Part of the Acorn Archive

Hearts of Oak

 

 

 

Athel Line Ships

 

Elysia

 

ELYSIA

ON  304192

Built 1965  Hawthorn Leslie Shipbuilders Ltd., Newcastle.

Yard Nr. 745

For Athel Line Ltd.

8,531 grt; 4,542 net; 11,360 dwt

485ft 6ins x 63ft 2ins x 39ft

Engine Stork HOTLo notes below by Fairfield-Rowan Ltd, Glasgow.

9,000 bhp; 16.25 knots.

1967  Registered to Anchor Line Ltd.

Duncan Haws writes - ELYSIA Built 1965 for Athel Line but transferred for operating by their subsidiary,

the Anchor Line. 1967 sold to Anchor Line and resold to Strick Line. In August 1953 all of Anchor's

preference shares were taken up by United Molasses and the company became a wholly owned subsidiary.

1965 when Athel Line became a subsidiary of Tate & Lyle, the shares of Anchor Line were re-acquired by Runcimans Moor Line.

Anchor Line ships are at http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/lines/anchor.html

1968  Sold Strick Line Ltd. Renamed ARMANISTAN.

1972  Managed by P&O General Cargo.

1973  Registered Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co.

1975  Renamed STRATHAVOCH.

1978  Sold Hong Kong Ocean Shipping Co. Ltd., Panama;

          Renamed SHARP ISLAND.

1983  Sold for demolition; China Dismantled Vessel Trading Corporation, Taiwan.

1983  Scrapped by Chien Yu Steel Industrial Co. Ltd. Kaohsiung.

 

 

Elysia as Armanistan

 

ELYSIA had two “elder” sisters. SIDONIA and SICILIA. Both built 1961 in Holland for Anchor Line.

SIDONIA was sold to the China Navigation Co., in 1967 and renamed HUPEH.

Lengthened in Hong Kong in 1976 for the carriage of containers and unitised cargo.

Traded New Zealand to Manila, Hong Kong and Taiwan until 1978. Sold 1979.

see   http://www33.brinkster.com/lduive15/scheepje/s/sidonia1.htm

SICILIA became the ANAT.  

 

 

Stork HOTLo Engines

ELYSIA / STRATHAVOCH

Alistair Stevenson writes …

I was a young 4th engineer on this vessel (MV Strathavoch) from July to December in 1977. 
She was in fact powered by a STORK type HOTLo slow speed  2 stroke Single Acting oil engine

manufactured under licence by Fairfield-Rowan. This was an excellent engine with a number

of truly outstanding features which unfortunately were compromised by the licencee. 

I believe they only built two of these engines before they lost the licence. 

 

Where Strathavoch's engine differed from a Stork built engine was in some details.

For example the crosshead bearings were of standard "marine type" with two separate "bottom halves". 

However they were fitted with Stork high pressure pumps.

A genuine Stork had  a one piece "bottom half" which was unique at the time.

In addition the removeable lower section of cylinder liner which was used for inspection and piston

ring changes was a plain stepped joint whereas a Stork built engine had a wave joint.

 

Other differences were minor but infuriating. One I remember well was found after opening up

No 5 'bottom end' bearing for survey.  Routine job, follow instructions in the manual. 

These were genuine Stork and excellent.  On inspection the bearing was found to be scuffed. 

Basically the clearance had been set too tight on an earlier occasion. 

The surveyor was not concerned about it and only required it to be cleaned up.

All went well until we had to 'blue in' the bottom half which required  it to be turned over and

lowered on to the crankpin. No lifting holes, which the manual clearly showed!

 To cut a long story short it caused us a great deal of trouble as these bearings were massive and a

'Heath-Robinson' device had to be made up in order to do the job.

On inspection, none of the other 'bottom ends' had them either.  The Chief was incandescent!

 

All in all it was an excellent engine and for the life of me I cannot understand why

it was not more popular.  To my mind it completely outclassed the contemporary

RD Sulzer and gave certainly gave B&W something to ponder over.

 

Nedlloyd had a number of HOTLo engines in their fleet which gave first class

service according to the engineers I met.

 

SIDONIA’s engines

Joe Freeman writes ….

Fairfield-Rowan built a STORK engine for the MV SIDONIA which was built on the Tyne.

This engine was assembled and tested at David Rowan's engine shop in Finnieston.

I believe the engine number was 797 and it was a six cylinder four valve reversing engine with separate

cams for Ahead and Astern.

The engine was originally contracted to Fairfield Engine works in Govan and was transferred to Rowan's in exchange for a 10RD76 Sulzer engine for Ben Line Steamers MV BENVALLA.

The testing capacity at Rowan's was limited by the cooling water capacity for the Dynamometer

and engine cooling. This was just about the time David Rowan and Fairfield amalgamated in 1963.

Most of the main engine components came from the Stork Works in Holland.

The Fuel Pump casings and Reversing gear were machined at Rowans I know because I assembled them.

The Cylinder Heads were individual four valve poppet type valves.

The cylinders walls were chrome plated and were split for ease of inspection and replacement.

I believe the Turbochargers were Brown & Boveri.

One unique thing that I remember was on top of each crosshead there was a small lever

driven piston oil pump that delivered about 50cc of high press oil into each lower crosshead

bearing just as it reached TDC. I also installed some cable controls to the governor I think.

Beyond that she was a sweet running engine on the test bed and as far as I remember the

test engineers from Holland were quite satisfied with the performance.

 

 

 

 

Raymond Forward

 

Thanks to Alistair Stevenson and Joe Freeman