MovieChat Forums > The Finest Hours (2016) Discussion > why didnt they extend the air pipes?

why didnt they extend the air pipes?

posted 8 years ago by mark6785
13 replies | jump to latest

surprised non of the threads have mentioned this..

I don't know if this was made up like the iron girder tiller fairy story, but they keep mentioning "When the water rises to these air intakes it'll kill the engine and therefore the pumps". ...not to mention the lights. and the radio. and the kettle. and the xbox.

So why didn't they extend those pipes upwards? You can't tell me there wouldn't be some piping in that engine room they could use -especially as a lot of it would be out of use anyway due to the front of the ship being missing.

In fact if they wanted to show the crew members fighting for their own chances rather than relying on rescue then snorkeling the air intake would have made a much more realistic mission than that RIDICULOUS tiller story.

Was the engine even still running in real life? I cant help thinking that when you rip a ship in half *something* might stop the engine.

[–] whiskeyTango-06 8 years ago

there were no "air intakes" in real life

[–] mark6785 8 years ago

er, how did the engine breathe then?

[–] ericachristine 8 years ago

First, learn about the ships before you go on such an ignorant diatribe, then maybe you'll know. You could possibly open a book, I'd you know what that is, or Google it, maybe read the entire true story and you may learn more about it.

[–] mark6785 8 years ago

i *had* read about it, hence i know that rudder thing didnt really happen

[–] CGSailor 8 years ago

You did not read enough.
The Air Intakes is to supply air for Diesel Engines. Pendelton was not a diesel ship. She was Steam Turbine therefore there were no air intakes.

Wrong type of engine for the ship.

I joined the Navy to see the world, only to discover the world is 2/3 water!

[–] mark6785 8 years ago

ah right . but ... fuel still needs to be burnt using air right? so there must be air intakes....

I guess those pipes arnt a genuine representation of the ships engine room though , so when i say "extend the pipes" i mean the fictional ones in the film - not the real ones that didnt exist :)

I believe you guys have those turbine engines in your tanks? amazingly compact i guess . I'll have to get my head round how they work properly....

[–] laplante-co-672-297856 8 years ago

The steam turbines are the main engines. They don't power the ship's electrical systems.

Diesels are used on ships to provide electrical power including power for pumps. They are also used to provide power when a ship is alongside and no shore services are available. However, air intakes for these draw from the upper deck, not from within the ship.

So the movie got it half right. However, in terms of the OPs original point and keeping things within the realm of the script, yeah, they could have extended the intakes. However with the time and tools available it would have been more effort and less certain than taking the measures they did.

[–] davidmt62 8 years ago

A steam ship does not use diesels to provide electricity, they use steam turbine generators, and no, a Merchant Ship rarely goes cold iron dockside, time is money.

Further a T-2 tanker (as the S.S. Pendleton is) uses the main turbine to as the prime mover for a generator, and the propulsion is provided by electrical motors.

Air for the boilers is provided by forced draft fans which are located at the top of the engine room, usually at the same level as the DC-heater (DFT)

[–] [email protected] 8 years ago

The steam turbines are the main engines. They don't power the ship's electrical systems.

The ships I served aboard had steam turbines powering the generators. Once you've got steam you use it for everything.

[–] laplante-co-672-297856 8 years ago

I stand corrected. All my steam experience was on a post-war vintage warship. We used reduction gearing to drive the main shaft. I assumed that the Pendleton was the same since it came from the same era.

Google tells me that it was a variant of the T2, built specifically NOT to use reduction gearing like previous ships in the class because all gear manufacturing resources were tied up with the Navy effort.

There's a good first-hand reference here that describes both the main and auxiliary power systems:

http://www.navyhistory.org/2014/01/shipping-out-my-experiences-on-a-commercial-tanker-part-i/

No diesels... Eating a big ol' slice of humble pie right now...

[–] davidmt62 8 years ago

Every steam ship I've been on ( and that's a lot) uses steam turbines to drive the generators, some have had a stand by diesel, and there have always been an emergency diesel, but the main generators on ant steam ship I've been on have always been steam driven, as far as that goes on many of the motor ships I've sailed on have had steam turbine generators (the steam being generated with waste heat)

Were you in the USN? If so, when and what rate?

[–] laplante-co-672-297856 8 years ago

I was an Engineering Officer Lt(N) in the Canadian Navy. As part of our training, we were required to earn our Boiler Room Watchkeeping Certificate and our Engineering Watchkeeping Certificate.

I served in three of our four Mackenzie-class steamship, described here:
http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/canada/postwar/mackenzi/

I jokingly tell people that every ship I ever served in is now at the bottom of the ocean. (After de-commissioning, they were stripped and sunk to be used as artificial reefs.)

[–] davidmt62 8 years ago

OK yeah that's pretty cool I've sailed as a Merchant Seaman for some 30 years now, my license is unlimited HP Steam/Motor/Gas Turbine