Video
Walker Stressinger Ernestina_Morrissey Interview
Transcript
00:00:03:15 - 00:00:14:01
Speaker 1
My name is Walker Stress Singer, and I'm the engineer of the Ernestina-Morrissey. I'm from Boston, Massachusetts. I went to a boat school down in Newport, Rhode Island called IYRS
00:00:14:01 - 00:00:28:17
Speaker 1
and I studied marine systems there, and after that, I started working on tall ships. So in our engine room, we have a Cummins QSM 11 configured to 355 horsepower with a marine set up.
00:00:28:19 - 00:00:50:26
Speaker 1
So it would be much like what you would see on a tractor. But instead of being cooled by air, it's cool by seawater. Also, in our engine room, we have two generators, one on port, one on starboard. They're twins. They are exactly the same in every way. They both put out 17 kilowats of power, which is enough to power almost every AC thing we have on board at once.
00:00:50:26 - 00:01:16:15
Speaker 1
But we do not overload them. And then when we are not running our generators, we have an inverter bank, which we can draw from so that we can have AC power twenty-four seven without a generator running. We also have a house bank on the opposite side on the port side. That is for all of our DC loads on board, which includes long navigational equipment and lights, fans, things that are just creature
00:01:16:15 - 00:01:16:22
Speaker 1
and import for keeping the boat where we want it and in safe disposition.
00:01:23:13 - 00:01:42:28
Speaker 1
We have two fuel tanks in the engine room each hold about 500 gallons of fuel when they're fully pressed up. So we have a 1000 gallon capacity, which, if we were just going on engine power, could get us about 1000 nautical miles. This is not her first engine. This engine is not brand new, but it was recently rebuilt.
00:01:43:05 - 00:01:55:20
Speaker 1
So it is as it would be if it was brand new. So she was a sailing vessel in her first life as a fishing schooner in Gloucester. And then when it became a Arctic exploration vessel
00:01:56:06 - 00:02:09:26
Speaker 1
in the early 1900s, it was outfitted with an engine and some more modern mechanics to make it able to go way up north and be the ship that's gone the furthest north. The sailing ship was on
00:02:13:07 - 00:02:17:01
Speaker 2
Do you have a favorite aspect of working with the Ernestina?
00:02:17:04 - 00:02:36:07
Speaker 1
Well, because she was just rebuilt, a lot of what I'm doing right now is trying to create, like an engineering schedule and database and framework so that future engineers know what needs to be done every month, every week, every day, and can keep the boat in really good working order. One of the things we do is exercising valves.
00:02:36:09 - 00:02:48:23
Speaker 1
We do that so that the valves don't stay in one position too long and then get stuck there and not able to actuate and work properly. But that's just one example of the many things we do every week and month and day.
00:02:48:29 - 00:02:55:12
Speaker 2
Is there a difference between maintaining her while she's in port, as opposed to when she's at sea?
00:02:55:19 - 00:03:18:05
Speaker 1
Yeah. So a lot of the PMs that we do in port, we don't do every week, even if they're a weekly one, because, for example, if the machinery isn't running, we don't need to check the filters for the fuel every week or the oil or things like that, because we know that there hasn't been anything running through them, and so they're not going to need to be
00:03:18:05 - 00:03:21:12
Speaker 1
kept up as they would when you're at sea, when you're at sea.
00:03:21:14 - 00:03:45:21
Speaker 1
Things like checking the rayco fuel filters or checking the sea strainers weekly becomes very important because if, say, you went through a place with a lot of marine growth, you know, a huge pot of seaweed or something, and sucked up that in your raw water, it would get filtered in the sea strainer. But if the sea strainer gets too clogged up, you're going to restrict water flow to the engine, which will keep it from getting its proper amount of cooling.
00:03:45:24 - 00:03:53:25
Speaker 1
We also have pumps in here. One of them is a hydraulic pump, which is more of an emergency pump if we don't have power. And the other two are,
00:03:53:25 - 00:04:11:04
Speaker 1
electric powered pumps. They are all both fire pumps and bilge pumps. They can be used for either. you just have to change the valves. The fire pumps pump water to our hoses up on deck, which we use for boundary cooling in case of a fire.
00:04:11:07 - 00:04:27:06
Speaker 1
And then they bilge manifold next to these pumps, which has pipes going to every single bilge on the boat so that you can draw water from whatever bilge is taking on water. We also have a fire suppression system in here. We have two large CO2 tanks on the starboard side all the way forward in the engine room.
00:04:27:13 - 00:04:35:00
Speaker 1
They will put out of fire by removing all oxygen in the area. So there's a siren that will sound if
00:04:35:06 - 00:04:56:07
Speaker 1
it's going to go off because of the rate of rise sensor. And that means you have 30 seconds to close all ventilation and get all personnel out of the engine room so that you're confining the CO2 to this area so it can both put out the fire, but also so that it doesn't get into places where people are, because if it did, it could displace all the oxygen in your lungs as well.
00:04:56:11 - 00:05:03:00
Speaker 1
Most of the things that would start a fire are in here, and most of the things that could make a fire really bad are also in here.
00:05:03:00 - 00:05:18:14
Speaker 1
We do have a I think it's a foam system in the galley that will spray over the cooktop if there is a fire there. But aside from those two fixed firefighting systems, there's no other firefighting on board besides what we do with the hoses.
00:05:18:14 - 00:05:46:12
Speaker 1
We don't have firefighting suits and oxygen tanks like you would see on some really large vessels. So fighting a fire on board would be closing off all ventilation to the area. So there's no oxygen getting in and then boundary cooling, which is when you spray salt water, in our case salt water. But I mean, if you had fresh water on land, you would use fresh water, but you would spray the area around it to keep the fire from spreading and to also cool it down, to try to keep it contained and make it die down.
00:05:46:12 - 00:06:11:09
Speaker 1
And also in our engine room we have a water maker, so if we ever run out or get low on fresh water while we're at sea, we can just make fresh water from salt water. It takes salt water and puts it through pre filters to take out most of the biology in the water, and then takes that water and puts it at very high pressure through what we call membranes, which filter out all the minerals and salts,
00:06:11:09 - 00:06:15:06
Speaker 1
making water honestly more pure than you would find in your tap.
00:06:15:06 - 00:06:17:27
Speaker 2
Do you have a favorite story from your time on the Ernestina?
00:06:18:00 - 00:06:29:01
Speaker 1
I met a man who, when I was doing a tour for him, he was 83 years old and he had sailed on the Ernestina when it was a packet ship going from Cape Verde to the United States,
00:06:29:01 - 00:06:31:09
Speaker 1
and his godfather was a captain at the time.
00:06:31:09 - 00:06:38:29
Speaker 1
And it was really cool to see the boat through his eyes and to have him tell me how they would do everything they did.
00:06:38:29 - 00:06:52:17
Speaker 1
It was really cool to be on a boat with such history that and to be able to see how excited someone who probably hasn't been on the boat in 50 years got when he was stepping on board and looking around. One thing he pointed out that's different is in the cabin now. There are four bunks. There used to be a fifth bunk behind the companionway or the stairway,
00:06:52:17 - 00:06:53:15
Speaker 1
00:06:59:27 - 00:07:07:14
Speaker 1
I would never know. But he came on board and he was like, hey, there's needs to be another bunk in there. Oh, like where? He's like, behind the ladder. I'm like, oh.
Descriptive Transcript
The video begins with a black background. It then transitions to another black background with all text centered on the screen. The white text at the top reads: "Walker Stressinger." Below it, a green horizontal line divides the text. The bottom line reads: "Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey" in white. The title page text shrinks to a smaller size and moves to the top left corner. The black background remains, and white closed captioned text appears in the center of the screen, double-lined in a large font size.
Description
Walker Stress Singer, engineer of the Ernestina-Morrissey, discusses the ship's systems and his background. Trained at IYRS in Newport, he details the Cummins QSM 11 engine, generators, fuel tanks, fire suppression system, and water maker. His favorite memory is meeting an 83-year-old who sailed on the Ernestina decades ago, providing a vivid connection to the vessel's storied past.
Duration
7 minutes, 8 seconds
Credit
NPS Video
Date Created
06/03/2024
Copyright and Usage Info