Wyuna progress report from 29-7February

Raced back to Tassie on the 29th we are very mindful of the fact that the berth agreement end the 30th of June so we must be ready to move before then. There is so much to report, I will start with the weather it was damm hot seems hotter in Tassie which made working on deck extremely difficult. Taswegians are of the opinion it is hotter in Tassie due to the clear air, I cannot substantiate this but it was certainly hot.

BeforeAfter

I have to apologise as last report I forgot to mention Erik and the magnificent work he is doing restoring the beautiful timber doors. The sliding door pictured is access to the old wheelhouse,

sorry Erik.

The great news to report is that 5 out of the 7 engines are running. Yes that right, to date we have only had the Lister and Cummins running, don’t forget these engines have not fired a shot since 2004. You will recall in previous reports I mentioned I had cleaned all the armatures in preparation to start up and that the big gen sets were ready to fire, that generators 4 and 5. We were lucky to get the former Wyuna Chief Engineer to come to our aid. As the start up procedures are quite complicated we needed someone who knew the engine room well.

Pictured is No 4 generator running smoothly we loaded up the generator and for a time the ship was on its own power. I just can’t say what a relief it was to see the engine fire up. To feel the ship coming to life is a weird sensation.

Here is No 5 underway note the onlookers. The engineer Oboy on the throttle watching on is ships electrician Clynton (yellow) our Boson Max and CEO Mike (lovely orange) taking it all in.

Here smoke from the funnel for the first time in 10 years

Here is the greatest milestone thus far, pictured is Oboy starting No 2 main engine. Once we got up enough air to start her she ran beautifully and not one spark out of the armature. Now I feel we are getting somewhere, up until this time there was a doubt if we could actually steam the ship back home now we know we can.

Clynton got the main engine control panel up and running

Mike and I chipped and primed the stern ready for undercoat

See Clynton’s report on