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At random: "Alright gentlemen up and at it...Rub-a-Dub Dub, let's scrub up the F***ing sub!" - Garnett Curtis, COB, USS Phoenix
Fuel Oil King.
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Holland Club
Posted 2021-05-09 8:47 PM (#100595)


Master and Commander

Posts: 2490

Location: East Coast of Wisconsin
Subject: Fuel Oil King.

Recently it was requested that someone who had served as fuel king to write up his experiences.
I worked on it a bit and below is my write up. Feel free to read it, use it for whatever purpose you might wish. Even suggest changes or toss it all together.


Fuel oil king experiences aboard a diesel powered submarine.

Reported aboard from BESS as an EN2.

It was as though they were waiting for new blood. After handshakes all around and welcome aboards, met the ENC who had the engine rooms. I was told to get hot and get checked out in the FER as we were getting underway Monday and I would be throttling.

Another little surprise, BTW you are the Fuel and Water King. Oh lucky me. Didn't seem like a big deal since we were topped off with fuel and we were just going for short ops.
Did learn the duties of a throttleman very quickly and assumed my regular 4 on and 8 off as the rest of the boat personnel were doing. My boat was a Guppy IIa conversion and had #2 main engine removed. Watch standing was easier than the AER but we had the distillers. Also if there was one engine ordered for snorkelling or topping off the battery, the FER got the start. No big deal except for the fact that if submerged, the trim manifold was manned and it was my boat's procedure the oiler from the FER was the trim manifold operator. So the distiller operations, purifier operations, log readings, etc fell on the throttleman. Nothing to complain about, but you stayed busy.
Spent my off watch time working on qualies, providing tank soundings as requested by the officer assigned as the trim person. Sounding a fuel tank on service consisted of drawing small samples from a trycock manifold inboard to determine if it was sea water or FO. An approximation of fuel level could be made as the lines to the trycock manifold began at various levels within the tank.
Once the tank on service was determined to be empty of fuel it was necessary to align the next tank to be used. The Fuel King was contacted day or night to make the valve lineup. The tank selected by the trim officer would maintain fore and aft trim of the boat.

Although there were a few calls in the middle of your off watch sack time, it was a job which needed to be done.
The worst part of the job was the invariable refueling in essentially every port so while the troops were on the beach attending church presentations the fuel king stayed aboard to refuel.
The fuel king was also responsible for submitting orders for lube oil as well and bringing that on board too. Once in Naples the boats lube oil order was received via a barge in 55 gallon drums. The barge crew was nice enough to set the drums on deck for me. There was no pumps involved from the supplier of course so had to rig a hose to the fill pipe and 'borrowing' a air regulator to pipe up to the drums to blow the oil into the boats lube oil system. There were a few drums with bulging bottoms and tops. Hardest job was getting the 450 pound drums on yheir sides without letting them roll over the side.
Only happened once as oil was normally pumped from a source to the boats system.
I got relieved of Fuel King duties upon making first class. Not out of work though I was immediately sent to the Aux gang which only had a second class in charge also assigned as LPO of one of the duty sections when in port.


I had a bunk assigned in the after torpedo room I'm sure because I was rated 2nd class and never had to sleep in Hogan's Alley.
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