wow, it’s been a while… well i guess that means nothing except that any regular attendees might have an excuse to believe that i have somehow been inactive or something like that, however this is not the case. to start i’ve been in chicago, which has to be my absolute favoritist city. as soon as i arrived, i became consumed with pursuing the splendid resources this place has, the very resources that i’ve yearned with every pilgrimage to vermont which (seemingly took me farther from them while at the same time) had the effect of cooling my vision of what exactly it was i yearned for each time i was away. the glory of self expression. music. poetry. art. in fact, this is where the majority of my fiscal resources have been directed in the last three weeks. concerts including john hasbrouck (who i have now scheduled to take some lessons with) at the unity temple, the magnetic fields and andrew bird at the old town school of folk music, ladysmith black mambazo, ben folds and rufus wainwright, the julliard string quartet all at ravinia.
i’ve also been to see the slam that dan is hosting as well as the uptown slam with marc smith (so what).
alas i also recognize that this city has other splendid resources, and i am trying to make the best of them as well. first off, going to the navy pier, which i don’t like to attend because as soon as i do, if i don’t look blue collar enough, i feel as though everyone assumes i don’t live here… but anyhow, i went to garner info from the windy
i & ii tallships. the woman i talked with informed me that although they did not currently need any help, she would take my résumé for future consideration. next i asked her about how and where they get the engines serviced, to which she explained that all uscg certified captains must have a working understanding of the mechanics of their ship. so then i asked about who i might talk to or where i might go to learn more about (learning) diesel engines. she told me to email bob and proceeded to give me the wrong address. upon retuning home i emailed bob
(i already had the right one before going down there).
Hi,
My name is Asa Nathannael Hunt and I live in chicago. I am interested in learning how to work (marine) diesel engines and so i’m wondering if you can recommend a venue for this.
Where did you learn? I get the impression that most mechanical work done on tallships like the Windys is done by employees as opposed to being hired out when in dock, is this correct? If not, is there a mechanic around chicago that might be appropriate to talk to/look into learning from? Thanks in advance for your time.
Regards,
ANH
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Asa,
I would suggest checking with a local technical or vocational college in the area for diesel mechanics courses. As for the specialty of marine diesels, that would involve the "marinization" of regular diesel engines common in trucks. marinization is mostly related to changing the cooling system to a heat exchanger instead of a radiator.
With regard to tall ships, the larger vessels may require and engineer aboard. The USCG has special requirements for licensing engineers and takes at least a year of apprenticing before you qualify for the test. Only large vessels beyond 100 Tons require them.
Even a joy [job?] at a diesel repair facility would be helpful in learning about the mechanics.
I hope this is helpful. We do all of our own work by knowing the basic principles of mechanics and seriously reading the manual for basic maintenance and small repairs. We leave the big internal jobs to the professionals.
Sincerely, Capt. Bob
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Thanks for your help Bob,
One more question I have then, is if I were to look into employment with a professionals in this area, who would you recommend either looking into or talking with?
Asa
bob has not responded yet, however i spent some time looking into classes and found a correspondence course on diesel mechanics through thompson.
for some time now i have also tossed around the idea that i could, if working on a boat, pursue converting it to biodiesel. this in combination with hearing khanti’s stories of biodiesel coops (which collect yellow oil and reprocess it for biodiesel applications) have helped render visions of creating one such coop in chicago. my research to date has revealed no such organization other than one that is located near o’hare, which only sells b20 made from soy. it seems like now is a prime time for exploration of this resource. there is market research i came across, which was done back between 1995-99. it was all marine based because (i think) it’s a relatively small local diesel motoring community. water taxi services and dock side refueling stations started selling a b20 mix and eventually ceasing because the cleaning qualities of biodiesel and the fact that at the time, it was not understood what was going "wrong" (now it is understood that biodiesel’s solvent qualities were removing old buildup, mandating several fuel filter changes). the national biodiesel board (nbb) published —>a report<— on the findings (if the link doesn’t work, search "chicago" on their website)… well i’m getting exhausted of energy to sit here anymore, so adieu for now.