Marine Steam Engine

A

Arn

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A friend wishes to acquire or build a 15 - 20 foot boat with a steam engine. Any suggestions for links to or suppliers for marine steam engines and boats. Thanks

Arn
 
I am pretty mechanically save, but I have no clue how that first one works!! The moving illustration did not work.

Can anyone enlighten me?

Many, many years ago the firechief in our local town built a 20 ft "lifeboat." That was the design of the boat. Very heavy and strong. Put a 10hp diesel in it. Kept it at his house at Wrightsville Beach NC.

A steam engine should have about the same "performance." My father and I rode with him one time. That performance was slow and slower!!

This man was quite a good machinist. He also hand built a working small model train. If I remember the tracks were about 12 inches apart. I do not think that is any recognized guage. A person could ride on a car behind the engine. He had a track around the fire station.

G
 
gcolton, your browser is set to not allow image animation...

Save the image to disk and view using something else to view it. it is an animated GIF.
 
quote:
Originally posted by Radioactive

gcolton, your browser is set to not allow image animation...

Save the image to disk and view using something else to view it. it is an animated GIF.

Click to expand...


I am viewing it animated!!!

Still cannot understand what it is doing.

G
 
I figured it out, but it's still a reciprocating piston engine, and works more or less like any other. The linkages from the pistons to the output shaft are all that appear to really be different.
I doubt it's any more efficient than a more conventional (and simpler) crank-type.

It's my understanding that the main issues with steam power are with the BOILER, and how you fuel it.
 
steam is fun but remember you have a pot of superheated water in the middle of your boat and small boats nothing is automated as in you have to watch water levels at all times or kaboom
 
As Kevin stated steam is dangerous. I have worked on a few Steam boats, they required an engineer. One was a repleca of a 1900 60' steam yacht with the original steam engine, her name is Kestrel. The steam engine was replaced by a 500hp diesel, larger fuel tanks were added but instead of burning more fuel it burned alot less. I beleve it went from 10gph to 4gph at 10knts she could run from NJ to Fla with out refueling. The steam engine will be reinstaled when she goes into a Museum. This vessel has a full displacement hull and with the 500hp diesel she would run at over 20knts but the drive train had to be made stronger. The last time I was on her they were installing an antique diesel of lesser HP, I don't know what the results were.
Good Luck Frank
 
Arn,
By the way, I forgot to mention, the reason you need to have an engineer on the boat is because steam engines need to be watched 24/7 as long as the boiler is fired-up, since they have a tendency to BLOW UP!
Frank
 
There's a lovely little steam engine already fitted in a 20+ foot boat sitting idle in Key Largo FL. It hasn't been run for a couple years and is collecting a lot of pigeon crap but otherwise looks ready to go.

Its the remaining one of a couple or few that were built for the movie "African Queen".

Except for the history of the boat, it would be available really cheap.
 
Many thanks for the sites and the helpful comments on steam engines, particularly with regard to the hazards of containing a superheated gas in a boat. A boat like the African Queen properly designed and ready to go, assuming its ship-shape, would be the way to go. Thanks again for the responses.

Arn
 
If anyone is interested, you can calculate the max imum efficiency of a steam engine by knowing the temperature of the input steam and exhaust steam (in degrees kelvin). The input temperature can be found from the boiler pressure using standard steam tables, available on the internet.

For example a boiler pressure of 200 psi corresponds to 382 degrees F or 467 degrees K. Assuming an exhaust temperature of 212 degrees F or 373 degrees K, The maximum possible efficiency of the engine is (467 - 373)/467 or about 20%.
 
quote:
Originally posted by MIke F

If anyone is interested, you can calculate the max imum efficiency of a steam engine by knowing the temperature of the input steam and exhaust steam (in degrees kelvin).

Click to expand...


That won't give you efficiency, that gives you the amount of energy that was removed from the steam.

To know the efficiency of the steam "engine" you would need to know how much power the you were able to get from the rotating shaft as a result of that delta steam temperature.

The efficiency of the engine alone is a fairly worthless number. The engine is just one part of the system. In order to know the efficiency of the system you need to know the losses in the boiler. One reason that steam is so inefficienct is due to the tremendous amount of heat lost out the smokestack.

The system can also reclain some of the energy in the exhaust steam. If the steam is simply allowed to escape then the energy is lost, but if the steam is cooled just back to 212 degree water and then pumped back into the boiler a significant amount of the energy can be reclaimed.

Twenty years ago I had a friend who was really into steam engines. He had a number of scale steam locomotives that he operated at various club meets. Then he decided to get a boat. Single cylinder engine, wood/coal fired boiler in an open launch, about 16 feet long.

I meet him at a marina once where his steam boat club was having a meet. Their big outing was to another marina about 10 miles away.

There is a good reason that steam engines were replaced by gas/diesel. Operation of a steam engine is not straight forward. You have to tend the fire, watch the water level in the boiler, kick the flywheel (single cylinder engines will not necessarialy start turning the right direction on their own), blow off steam, stamp the fire out that has started in the bottom of the boat where coals fell out of the boiler, blow off steam when it builds too high, throw out the anchor when you are fighting the current and you need to stop to build up a head of steam, etc. Somewhere in there you also need to steer.

For the friend who is interested in a steam boat, my suggestion is to find one of the steam engine clubs. It doesn't necessarialy have to be a "boat" club, just steam engines.

Rod
 
There was a guy my Dad knew named Ike Harter who built a lovely, clinker built boat, about 22' long, with a nicely done cabin. He put a steam engine in it and used to help out at sailing regattas out of the Warwick Yacht Club, I remember him towing a daisy chain of small sailboats in (or out)from the starting line when there wasn't much wind. Ike took us out for a ride in the thing once, it was probably at least 25 years ago. It was very quiet, not a ball of fire, of course, but it perked right along, probably was making 5 or 6 knots. Ike was a engineer at the Newport News Shipbuilding a Drydock Company and passed on quite a while ago, but I still remember that ride in his steamboat.
 
everything abdiver said is very true its exactly like that and i,m on a river with current so after a few frustrating trips against the current and running out of steam i buried a yamaha 15 horse 4 stroke in the stern its really a must and sure helps docking
 
abdiver, The MAXIMUM effiency is as I stated. It is derived from the carnot efficiency of all engines and is only a function of the input and output temperature. The carnot efficiency is defined by the equation I used. The reason is that an engine cycle is primarily adiabatic and the work derived from the engine (which may be used to overcome friction and well as accomplish useful work) is simply the difference in the heat energy of the combustion and exhaust gas divided by the energy of the combustion gas.
 
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