the electrical and heating systems on the Colby campus during a cold day in January.\u00a0\u00a0 And you don\u2019t want to offer to split the gas money on this road trip; the ship has burned 80,000 gallons of diesel fuel on the cruise.<\/p>\n<p>The video below provides a short tour of the mechanical systems of the ship.\u00a0\u00a0 We have traveled long way from land and have to be self sufficient for all services including water, sewer, AC, and fire protection.\u00a0\u00a0 Most of the mechanical systems on the ship are run in pairs, if one system fails the backup system is designed to start automatically.\u00a0\u00a0 The ship even has an emergency generator to run lights, pumps, and fire systems if the four main engines fail.<\/p>\n\r\n<!-- <script src=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-content\/plugins\/fp_rtmp\/jquery.tools.min.js\"><\/script> -->\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-content\/plugins\/fp_rtmp\/flowplayer-3.2.2.js\"><\/script>\r\n<style>\r\n\/* player container *\/\r\ndiv.player {\r\n\theight:272px;\r\n\twidth:480px;\r\n\tcursor:pointer;\r\n\tfloat:left;\r\n\ttext-align:center;\r\n\tmargin-right:15px;\r\n}\r\n\/* play button height *\/\r\ndiv.player img {\r\n\tmargin-top:95px !important;\r\n}\r\n<\/style>\r\n\r\n<div class=\"player\"  \r\n    href=\"mp4:king\/colbyatsea\/Three_Cats_and_a_Kitten\" \r\n    style=\"background-color:#000000;background-image:url(http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/Three-Cats1.jpg)\"> \r\n \r\n    <!-- play button --> \r\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-content\/plugins\/fp_rtmp\/play_large.png\" style=\"border:0px !important;\" alt=\"Play this video\" \/>      \r\n<\/div> \r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n$f(\"div.player\", \"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-content\/plugins\/fp_rtmp\/flowplayer-3.2.2.swf\", {\r\n\tplugins: {\r\n\t\trtmp: {\r\n\t\t\turl: 'https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-content\/plugins\/fp_rtmp\/flowplayer.rtmp-3.2.1.swf',\r\n\t\t   \tnetConnectionUrl: 'rtmp:\/\/flash.colby.edu\/vod',\r\n\r\n\t\t   \t\/\/ make the rtmp plugin query the stream length from the server\r\n\t\t   \tdurationFunc: 'getStreamLength'\r\n\t\t},\r\n\t\tcontrols: {\r\n\t\t\tfullscreen: true,\r\n\t\t\theight: 30,\r\n\t\t\tautoHide: true\r\n\t\t}\r\n\t},\r\n   clip:{\r\n         autoBuffering:true,\r\n         autoPlay:true,\r\n         scaling:'fit',\r\n\t\t provider: 'rtmp'\r\n   }\r\n}); \r\n<\/script>\r\n\r\n\n<p>All of these systems require a lot of maintenance.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/shipsked.ucsd.edu\/Ships\/Melville\/Handbook\/08-Ship-Organization.php\">The engineering crew<\/a> consists of the Chief Engineer, three Assistant Engineers, four Oilers, two Wipers, and an Electrician.\u00a0 The crew typically works four hours on and eight hours off on a staggered schedule.\u00a0 Someone is always in the engine room 24 hours a day while the engines are running.\u00a0 You don\u2019t check the oil every 3000 miles, you check the oil every hour, and they will use 80 quarts of oil for an oil change.<\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow we arrive in Cape Town, South Africa.\u00a0\u00a0 The Melville has carried us safety across the Atlantic Ocean and provided the services we needed to focus on the science.\u00a0 It is easy to forget the machinery at work to make this cruise possible until you sit quietly for a minute and hear the rumble from below of Three Cats and a Kitten.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Whitney<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My daughter is the real engineer in the family, but she has often commented that I could have easily been an engineer in another life.\u00a0 She is probably right, I love all things mechanical and I have spent the last &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/2011\/02\/16\/three-cats-and-a-kitten\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":184,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17553,17552,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/184"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":445,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions\/445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}