Monday, September 28, 2015

Inside the last Whaleback ship in the world...

Here's a few more pics of the Meteor.  Such a futuristic design, she had limits to her length and therefore her ability to haul materials.  This vessel originally plied the waters of the Great Lakes in the 1890's!  She was re-fit many times, ending her carrier as a tanker.  Interestingly what stopped the whaleback design was a lack of torsional rigidity.  The internal ribs and structural gussets lacked sufficient depth to give the hull enough stiffness to lengthen the vessel and allow her to keep up with the motorized barges that became the giant lake freighters of the modern era.

The hull continues to a keel 10 feet below the ground.

The deck hatches were removed and this structure was added to segregate and cap the new oil tanks.

This wheel house is as simple as it gets!

Cowl vents for the engine room and the galley. 

A three cylinder steam engine provided propulsion power.
The hull length was structurally limited by it's design.  So to make the vessel competitive as a bulk carrier it often towed a barge.  This was not safe in heavy seas, so eventually all whaleback vessels were either scrapped or sunk. 

AML NLO, JRO and SEO AML

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