Destroyers - Fletcher Class

[blidgepump]

Good timing ...

The Salem is not too far of a drive from the Cassin Young if you're itching to see some heavy gun cruisers. They are closed for the winter season but you still should be able to get pierside for some photos.

Your recommendation is bearing fruit!
Just got a response back from Boston and the April trip to Boston has been moved back to June and the "extra layover days" have been approved!
So the extra time will permit day long tours and inspection of both the USS Cassin Young and the USS Salem.
I'm getting greedy now and wondering if I could squeeze in "Battleship Cove" !!!! it's been 30-years since the last visit to the USS Massachusetts....

[DonBelt]

The tri-fecta! Go for it- not many places where you could take in a South Dakota class battleship, gearing class DD, Balao class submarine, Tarantul-class corvette, 2 PT boats, Des Moines class heavy cruiser, Fletcher class DD and an 1812 sailing frigate in a 2 day period. If you had a long weekend and felt like driving you could start out in NYC at the Intrepid, head north to the Slater, drive east on Rt 2 until 495, go north on 495 to 95 and get off right at the NH border in Portsmouth and see the USS Albacore. Head straight south on rt 1 from there into Boston and as you go over the Tobin Bridge the Cassin Young and USS Constitution are right below you. Get on rt 93 and head south 14 miles and you are at the USS Salem. Get back on 93 south until rt 24 and take that all the way into Fall River and Battleship Cove, about 45 miles. Give it a few years and you may be able to add the USS John Fitzgerald Kennedy CV-67 in Newport, RI to that tour. You may also end up being able to see the USS Salem at Battleship Cove. They were planning on moving to East Boston but now the shipyard where they were going to move to is saying they can't come there until they pay for a 1.5 million dollar upgrade to the pier. In Massachusetts talk that means 3 million and it will take 2 years and have to be redone in 3 years. So now there is some talk going on with Battleship Cove.

[blidgepump]

Ambitious plan ....

The tri-fecta! Go for it- not many places where you could take in a South Dakota class battleship, gearing class DD, Balao class submarine, Tarantul-class corvette, 2 PT boats, Des Moines class heavy cruiser, Fletcher class DD and an 1812 sailing frigate in a 2 day period. If you had a long weekend and felt like driving you could start out in NYC at the Intrepid, head north to the Slater, drive east on Rt 2 until 495, go north on 495 to 95 and get off right at the NH border in Portsmouth and see the USS Albacore. Head straight south on rt 1 from there into Boston and as you go over the Tobin Bridge the Cassin Young and USS Constitution are right below you. Get on rt 93 and head south 14 miles and you are at the USS Salem. Get back on 93 south until rt 24 and take that all the way into Fall River and Battleship Cove, about 45 miles. Give it a few years and you may be able to add the USS John Fitzgerald Kennedy CV-67 in Newport, RI to that tour. You may also end up being able to see the USS Salem at Battleship Cove. They were planning on moving to East Boston but now the shipyard where they were going to move to is saying they can't come there until they pay for a 1.5 million dollar upgrade to the pier. In Massachusetts talk that means 3 million and it will take 2 years and have to be redone in 3 years. So now there is some talk going on with Battleship Cove.

If I was twenty years old and making a whirlwind engagement that would be a worthy task ......
with the number 60 arriving this year, my experience reflects on the chance to linger and absorb the wonder.
Boston ... aughhhh, the 1A, the round-abouts, Logan, the dialects, the insane roads, Lynn Lynn city of sin you never come out the way you went in?
South Boston is it still part of the Commonwealth? families who visit their cars on weekends as to avoid loosing the parking spot.... Just a flat land kid from the Great Plains trying to navigate to the seashore LOL ....

[blidgepump]

Destroyers ahoy .....

Success made this afternoon with a contact in Boston to pick me up at Logan this coming June and supply ground transport for the upcoming tour-rama of the USS Cassin Young, the USS Joseph P Kennedy as well as the USS Salem and the USS Massachusetts. This is sweet! I do not have to drive in Boston traffic! Many thanks to DonBelt for the suggestion and Navy Doc for contact information.

[DonBelt]

If I was twenty years old and making a whirlwind engagement that would be a worthy task ......
with the number 60 arriving this year, my experience reflects on the chance to linger and absorb the wonder.
Boston ... aughhhh, the 1A, the round-abouts, Logan, the dialects, the insane roads, Lynn Lynn city of sin you never come out the way you went in?
South Boston is it still part of the Commonwealth? families who visit their cars on weekends as to avoid loosing the parking spot.... Just a flat land kid from the Great Plains trying to navigate to the seashore LOL ....

For a flat land kid from the Great Plains you seem mighty familiar with our ways.....

[blidgepump]

Ever since ....

For a flat land kid from the Great Plains you seem mighty familiar with our ways.....

Years ago I got caught in a traffic jam on Friday afternoon near the "big dig" and later that night slept in a hotel room the size of my closet in South Boston aughhhh....
The wide open Great Plains has a special sense of home....

[blidgepump]

Cram session ...

Much prep work underway for the expanding tour this coming June of the Cassin Young at Charlestown and the ships at Battleship Cove and the USS Salem.
If there are any contacts at Battleship Cove which can be shared it would be appreciated .....

[blidgepump]

3-inch ....

The 3-inch dual mount that replaced the 40 mm's AA on several of the Fletcher's is shared in this film prepared by USN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICifnf63lCs ( Taken from the deck of the USS Salem)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMAXx4xVxXk USS The Sullivan's

[blidgepump]

WNY Security .....

It's been 5 years since my last tour of the WNY.
Much has changed. Security after the shooting is tight.
Staff was very professional and extra helpful.
Some pictures to follow. I was surprised to see the USS Barry still tied up to the dock.
Mr. L, "No joy for interesting stuff".

[blidgepump]

WNY .... Fletcher-DD display ....

WNY has a mock up of a Fletcher - DD bridge.
So a good question is... How many sailors on the bridge of a Fletcher while operating @ sea?

[blidgepump]

... and the answer is ....

WNY has a mock up of a Fletcher - DD bridge.
So a good question is... How many sailors on the bridge of a Fletcher while operating @ sea?

See recital of USN in the jpeg....

[blidgepump]

Anzio ??? How about Battle of Leyte Gulf ....

Here is an example of a smoke generator used aboard DD's & CL's during WWII.
Followers of the Fletcher thread will recall a world class battle where these machines played an important role.

[blidgepump]

Baby Boomers, VW's and water ...

NSTM 220 is the "bible" of BW/FW chemistry. I don't know if people reading this can see clearly what is posted on the sign in the picture, but under ideal conditions, we try to maintain the boiler water chemistry in a "in the box" that can be found along a critter known as the "Coordinated Phosphate ("Cophos") Curve." The water is purposely kept in an alkaline or "basic" condition so that any salts, other metals and minerals, and just general crap will actually bind together and then sink to the bottom of the water drum and boiler bottom headers, from whence they may be blown over the side once per week at a minimum, but whenever the boiler has been recently secured regardless.

So, what does that mean? It means we want the water to have: a pH of 9.8 to 10.2; a phosphate level of 25 to 60 parts per million (PPM); conductivety of less than 400 micromhos per CM; and a chloride level of less than 1.0 equivalents per million (EPM). The conductivity, being the inverse of resistance, is always your first indicator that your chloride level is above 1.0 EPM.

You can get an instantaneous conductivity reading via a meter and probes installed at various stages of a steam plant's systems, to include the distilling plants; but to get an accurate chloride reading takes a chemical test on an actual sample of water. That takes 15 minutes or so to first draw the sample withoug scalding oneself, get it to the oil lab (it's called the "oil lab" because it serves the functions of maintaining fuel oil, lube oil, and BW/FW purity. In large ships like a CV or LHD there are separate and distinct Oil Kings and Water Kings, those charged with the care and feeding of such systems, but on your typical CG/DDG/FF back in the day, one man had the handle, and was generally known as the "Oil King") and then do the test.

Regardless, as long as the boiler water is "in the box," you are good to go. What is this "box" to which I'm referring? Well, I searched for pictures of it from NSTM 220 which one would think would be fairly common out there on the net, but I kept coming up dry. In any event, the "coordinated phosphate curve" is laid out on a matrix wherein, if memory serves (and it's only been 17 years since I last cracked open a copy of the manual) the phosphate level runs horizontally and the pH level is read vertically. For every temperature and pressure at which a boiler of any kind is operated, there is an ideal "box" for phosphate and pH levels. As we've noted, for the Navy's main propulsion boilers, whether 600 or 1200 PSI, that "box" has been determined to be a pH of 9.8 to 10.2, and a phosphate level of 25 to 60 PPM (what's a PPM? Basically if you have a million pounds of water, you should have 25 to 60 pounds of phosphates in that water. That isn't exactly correct, but it gives you the idea).

How do you get in the box in the first place? Well, we used to "shoot" the boiler (inject it via a permanently installed "syringe" of sorts) with a combination of Tri-Sodium Phosphate and Di-Sodium Phosphate. "Tri" will move the water reading diagonally from left to right, and "Di" will move it horizontally. The more enterprising of you will no doubt ask, "Uncle Mikey, what if I want to move it only vertically?" Good question. You shoot it with pure caustic soda, aka "Draino." Yes, you might have to do that . . . but that would be an extreme boiler water casualty situation.

What if you have too much Di or Tri and you are out of the box high? You do a surface blow of the operating boiler which envolves raising the water level in the steam drum several inches and then opening a series of valves, from the skin of the ship in, to blow that extra stuff over the side.

We used to do surface blows all the time, and we used a lot of feedwater doing it. No more. The treatment system that has been in use for more thna 20 years now is the Chelant System, wherein a chelating agent (EDTA which, among other things, is a food preservative as well as a detergent, and was once a major constituent of Mountain Dew) is constantly being added to the boiler via a metering system to bind up all that crap, and a small valve left open so that water, albeit a minor amount relative to what we used to do when surface blowing, is constantly being drained into the bilges so that the boiler isn't over treated. It's very minor . . . a bit more than a drip, but not quite a constant stream. The Cophos treatment system is still in use as a back-up should the Chelating system fail, or you have an extreme casualty.

Anyway, the Oil King leads a very busy life, and needless to say, ought to be one of the Chief Engineer's most reliable people. You don't put Joe Shit The Rag Man in that job, lest one wants to see one's career sailing over the horizon.

A fine example of my friend Mike Eagen, Capt. USN (Ret.) sharing his thoughts that I will miss.....

[blidgepump]

Mike's last Fletcher-DD post ...

I still can't imagine life with only one distilling plant. The output of 12,000 GPD is plenty (if they ever really reached that parameter) for its intended usage, but as someone who spent hours if not days "chasing water" around the ship, the lack of redundancy is a major concern. I have no way of knowing of course, but something tells me that they may have been willing to use boiler feed water that wouldn't have passed modern standards (0.65 ppm) with regard to chloride level.

We enjoyed talking about water ...

[SharkPilot]

Please don't take this as being insensitive, but did something happen with the Good Captain? I don't know where else to ask.