Conrad Is Allowed To Denigrate You Like That
Because of a familial connection with the Merchant Navy, if you must know. Why, I even travelled on a cross-channel ferry a couple of times, way before the Channel Tunnel was a thing.
I know, I know, it's a title that might come straight out of "Treasure Island" and the mouth of Long John Silver. Hopefully it sets the scene, because I am going to recount a tale from Quora that was both long and technically detailed. Conrad will try and make it comprehensible to those of you who don't yet know what 'Port' and 'Starboard' mean. Art!
We mariners call this a "Fire"
Original Poster, a marine engineer, joined a merchant vessel in the mighty port of Rotterdam, where he noticed two things about the engines; they ran hot; and their temperature alarms had been re-set to stop going off because they ran consistently hot.
"They've always been like that," was all the explanation he got. Matters came to a head when they hit the Red Sea, where ambient and marine temperatures were such that the generators had to be partially idled to avoid being overloaded.
Once docked in Aden - Art!
They decided to tackle the problem head on, which meant shutting down the generators and working on battery power.
Here an aside. With no operating air-conditioning, the temperature inside the engine room hit 50º and the engineers couldn't work more than 20 minutes before heading outside into the cooler (!) temperature of 35º, for fear of heatstroke. Art!
SO the engineers began to dismantle and examine the piping for seawater, eventually disassembling all the way back to the main pipe (that led to the pumping mechanism), which was just over two feet in diameter. There had been no blockages up to that point, but they discovered that this main feed pipe was so congested with mud, weeds and shellfish that only four inches of the diameter allowed seawater to flow through it. They began to dig out the piping and -
What did they find?
A tree. A submarine tree fifteen feet long and four inches thick. It was firmly rooted in one of the pipe flanges and had accumulated passing shellfish thanks to it's firm base and lessened turbulence. The tree had survived on nutrients in the seawater than passed over it, whilst also providing a home for barnacles and mussels. Art!
Like this, except horizontal
Clearing the pipes and refitting them took all night, as this was not a small job nor undertaken lightly.
OP hypothesised that the 'tree' came aboard as a very small organism, found a foothold (or roothold) in the piping and grew and grew. He went back over the engine logs and discovered that the generator temperatures had begun to slowly increase from a time three years previously.
Last thing they did was re-set the lubricating oil alarms back to normal.
It was such a different and unusual story I thought I'd share it with you. Thanks to Quoran Stephen Carey.
A Melange Of Melancholia
Yes, I'm afraid it's more bad news about the Ruffian economy. There are pundits out there who blather on about how the Fun-Sized Foot Fiddler is set to outlast the conflict and have it go on for years and years a-
NO! Conrad, neither an economist nor general, is pretty sure the war will be over by the end of this year, not necessarily thanks to military endeavour but simply thanks to economics. There's already talk abroad in Ruffia that workers are going to be put to work, without pay, on military tasks, with no option to refuse. Or, rather, refuse and get sent to prison, and from prison to fertilise the Ukrainian sunflowers.
ANYWAY this item is an unholy blend of both Joe Blogs and Inside Russia's Youtube channels. Art!
The Ruffians cut their oil production in February by 500,000 barrels per day, which cut was supposed to last until the end of March. Here we are in May and it's still cut; in fact the cut is now said to be for the whole of 2023.
Why the cut? Supposedly, according to Puffy-Phaced Petrol Pimp, it's to hike the price up, in line with OPEC. However - a word you surely knew was coming - OPEC doesn't have any target price for oil. Not only that, there hasn't been an increase in the price of Ruffian oil; it's value is now 14% below the break-even price <Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is laughing>.
Nor is that all. O no. I mean, it would be boring if that was all the bad news I had to deliver, wouldn't it? You see, Ruffian Urals oil, their keystone product, is being sold at a discount of $20 per barrel in order to shift the stuff. This meant a per diem loss of <trumpets> $72 million in 2022, for a per annum of $26 billion. In 2023 the losses are per diem $96 million or $35 billion per annum.
The real reason for the production cuts? Bloaty Gas Tout couldn't manage to sell that much oil in the first place. Art!
"You had ONE THING to do, army - one thing!"
The Ruffian officials in the Ministry Of Finance are in a state of muted panic about the condition of the economy, because there appears to be only ₽6.4 trillion left in the treasury, which sounds like a lot but only comes to $120 billion and there is NO WAY the prospects are going to improve. So, apart from forcing people to work for free, what options are there:
1) Borrow money? Nope. Nobody outside Ruffia is going to lend them anything, because it's highly doubtful they will ever get it back, not to mention all those SANCTIONS. The Ruffian public are too poverty-stricken to be able to lend money to Putin.
2) Raise taxes? VAT has already been raised to 20%, and other hikes will surely follow, which is an easy win for the government Putin because the Ruffian public are like sheep and will happily starve in order to pay their rent, or become homeless in order to be able to eat. Perhaps. Don't forget, one Ruffian revolution began over the price of bread ...
3) Print money! More money! Lots of money! All the money all the time! The only problem with this - and it began in March with ₽2 trillion extra being printed - is that it automatically stokes inflation, to combat which interest rates need to be hiked. The former hits the public, the latter hits business, and it only works in the short term.
Not looking good for the Pest In The Bulletproof Vest, is it?
We now need a little frothy inconsequencialism.
I Know - Polskie Plakaty Filmowskie!
Which is Polish for "Polish Film Posters", in caseyou were wondering. Art!
'Back To The Future' and once you see it you cannot ever un-see it. Art!
"Some Like It Hot" and you have as much of an idea as do I. Which is not a lot.
Rolling Stock
Conrad came across a Yorkshireman with an interest in historic railways on Youtube, and which of our favourite peninsulae did he focus on? Yes, Spurn Point. There was a military railway that ran there and here we see a bit of the old steaming stock that travelled the rails. Art!
A saddle-tank 040 Conventional 060
There had been even earlier kit. Art!
Not sure what you'd call this Nor this "WD" = "War Department"
Finally -
Unlike last weekend I am not bound by the furry ball-and-chain and thus intend to do a constitutional stroll into Lesser Sodom to discover what's been reduced. Although I do still have a chicken breast from that remaindered chicken as of 16th May. If I make Bigos this afternoon we may chuck that in, too.
And with that, Vulnavia, we are so very done!
No comments:
Post a Comment