Well that worked!

It would appear that the work on the burner paid off. Yesterday we had a fine day’s trip on Ullswater, from the marina at Watermillock, all the way to Glenridding without a single problem – virtually the full length of Ullswater. (About 3½ hours steaming). The first time we have managed the full length of the lake!

We took most of it at a leisurely pace, with a couple of bursts of speed to avoid yachts out racing….

Things we learnt

We managed to get the plant set into a mode where it ran almost without adjustment for an hour or so… Running at an estimated 5-knots (didn’t have the log running) the plant operated smoothly at the following values:

• Boiler pressure: cycling from 185-225psi
• HP cylinder pressure: 60-70psi
• LP cylinder pressure: 14-16psi
• Vacuum: 14″ (it requires a lot of cooling water thru the condenser to get this stable)
• Valve-gear cutoff about: 10% from full gear
• Burner Operating cycle: ~75% on

We used about 1/3 a tank of fuel (about 40 litres).

The float valve in the header tank does work, but the level of “sticktion” means that manual operation of the bypass is needed to maintain correct boiler water levels. So more work needed to make this automated water level control work.

The LP cross-head has some slack, which can cause some noise at certain speeds and loads, an extra squirt of oil silences this, so perhaps a larger displacement pump unit for the cross head feeds would be good.

The steam leaks in the engine result in the hot-well needing about 4 buckets of water to make up the losses, during the trip.

The Ullswater Hotel refused to serve us a beer (as we were “outside the permitted area of their garden” !!!) – one starts to see the Benefits of Windermere, there is literally nowhere on Ullswater where you can buy a drink!

…a good day! (and it didn’t rain!)

Burner Information

For others, here is the information on the burner as configured:

• Type: Bentone ST146
• Nozzle: 1.75 US Gallon/Hr, 45-degree (7.14 kg/hr)
• Fuel Pressure: 12bar
• Air/Nozzle position: Set by inspection of stack exhaust
• Rated output for these settings: ~85Kw (38 electric kettles!)