Engine Room Tour

We are back in NZ and the first few days are filled with bringing Iron Lady back to life. Since part of this involved the engine room, I thought it might be of interest to do a brief tour for all of you boat “geeks”.

I’ll start with a shot from the engine room door.

Looking straight ahead is the control panel for the water maker – above the panel are the desalinization membranes. Below are 2 large filter canisters for primary filtration and water/oil separation. The 4 blue filters above include a plankton filter, 2 charcoal filters, and a PH neutralizer. To the right (but out of sight) is a UV sterilizer and you can also see the work bench with vice.

To left of the water maker is the fuel filtration system and geared transfer pumps (2). This is a better view.

This is a shot of the hydraulic tank and fuel control panel.

Standing at the workbench and looking aft you can see the genset and Kabola heater. The Kabola provides domestic hot water and heat to the boat – more on this whole system in a separate post.

This is a closer shot of the Kabola. Note the nice little tray on the top where I keep a grab bag full of commonly used tools.

This is a close up of the 11.6 KW genset. We have more hours on our main engine then the genset (a lot different from our last boat which was a 24/7 genset boat away from the dock even underway).

This following is a shot of the steering gear. More on this system in another post, but note the two steering cylinders. The bar beneath is an emergency tiller and the relieving tackle is stored near by. Below are two autopilot pumps and above are the controllers for same. In short complete redundancy and note the massive rudder post and rudder head.

Turning to Big John, a 6068 John Deere, this is a shot from the aft end of the engine (V drive).

Behind the guard you can see the 2 big Electrodyne alternators which provide 300 amps of continuous output at 24 VDC – 7.2 KW – enough to run amy of our high amp 240 VAC systems thru the inverters when underway.

Part of what makes this possible without burning up alternators are the remote mounted and fan cooled rectification diodes. You can just barely see them to the right of the Reverso oil change pump.

The next shot is looking down on the John Deere from the forward end. The structure over top is part of the engine room air intake system – it is completely above the water line even when the boat is inverted so the engine room will not flood.

This following pic shows the main engine muffler. Behind is the gensep that keeps the gen exhaust almost dead silent.

Another system that is deserving of a separate post is the raw water intake system. For now, this is a picture of the top of the sea chest – well above the water line. Note the plug in the top – very handy if you suck a bag and need to clear it – remove the plug and use a broom handle to push it out – no swimming required.

Getting late and it has been a long day. Lots more stuff to cover, but that will have to wait for other posts.

Cheers