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biggest diesel engine in the world

2K views 8 replies 8 participants last post by  JimsCAL 
#1 ·
#2 ·
Sailing in the Oakland/Alameda Estuary (part of San Francisco Bay) I am constantly sailing through the Oakland Inner Harbor, where I sail past these behemoths every time. Mostly they are docked, but every month or so one is entering or leaving on a weekend. The channel is ~1000ft wide, and the container ships have two or three tugs attached to them. Sometimes it works tack out past them, but sometimes you have to motor around them. There is enough space on the opposite side from the docks where the water is deep enough for sailboats, but too shallow for the big guys.

It seems to take the full length of the Inner Harbor for the tugs to slow the ships down to a stop at the turning basin at the inner end. (All of the pleasure boat docks are further in than the turning basin).

It is pretty amazing to notice that some of those ships draw more than the height of my mast! A lot of the containers are higher off the water than the top of my mast, too. My mast clearance is about 34' on my 24' boat.
 
#9 ·
I once rode an APL C-10 containship from Long Beach to Oakland. She had an earlier version of that Sulzer RTA96-12. The 96 is the bore which is 0.96m in this case so about 3 feet. The stroke on these "super long strokes" is between 2.5 and 3 times the bore so about 8 feet. The 12 is the number of cylinders. These run below 100 RPM and are directly connected to the propeller (no gearbox). Reversing is done by stopping the engine, shifting the camshaft, and restarting in the opposite direction. Very impressive when you stand next to them.
 
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