défense maritime engineering 65 journal - cnthamaritime engineering journal no. 65 fall 2009 /...

MaritimeEngineeringJournalCANADA’S NAVAL TECHNICAL FORUM Fall 2009/Winter 2010

National Defence

Défensenationale

In this Issue:• Halifax-class DGen Failure Investigation

• HMCS Kootenay— 40 Years of Lessons

• A Chemox Replacement for the Navy

65Since 1982

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Power to Go!Power to Go!

HMCS Ville de Québec’sAfrican “quick fix”

1MARITIME ENGINEERING JOURNAL NO. 65 FALL 2009 / WINTER 2010

DEPARTMENTSCommodore’s Corner

From seemingly small causesby Commodore Richard Greenwood ..............................................................2

ForumThe Past Meets The Present —VAdm Stephens and Capt(N) Monteith Visit HMS Sultanby LCdr DE Saulnier ......................................................................................3

FEATURESThis is Africa — The Challenges of Making Emergency Diesel Generator

Repairs While Deployedby LCdr Sean Williams ...................................................................................5

Halifax-class Diesel Generator Failure Investigationby Cdr Dan Riis ............................................................................................10

Looking Back: HMCS Kootenay — 40 Years of Lessons Learnedby Claude Tremblay ......................................................................................16

A New (Dräger) Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus for theCanadian Navyby Cdr Marc Batsford ...................................................................................21

BOOK REVIEWSalty Dips Volume 9 “Carry On”

reviewed by Bridget Madill ..........................................................................24

NEWS BRIEFS ...........................................................................25

CNTHA NEWSNewsletter of the Canadian Naval TechnicalHistory Association ................................................................................ Insert

MaritimeEngineeringJournal

Director GeneralMaritime Equipment Program ManagementCommodore Richard W. Greenwood, OMM, CD

FALL 2009 / Winter 2010

(Established 1982)

The Maritime Engineering Journal (ISSN 0713-0058) is an unofficial publication of the Mari-time Engineers of the Canadian Forces, produced by the Director General Maritime EquipmentProgram Management. Views expressed are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect of-ficial opinion or policy. Mail can be sent to: The Editor, Maritime Engineering Journal,DMMS (6 LSTL), NDHQ, 101 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1A 0K2. Theeditor reserves the right to reject or edit any editorial material. While every effort is made to re-turn artwork and photos in good condition, the Journal assumes no responsibility for this. Unlessotherwise stated, Journal articles may be reprinted with proper credit. A courtesy copy of the re-printed article would be appreciated.

The Journal is available on the DGMEPMwebsite located on the DND DIN intranetat http://admmat.dwan.dnd.ca/dgmepm/dgmepm/publications

Senior EditorCapt(N) Mike WoodChief of Staff MEPM

Project DirectorMaritime Engineering JournalLt(N) Denise Dickson

Production Editor / EnquiriesBrian [email protected]. (613) 831-4932

Associate Production EditorBridget Madill

Production Editing Services byBrightstar Communications,Kanata, Ontario (613) [email protected]

Print Management Services byAssistant Deputy Minister (Public Affairs)DPAPS / Creative Services

Translation Services byPublic Works and Government ServicesTranslation Bureau

ADM(Mat) Translation Co-ordinatorM. Clément Lachance

Edition No. 65

Our Cover: HMCS Ville de Québec lost two diesel-generatorswhile deployed off the coast of East Africa, leaving the ship with aquestionable power generation system in some of the world’s mostdangerous waters. (DND photo)

2 MARITIME ENGINEERING JOURNAL NO. 65 FALL 2009 /WINTER 2010

Commodore’s Corner

By Commodore R.W. Greenwood, OMM, CDDirector General Maritime Equipment Program Management

This issue of the Journal fea-tures two engineering inci-

dents separated by 40 years, bothalike in that they serve to remind usof the sudden and catastrophic fail-ures which can arise from seeminglysmall causes.

October 23, 1969 – A major gear-ing failure on board the destroyerescort HMCS Kootenay results inan explosion and fire that kills ninesailors. Despite fleet-wide gearinginspections, four more steamers ex-perience related gearbox failures just19 months later. Fortunately, there isno further loss of life or injury.

Flash forward to the summer andfall of 2008. Without warning, theHalifax-class frigates begin losingMWM602 diesel-generator enginesat an alarming rate. Eight enginessuffer catastrophic failure in justseven months. There are no person-nel casualties, but the impact on op-erations, maintenance and third-lineresources is heavy.

In both cases, coincidentally, theinitial or root cause was a bearingshell: one improperly installed andleading to overheating and a gearboxexplosion, and the other wronglysized, leading to fretting, fatiguecracking and failure with subsequentdamage. In each case the initial er-ror lurked undetected in the systemuntil revealed at the moment of cata-strophic failure, in one case with sig-nificant and tragic loss of life, and inthe other with extensive materialdamage through the fleet.

What can we conclude from theseincidents, one that has been the pro-

From seemingly small causes...

fessional cautionary tale of theMARE Branch since before I joined,and the other new but (in the finalanalysis) not really incorporating any“original” or surprising elements froma historical point of view?

Probably the first point is the needfor constant vigilance and attentionto detail.

Quite apart from “the dangers ofthe sea and the violence of the en-emy,” our workplace at sea is a dan-gerous place with numerous risksfrom high pressures, temperature,voltage and electromagnetic radia-tion. The switch from a routine workday to a “bad navy day” can happenin the blink of an eye. Much of ourtraining is directed toward the correctrecognition and mitigation of theserisks, and their management whenthey do occur, but nothing can com-pensate for an ever-present profes-sional belief that details matter, andthe vigilance that goes with that be-lief. This need for constant profes-sional attention to detail, and the per-sonal responsibility of the individualengineer for defects or errors re-minds me of the first verse ofRudyard Kipling’s Hymn of Break-ing Strain,1 familiar to many engi-neers from their iron ring ceremony.

The second point is that new tech-nology does not make these risks goaway.

If anything, the increasing sophis-tication of newer technology, withincreased power densities and tightertolerances, make it all the more im-perative that we maintain effectivequality assurance in maintenance

actions and close adherence to cor-rect operating parameters. Modernhigh-speed marine diesels are oneexample of this; the stringent re-quirements of modern submarinemaintenance are another.

A third point is the importance ofnot losing sight of the perspectivesand insights of the past.

The lessons of the past have ahabit — a history, one could say —of recurring as fresh and relevant tothe present. If nothing else theyshould be locked in as “part of theprocess” when we take our techni-cal decisions, sign off on maintenancework, or send our sailors into the en-gineering spaces. It is just one morething we can do to ensure the tech-nical health of the navy and thesafety of our sailors. It is also, ofcourse, the merit of a publicationsuch as this in capturing these reflec-tions and making them accessible tothe naval engineering community.

Remembering and respectingthe hard-won insights and perspec-tives of those who have gone beforeus may seem like a small thing, butin this business it is the seeminglysmall things that make all the differ-ence.

1.http:www.kipling.org.uk/poems_strain.htm


Rolfe Monteith

Forum

It was just over a year ago, onOctober 8-9, 2008, that 17 Ca-

nadian Forces marine systems engi-neering students on course at HMSSultan in Gosport, UK (just west ofPortsmouth) had the honour of meet-ing retired Canadian naval engineers,Vice-Admiral (ret.) Bob Stephensand Captain (N) (ret.) Rolfe Mon-teith. The two officers had been in-vited to speak at the Royal NavalSchool of Marine Engineering

( R N S M E )about theirexperiencesas marine sys-tems engi-neers servingwith the RoyalC a n a d i a nNavy. Cap-tain (N) Nor-man Jolin, theCF naval ad-viser to theUK, based at

Canadian Defence Liaison Staff(London), also spoke to the group.

Day 1 began with a call on thecommanding officer of RNSME,Captain Graham Watts, RN. Afterlunch at the wardroom, Capt(N) Jolingave a presentation on what COsexpect of MSEOs, shipboard admin-istration, departmental structure,dealing with external agencies, thedivisional system, and more.

VAdm Stephens then described hiscareer (in entertaining detail) to anaudience of approximately 45 person-nel. One of the admiral’s commentsthat struck a chord with many listen-ers was that as maritime engineerswe support naval command in two of

The Past Meets the Present —VAdm Stephens and Capt(N) Monteith Visit HMS Sultan

the three vital shipboard capabilities— Float, Move, Fight. He stressedthat it was “Move” that was vital incarrying the “Fight” to where it wasneeded. His opinion resonatedstrongly with some of the seniormembers of the audience.

Capt(N) Monteith’s message fo-cused on the work he does on behalfof the Canadian Naval Technical

By LCdr D.E. Saulnier

Vice-AdmiralRobert St. George Stephens (RCN Retired)

VAdm Stephens was born in1924, and joined the Royal Cana-dian Navy in 1941. He served for37 years. His education includedthe Royal Naval CollegeDartmouth, Royal Naval Engineer-ing College Keyham, GreenwichNaval College and the ImperialDefence College in London.

Admiral Stephens was the firstCanadian officer to undertake nu-clear training. He served in engi-neering capacities in HMC shipsIroquois (Arctic convoys), Huron(off Korea), and Magnificent,and in HMS Swiftsure (flagship forthe British Pacific Fleet). Ashore,VAdm Stevens served as Com-mander Superintendent of HalifaxDockyard, Chief of Staff at Ma-terial Command, Assistant Chief ofDefence Staff for InformationHandling, Commander TrainingCommand, and as the CanadianMilitary Representative to the Mili-tary Committee at NATO Head-quarters in Brussels before retir-ing in 1978.

He has written a biography ofhis father, engineer Rear-Admi-ral GL Stephens. VAdm Stevenswas interviewed by theCNTHA’s CANDIB projectteam about the design and test-ing of the St. Laurent-class de-stroyers. A summary of that in-terview was reported in CNTHANews Spring 2009 (MaritimeEngineering Journal No. 64).

History Association (CNTHA) andthe Canadian Naval Defence Indus-trial Base (CANDIB) researchproject. He also discussed his role asproject manager for the CanadianHydrofoil Project, pointing out thebenefits of the program (see CNTHANews insert in this issue).

(Continues next page)


Forum

At the time of the visit, LCdr D.E. Saulnier was the CFexchange officer at HMS Sultan. He was responsiblefor all officer training at RNSME, including the RoyalNavy’s surface and submarine officers, and theelectrical-mechanical officer branch of the BritishArmy. His primary role was the course management ofthe CF MS Eng officers attending the Systems Engi-neering and Management Course (SEMC). He re-turned to Ottawa last July

Capt(N) Rolfe Monteithaboard HMCS Hardy inGibraltar in October 1943.“One could not obtainbananas in the UK durningWorld War Two, so onealways took a few backfrom the Med.”

Captain(N)Rolfe Gibson Monteith (RCN Retired)

Capt(N) Monteith was bornin 1923. He joined the RoyalCanadian Navy (RCN) in 1941,and served for 28 years. Hiseducation included the RoyalNaval College Dart-mouth, Royal Na-val EngineeringCollege Keyham,Plymouth, and theImperial DefenceCollege in London.His wartime sea-going experiencewas aboard thedest royer HMSHardy (1943) —Scapa Flow andMurmansk con-voys — and Gi-braltar.

Following theSecond World WarCapt(N) Monteithcross-trained aero-nautical engineer-ing, and served in acruiser, an aircraftcarrier, carrier airgroup, destroyer, naval air sta-tion, with FOAC Staff, Cana-dian Defence Liaison Staff(Washington), and National De-

fence Headquarters in Ottawa.He retired from the RCN in1969 and immigrated to the UKin 1970 to begin a second ca-reer in UK industry.

Since the late1970s Capt(N)Monteith has beenorganizing the re-cording of techni-cal aspects of Ca-nadian naval avia-tion (1943-1968),the ship/submarineelements (1904 tothe present), andthe Canadian de-fence industrialbase since 1904.

Capt(N) Mon-teith is a foundingmember of the Ca-nadian Naval Tech-nical History Asso-ciation (CNTHA),and the CanadianNaval Defence In-dustrial Base re-search working

group (CANDIB).

The three VIPs stayed overnightin the wardroom at HMS Sultan, andearly the next morning watched theCF students as they participated inan integrated machinery flash-upserial. This event had the CF offic-ers run a watch in the school’s work-ing machinery control room. One stu-dent, designated Chief of the Watch,directed the team to start RoyalNavy shipboard machinery and sys-tems, including steering, a diesel gen-erator, air compressor, auxiliaries andan Olympus gas turbine. The ma-chinery is real; they were runningand watchkeeping on working train-ing aids. While the flash-up pro-gressed, the visitors toured the ma-chinery locations and could see forthemselves that the training at HMSSultan provides a degree of realis-tic, hands-on training that the CFcannot duplicate in Canada.

The visit provided an opportunityfor the class of developing profes-sional officers to learn about CF mili-tary history, and the details of deci-sions and programs that continue toaffect us today from people whowere there at the time. The insightsthey shared were revealing, upliftingand inspiring.

HMS Sultan at Gosport, UK


A s HMCS Ville de Québecprepared to enter the East

African port of Mombassa, Kenyaon October 1, 2008, the ship’s com-pany was looking forward to a fewwell-deserved days off. We’d had abusy series of transits back and forthto Mogadishu, Somalia, escortingmerchant vessels in support of theUN’s World Food Program. That allchanged very rapidly when ourNo. 3 MWM602 diesel generator(DG) failed catastrophically justhours before our scheduled alongside.

Diesel generator failures are noth-ing new in Halifax-class ships. Justweeks before we had suffered whatappeared to be a nearly identical fail-ure in our No. 4 DG, the cause ofwhich was still unknown. We thenlearned that four similar failures hadbeen experienced recently in WestCoast ships, indicating a potentialfleet problem (see, “Halifax-classDiesel Generator Failure Investiga-tion,” page 10).

We had approximately one monthof operations left before we could getto a reliable port to conduct repairs,but we were now operating in someof the world’s most dangerous wa-ters with a very questionable powergeneration system. A decision wasquickly taken to suspend operationsuntil a temporary repair could bemade. There was neither time norsufficient infrastructure in any acces-sible port to conduct a diesel genera-tor replacement, so the hunt began fora portable unit we could install on theupper deck to get us home.

There was significant debate overthe power generation capacity wewould require. Four hundred kilo-watts would give us enough powerfor a limp-home capability, but 800-

This is Africa —The Challenges of Making Emergency DieselGenerator Repairs While Deployed

1,000 kW would be extremely ben-eficial. Thinking that generators in the400-kW range might be more read-ily available, we investigated the op-tion of installing two of these units tomeet our power needs.

Having to procure diesel genera-tors and install them on the upperdeck of a warship while away fromhome port would be challengingenough at the best of times. But do-ing so in Africa, we discovered,posed several unique challenges thatwould make for a very interestingexperience. The most significant ofthese were:

• It is almost impossible to get reli-able information;

• It is rare that you get exactly whatyou either ask for or expect; and

• Nothing ever happens on time.

The reliability of information is-sue proved to be our toughest chal-lenge. It was easy enough gettingsomeone to tell us they had whatwe were looking for, but muchmore difficult getting them to ac-tually produce it.

As we soon learned, this wasAfrica.

Article by LCdr Sean Williams

HMCS Ville de Québec loads oneof two emergency replacementdiesel generator units in Dar EsSalaam, Tanzania while de-ployed in support of the UnitedNations World Food Program. Theship’s gunshield artwork at leftdepicts “Lucky Luke” on the job.(All photos courtesy the author.)


The Search for EnginesAfter a few days of scouting

about for suitable engines in Mom-bassa, it appeared that most of theavailable generators were a fewhours away in Nairobi. We decidedto send a team inland to investigateany possible options, including alead we had on a used 1,000-kWCummins diesel.

To complicate matters, the shipwas running out of potable water. Wehad been unable to find an accept-able source in Mombassa, so stayingin port long enough to secure andinstall generators was not possible.Shortly after landing a two-man teamconsisting of our resident diesel ex-pert, PO1 Dion Randell, and our Elec-trical 2 I/C, PO2 Alex Robichaud, Villede Québec left Mombassa to loiteroff the coast where we could pro-duce water.

The first calls from our teamashore were not promising. The1,000-kW Cummins in Nairobi wasnot in an acceptable condition, andeven the Caterpillar dealer there hadvery little available. Access to reli-able information became even moreof a challenge at this point. Althoughthe dealers in Kenya insisted to thecontrary, a quick search on Googleindicated that there was indeed a Catdealer in the major shipping port ofDar Es Salaam, Tanzania 700 kilome-tres away to the south. While ourtwo-man team made arrangementsto travel to Dar Es Salaam, Ville deQuébec turned south to await themoffshore.

In Tanzania the team found a largestate-of-the-art Caterpillar facility.The prospect of finding enginesseemed very good, and it also ap-peared that any necessary conver-sions could be done. One of the chal-lenges we faced in that part of theworld was that Africa runs on 50-Hzpower. We of course required 60-Hzgenerators. Caterpillar advertisedthat most of its engines could do ei-ther, but the dealers in East Africawere very reluctant to do any con-versions. In the end, after we foundan independent engineer willing to do

the work, they agreed to do anypower conversions in-house.

The first engines the team lookedat were a pair of 436-kW diesel gen-erators complete with acoustic en-closures. Neither had an integral fueltank, but since the dealer agreed to

install a fuel tank on each engine wedecided to proceed. This plan fellapart the next day when it was de-termined that the fuel tanks could notin fact be installed, but then our luckseemed to take a turn for the better.Two other engines were available, a

Pre

para

tion


635-kW and a 508-kW, and both hadintegral fuel tanks. Once again weagreed to proceed, and one moretime were met with disappointmentthe following day when we learnedthat the larger of the two enginescould not be converted to 60 Hz. We

finally decided to take the 508-kWengine, along with one of the 436-kWengines with a separate stand-alonefuel tank. As the engine conversionsgot under way, Ville de Québecheaded in to Dar Es Salaam, arriv-ing there October 11, 2008.

Engineering on the FlyWe weren’t the only busy ones.

While we were occupied acquiringengines in Africa, Fleet MaintenanceFacility Cape Scott and MARLANTFleet Technical Authority back inHalifax were hard at work on someof the engineering support work wewould need to install the engines. Wereceived drawings showing recom-mended placements for the engines,along with welding specifications forconstructing the engine footings. Itwas an excellent piece of work theydid for us.

Following a quick inspection of thetwo engines by the rest of the Villede Québec team, we were ready tobegin our installation preparations.We received outstanding supportfrom the ship’s deck department,which had the two installation sitesstripped and ready for welding by theend of our first afternoon alongside.The momentum was good while itlasted, but this was Africa. The steelwe had ordered, which was sup-posed to be waiting for us on arrival,hadn’t been delivered (but would be,we were promised, within twohours). It arrived at ten o’clock thenext morning. And there was onemore surprise for us. Instead of the4x6x3/8-inch steel we were expect-ing, we found ourselves staring at aload of 3x4x1/2-inch angle iron. Get-ting any steel at all seemed to be asmall miracle in itself, so we decidedto make do with what we had.

The ship’s hull techs got to workstraight away fabricating the footings.They began by stitch-welding twoparallel rails of angle iron fore-and-aft along the deck to support eachgenerator. To help level the engineson the cambered deck, the two sup-port rails were welded in oppositeorientation. The inboard rail wasstood on its three-inch “leg” along itslength, while the outboard rail wasstood one inch higher on its four-inchleg to make up for the downwardcant toward the ship’s side. Cross-supports were then welded into place,and after nearly 48 hours of almostcontinuous work the hull techs hadboth footings finished — an astonish-

Inst

alla

tion


ing feat of determination and hardwork.

Shortly after receiving the steel,the electrical cable arrived — con-siderably earlier than expected. Un-like the cable we use in Canadawhere each phase is its own cable,what we received consisted of fourarmoured cores bundled together intoa cable approximately three inches indiameter. With three cables for eachengine (and each one considerablylonger than ordered) it took a wholeship effort to move the extremelyheavy lengths into position.

While the fabrication of thefootings was going extremely well onboard ship, there were delays withthe diesel generators themselves.The conversion and load banks shouldhave been completed, but the dealer

was having difficulty acquiring thepasswords to access the electroniccontrols needed to conduct the 50-to-60-Hz conversion. The passwordsapparently had to come from Cairo,but since it was now the weekend thedealer in Dar Es Salaam could notreach his contacts in the Egyptiancapital.

This was Africa.

The delays were frustrating, but onOctober 14 the power conversion ofthe engines was finally complete.Unfortunately, the load bank equip-ment was not functioning correctly,so more delays were experienced.Keen to get moving on the installa-tion we decided to have the enginesdelivered and do the load banks us-ing the ship’s load. This proved to bea good decision, and by the end of

that day the first engine had beensuccessfully run up to 110-percentpower for one hour. The second en-gine would have to wait until the nextday as the dealer reps were unwill-ing to work into the night. This wastypical of the service we saw through-out our stay. It was nearly impossi-ble to get anyone to move quickly onanything, or to put in any additionaleffort. Still, with a crane reserved forthe next day, we were in a good po-sition to be back at sea within 48hours.

The next morning started wellenough with a successful load bankof the second engine, but the cranethat was supposed to arrive in themorning didn’t show up until mid-af-ternoon. When it finally did show upwe were impressed to see it was a

A tight fit on the port side. A less-than-ideal sling mechanism andminimal clearances on thesuperstructure complicated theinstallation.

Fleet Maintenance Facility Cape Scott and MARLANT Fleet Technical Authority in Halifax providedengineering support for the DG installations. The three black boxes show recommended placements forthe engines. The site located in the ship’s hanger at left was not used.


LCdr Sean Williams was the Ma-rine Systems Engineering Officeron board HMCS Ville de Québecfrom 2007 to 2009. He is now com-pleting post-graduate studies atthe University of Ottawa.brand-new 60-ton crane, more than capa-

ble of lifting an engine over the ship andthus saving us having to turn the ship end-for-end to receive the second engine. Butwhile the crane itself was up to the task,the lifting mechanism seemed less thanideal. The slings were of uneven length,and the spreader bars, which were far widerthan the engines, looked as if they had been

With the installation of an external fueltanks (top), and the final electricalhook-ups and tests, the ship was “goodto go.”

built in someone’s garage. Theseoverly wide spreader bars wouldcause us problems because ofthe minimal clearances we wereworking with against the super-structure and around other deckfittings.

The port-side installation ofthe 436-kW engine went eas-ily enough, tight a fit as it was,but installing the 508-kW engineon the starboard side made realwork for us because of inter-ference from an overhangingcatwalk. With minimal clear-ance, the engine had to be low-ered outboard of the footing,then pulled, pushed and shovedinto position using a combinationof come-alongs, 10-foot leversand brute force. It took about anhour of frustrating work, but bothengines were finally in place. Wewere ready to go.

Ville de Québec left Dar EsSalaam on October 16, 2008,ready to resume operations withtwo emergency diesel generatorsinstalled on the upper decks. Al-though it had been a very chal-

lenging and at times frustrating epi-sode, the installation of this field engi-neering change ended up being a mostrewarding experience for all of us. Inparticular it gave our crew, especiallythe technicians, an opportunity to showoff their skills on a job that would nor-mally be handled by a fleet mainte-nance facility or by outside contractors.We may have been in Africa, but theVdQ team proved that it was, as ever,up to the task.


The MWM602 engine is theprime mover used in the four

diesel generators (DGs) which sup-ply all electrical power on boardCanada’s 12 Halifax-class frigates.The engine was manufactured byMWM and supported until 2005 byDeutz, at which time all design rightswere purchased by Wartsila. Today,Wartsila provides OEM (originalequipment manufacturer) supportand technical expertise through theWartsila Netherlands engineeringfacility in Zwolle, and R&O andspares support through WartsilaCanada in Montreal.

The MWM602 engine has a his-tory of low reliability in the Halifaxclass, which in turn has had seriousimpact on operations, maintenanceload and third-line resources. Theproblems have generally been attrib-uted to an aging (and in some casespoor) engine design, and to carbon(coke) build-up and engine seizurethrough operation at low loads. Low-load operation occurs when the1,140-kW engine is used to drive an850-kW generator for an averageship hotel load of 1,100 kW (splitacross two generators).

Over the past 15 years significantresources have been expended onimproving the MWM602’s reliabilityand reducing its maintenance load.The effort has included multiple en-gineering changes, instituting a policyof high-load decoking operations toburn off carbon, and two consecutivechanges to the fuel injector design.The second injector change madefrom 2006 to 2008 introduced ultra-low load (ULL) injectors to the fleet.

In June 2008 the fleet was hit withthe first of what would eventually be-come eight catastrophic MWM602engine failures over the next sevenmonths. In all cases the engineswere destroyed beyond repair, themajority with “holed” crankcases. Anunfortunate complication was thatmost of the failures occurred whilethe ships were deployed. This hadtwo major effects:

1. Operations were significantlyimpacted. In October 2008HMCS Ville de Québec (FFH-332) suffered failure of both af-ter engines while deployed in theIndian Ocean off the coast ofEast Africa. Two emergency

Halifax -class Diesel Generator FailureInvestigation

In a seven-month period ending in January 2009, eight MWM602 diesel generatorengines failed catastrophically on board Canada’s Halifax-class frigates. By April an“all parties” investigation had established, mitigated and planned for the resolution ofthe primary root cause of failures.

Article by: Cdr Dan Riis, CD, MSc, BSc

diesel generators (EDGs) had tobe purchased in Tanzania andmounted temporarily to the toppart of ship to allow the ship tocontinue its mission. (See, “Thisis Africa — The Challenges ofMaking Emergency Diesel Gen-erator Repairs While Deployed,”page 5.) A full change-out of bothfailed engines conducted later inToulon, France required consid-erable MARLANT resources.

HMCS Calgary (FFH-335) alsosuffered two engine failures, andin view of the new increased riskof further diesel generator fail-ures was required to fit an EDGfor its transit home across thenorth Pacific. HMCS Montréal(FFH-336), too, had to be fittedwith an EDG to continue hermission in the Caribbean.

2. Information regarding the fail-ures was very difficult to obtain.Where possible, field service

HMC ships Calgary and Ville deQuébec both experienced dieselgenerator engine failures whiledeployed.

DND Combat Camera HS2008-K024-012 by Cpl Dany Veilette,Formation Imaging Services Halifax


representatives were sent to theships to view the engines andascertain the failure modes.Technical investigators were or-dered to collect as much failureinformation as possible, datawhich would be critical for asubsequent in-depth investiga-tion. The process requiredlengthy removal and full tear-down inspections of each engine,all complicated by the ships’ op-erational schedules and availabil-ity.

By January 2009 enough data hadbeen collected to allow an MWMfailure investigation working group tobegin a root cause analysis. Thegroup would be chaired by theDMSS 3 section head for propul-sion systems in the Directorate ofMaritime Ship Support in Ottawa(the author), and include subjectmatter experts from DMSS 3-4,the Naval Engineering Test Estab-lishment (NETE) in Montreal, thefleet technical authorities andmaintenance facilities on bothcoasts, the OEM (Wartsila), and acontracted independent consultant(Ricardo Ltd).

The working group would alsolook at four timing gear failureswhich had occurred on theMWM602s between 2007 and2009. Only one of these had re-sulted in catastrophic engine fail-ure, but the working group wantedto analyze this failure mode to de-termine if it related to the overallproblem.

Investigation Findings —Working group meeting,February 2009

The working group determinedthat four failure modes were presentamong the 12 failures:

• connecting rod (i.e. conrod) big-end bearing cap cracking (five en-gines);

• main crankshaft bearing seizure(two engines);

• piston seizure (one engine); and

• timing gear failure (four engines).

There was no indication that any ofthe failure modes were related.

The working group focused its in-vestigation primarily on establishinga root cause for the conrod big-endcap cracking that was behind themajority of the recent catastrophicfailures. Analysis conducted duringthe earlier technical investigationshad determined that the cracking ini-tiated at the same location on eachconrod (Fig. 1), and that each fail-ure had been caused by fatigue.Moreover, on each failure therewere signs of a high degree of fret-ting, or abrasive wear, between theconrod big-end cap housing and thebearing, with significant levels ofmaterial transfer evident (Fig. 2).Early in its own investigation theworking group concluded that the big-end cap cracking was being initiatedby this fretting.

Under normal conditions the tol-erances in engine design and mate-rial strength ensure that fretting ei-ther does not occur, or is not signifi-cant enough to initiate cracking. Theworking group therefore focused onthe most likely possible causes of boththe fretting and the big-end cap’ssusceptibility to cracking, namely:

• low material strength;• firing-cycle effects; and• inadequate interference fit.

Low material strengthFour different versions of conrod

were found to exist and to have beeninstalled throughout the Canadian

fleet of engines, three under the samepart number. The most recent ver-sion included a material change andwas the only version not to have suf-fered a failure. It is likely this conrodversion has greater material strengthand is less susceptible to fretting andfatigue cracking. Material strengthwas classified as a possible contrib-uting cause, but not a root causesince the engines had operated withthe previous three versions for overten years without big-end cap fail-ures.

Firing-cycle effectsA computer finite element analy-

sis (FEA) model built by Wartsilarevealed that the conrods did indeedhave a risk of fretting at the crack lo-cation, and that a high stress point ex-ists at the same location. Both weredue to mass forces (Fig. 3) and gasforces.

Fig. 1. Fatigue cracks occurred in the samespot (indicated) at the big-end of each ofthe failed conrods. Inset: Fatigue failure ofa bolt post on the big-end cap.

Fig. 2. The conrods showed ahigh degree of fretting andsignificant levels of materialtransfer between the big-end caphousing and the bearing.


High mass (or inertia) forces aregenerated at low loads when there islittle gas force to counteract the pis-ton’s high-velocity movement up thecylinder. This can be prevalent undera number of operating conditions forthe Halifax-class diesel generators,such as:

• tactical decoking (holdingone DG near idle while decok-ing the other engine); and

• blackout drills and loadbanks (taking load off sud-denly).

Once again these wereclassified as possible contrib-uting causes only. The dieselgenerators have been workingunder such operating condi-tions for years, long before thebig-end cap cracks everturned up.

High gas forces are presentat high firing pressures withinthe combustion chamber andwere shown in the FEA modelto contribute to stress and fret-ting. But it was also agreedthat high gas forces would ex-acerbate crack initiation andpropagation, made worse bythe direction of the forceswithin the big-end bearing. Oilfilm analysis (Fig. 4) showedthat maximum forces are ex-erted at the big-end cap serrated con-nection point on A-bank, acting at theweak point of the housing and cre-ating a potential moment arm on thecap. There were no failures on B-

bank because the forces there wereacting at a more benign point.

While high gas forces occur athigh loads such as when decoking,these firing pressures are not nor-mally problematic given the mis-match between the generator andengine sizes. Furthermore, since de-

Tests conducted at the NavalEngineering Test Establishment in-dicated that the ultra-low load in-jectors caused both a significantadvancement of peak firing pres-sure, and a significant increase infiring pressure. The firing pres-sures measured as part of this in-

vestigation exceeded thosemeasured during ultra-lowload development testing,and at times exceeded thedesign limits for the engine.The variation in measure-ments from ULL develop-ment tests to failure investiga-tion tests was attributed tovariations in injection timingand injector body wear. Highfiring pressure resulting fromULL injectors was classifiedas a possible root cause ofconrod big-end cap failuresince the ULL injectors hadbeen introduced shortly be-fore the failures began, andall failed engines had ULLinjectors fitted.

Inadequate interferencefit

The conrod big-end bear-ing is held in place within thehousing by an interferencefit. This is achieved via anoverstand nip length of the

bearing, essentially oversizing it tothe housing (Fig. 5) so that it com-presses into position. Possiblecauses of inadequate interferencefit can be attributed to:

Fig. 3. Finite element analysis results for mass forces acting on a conrod indicate ( left ) the maximum stresspoints, and ( right ) fretting contact pressures.

Fig. 4. Oil film analysis reveals maximumforces being exerted at different points on A-Bank and B-Bank conrods. The A-Bankconrods ( left ) were at much greater risk sincethe forces were acting on the weak point ofthe housing at the big-end cap serratedconnection point.

coking has been occurring sinceearly in the life of the class, highengine load in this situation wasclassified as a possible contribut-ing cause only.


• Nip length — an undersizedbearing would not achieve sufficientcrush;

• Surface finish — inadequatefriction between the bearing andhousing would allow slippage; and

• Assembly — poor fitting of theconrod big-end cap to the conrodcould also result in inadequatecrush.

Teardown inspections conductedat the time of the first working groupmeeting revealed that all big-end capbolt breakaway torques were withinspec. Assembly was therefore elimi-nated as a possible root cause for thisfailure mode early in the investiga-tion.

The surface finish, however, hadinteresting possibilities. A surface

roughness depth (Rz) of 2.6 µm wasmeasured on a representative conrodbig-end cap, which was well withinthe design maximum of 6 µm stipu-lated on the engine drawings.Wartsila, however, indicated that fortheir modern engine designs a mini-mum Rz of 11.76 µm is used. It wassurmised that for old engines withless precise manufacturing methods(the MWM602 design dates from the1970s), a maximum Rz was neces-sary to reduce the surface roughnesssufficiently to achieve the requiredheat transfer. Since modern manu-facturing methods can achieve avery smooth finish, newer designs re-quire stipulation of a minimum Rz toensure appropriate friction fit. None-theless, surface finish was catego-rized only as a contributing causesince it had not changed since theengines were commissioned.

Wartsila Canada’s Halifax facilityundertook to measure the nip lengthon representative bearings, whichrequired the manufacture of a highlyaccurate jig (Fig. 6). The measure-ments revealed the nip length to beshort compared with the enginespecifications, and so at the time ofthe first working group meeting niplength was categorized as a possibleroot cause.

Final Analysis — WorkingGroup Meeting, February 2009

The analysis that thus emergedfrom the first working group meet-ing in February 2009 revealed anumber of possible contributingcauses and, significantly, two possi-ble root causes of big-end cap fret-ting and failure; namely:

• High conrod big-end cap stresscaused by high firing pressures dueto the ultra-low load injectors; and

• Inadequate interference fitcaused by undersized bearings (i.e.short nip length)

The working group concluded thatthe issue of the undersized bearingswould have to be explored with thesupplier. As for the high firing pres-sures, it was concluded that introduc-ing a delay in the injection timing

Fig. 5. The circumferential length of the bearing should be slightlylonger than the circumference of its housing in the conrod big-end.A proper interference fit of the bearing with the housing is achievedwhen the “nip” crushes into position when the conrod cap is bolteddown. An undersized bearing, and thus too short a nip, would allowthe bearing to fret, or move about, inside the big-end housing.

Fig. 6. Wartsila Canada’s Halifax facility manufactured this highlyaccurate jig to measure nip lengths of the conrod bearings.


would reduce peak firing pressuresand thus avoid having to abandon theULL injectors. Before introducingthis as a permanent solution, how-ever, more testing would be requiredon the NETE diesel engine test bedand with Wartsila’s finite elementanalysis model. This would identifythe optimum timing required and as-sess any possible secondary effectsof injection delay. To mitigate risk inthe meanwhile, DMSS 3 imposedpower limits on the engines and man-dated a verification, and slight delay,of injection timings. Restrictionswere also placed on the frequency ofsignificant power changes such asfor blackout drills and load bank test-ing. No further conrod failures haveoccurred since these measures wereintroduced.

Establishing and resolving theroot cause of the conrod big-endcap failures

In April 2009, after much investi-gation and negotiation by Wartsila,the big-end bearing supplier made astartling discovery and admission.The master bearing used to calibratethe bearing fabrication machinerywas not of the correct dimensions.The supplier further admitted that thesame undersized master bearing hadalso been used for quality controlchecks at the end of the manufactur-ing process. As a result of this a runof undersized bearings was supplied

to customers around the world be-tween 2004 and 2009.

The MWM failure investigationworking group reconvened to reviewthe new findings, and concluded thatthe undersized bearings were the rootcause of the conrod big-end cap fail-ures. The working group also notedthat the contributing causes, includ-ing the high firing pressures, werehaving a significant impact on thefailure situation. This was evidencedby two key factors:

• No other user of the bearings hadreported any similar failures; and

• Although the bearings had beeninstalled since 2004, the failures onlybegan following the installation of theultra-low load injectors.

A number of measures weretherefore imposed to resolve the fail-ure mode and provide additional riskreduction:

Bearing Change ProgramAs there was no means for accu-

rately determining which fitted bear-ings were undersized, a bearingchange program was initiated in June2009 to replace all MWM602conrod bearings throughout the fleet.Engines were prioritized by suchtechnical criteria as hours run on theULL injectors and hours from re-build, and then by availability as de-termined by the ships’ operationalschedules. To Wartsila’s credit, the

company undertook to conduct thebearing changes nominally at no costeven though the program was be-yond their contractual and warrantyobligations.

Injection TimingIt was decided to continue using

the ULL injectors because of theirexcellent record with respect to en-gine cleanliness, but the slight injec-tion timing delay introduced in Feb-ruary would be left in place to reducepeak firing pressures. In view of thepotential variation in timing that canoccur when using different timingmethods, a single method using a dialindicator was mandated for all enginetimings. Since timing engines is asecond- or third-line function, shipswere directed not to time enginesunless in an emergency.

Conrod ReplacementConrods would be inspected dur-

ing the bearing replacement programfor fretting or onset of cracking, andreplaced as required. It was agreedthat the newest version conrodswould be used as replacements giventheir apparent resistance to frettingand cracking.

Conrod Shot PeeningWartsila would shot-peen all fur-

ther new version conrods to increasesurface roughness, improve interfer-ence fit, and improve resistance tosurface cracks.

Help WantedCANDIB oral history projectneeds volunteer interviewers

The Canadian Naval Defence Industrial Base working group of the Canadian Naval TechnicalHistory Association has an ongoing oral history project to record people’s memories regard-

ing the influence of naval contracting on Canadian defence industries from 1930 to the present day.

If you would be interested in volunteering as an interviewer to help people record their experiences,or if you would like to be interviewed yourself about your own involvement with naval projects,please contact CANDIB leader Tony Thatcher by telephone at (613) 567-7004 ext. 227, or bye-mail at [email protected]


Cdr Dan Riis served as the DMSS 3Propulsion Systems section head atNDHQ from November 2007 to July2009. He is currently attending theJoint Command and Staff Programat the Canadian Forces College inToronto.

Acknowledgments

The assistance of Brian Cox(DMSS 3-4 project manager forMarine Diesel Systems), and that ofMark Keneford (General Manager,Montreal, Wartsila Canada Inc.) inthe preparation of graphics for thisarticle is gratefully acknowledged.

DMSS 3 released a message out-lining these measures and authoriz-ing a lifting of engine restrictionsonce the bearings have beenchanged. The work has placed a sig-nificant resource and financial bur-den on the coasts and DGMEPM. Asof the end of September 2009, 11engines had been completed andanother eight were being worked on.Of the 11 that were complete, eightrequired complete conrod replace-ment. The other three had either verylow, or no running time on them. Thebearing change program will likelyconclude in 2010.

Decoking operations for allMWMs have ceased indefinitely.Wartsila and DMSS 3 are establish-ing a more proactive relationship toaddress other areas of reduced reli-ability. A study is also ongoing intothe feasibility and cost benefit of re-placing the MWM602 engines dur-ing HCM/FELEX — the upcomingHalifax Class Modernization andFrigate Life Extension project. Thestudy is carefully analyzing the fi-nancial business case, and at thesame time exploring less tangible is-sues such as maintenance load andoperational availability.

The working group is continuingits investigation of the other failuremodes behind the main bearing sei-zures, piston seizure and timing gearfailures. It appears one of the mainbearing seizure failures was due toinadequate conrod assembly (loosebolts) which resulted in bearingmovement cutting off the oil supplyto the main bearing. The single pis-ton seizure is believed to be an iso-lated incident, while the cause of thetiming gear failures is believed to berelated to repair and overhaul stand-

ards, methods and quality assuranceat the overhaul facility. WartsilaCanada has taken measures to en-sure there is no recurrence.

ConclusionThe catastrophic failures of Hali-

fax-class MWM602 diesel-generatorengines had a serious effect on op-erations and continues to impactcoastal and NDHQ resources. Theroot cause of the majority of thesefailures was a manufacturing andquality assurance error by the conrodbig-end bearing supplier which re-sulted in undersized bearings. Thesituation was made worse by anumber of contributing causes, mostsignificantly high peak firing pres-sures due to the use of ultra-low loadinjectors.

The root cause of the conrod big-end cap failures was established, miti-gated and is being resolved throughclose co-operation between allstakeholders, including NDHQ, thecoasts, NETE, the original equipmentmanufacturer and an independentconsultant. It was through the hardwork, initiative and expertise of per-sonnel from all of these organizationsthat a solution was able to be estab-lished and implemented in a relativelyshort period of time.

The Journal welcomes unclassified submissions in English or French. To avoid duplication of effort andensure suitability of subject matter, contributors are asked to first contact the Editor, Maritime Engineer-ing Journal, DMMS, National Defence H.Q., Ottawa, Ont., K1A 0K2. Letters are always welcome,but only signed correspondence will be considered for publication.

Submissions to the Journal


The Incident

The engineering officer enteredthe engine room at 8:16 a.m.

Minutes earlier he had called thebridge to request full speed ahead,the final step in the ship’s engineer-ing trials that had begun a few hoursearlier when Kootenay detachedfrom the Bonaventure carrier taskgroup. The ships were 200 nauticalmiles west of Plymouth, England.

Many things have to be monitoredduring full-power trials, and in a shipwhere the main propulsion machin-ery is spread over two compartments— boiler room and engine room —it is a physical affair. The EO wasreturning from the boiler room wherehe had just confirmed the machinerywas operating normally, and was nowmaking a quick walkaround of theengine room, routinely touching thegearboxes to feel their temperatureat high power. The date was Octo-ber 23, 1969, and on this day it wouldbe his last routine gesture.

At 08:21 what sounded like awelding torch was heard, and sud-denly the engine room was engulfedin flames. A body fell forward,clothes afire. The engineering officerof the watch and the EO attemptedto close the throttles and call thebridge, but they were forced toevacuate the space. The open afterengine-room hatch let the flames outto run along Burma Road, the main

Looking Back

HMCS Kootenay — 40 Years of LessonsLearned

Article by Claude Tremblay

fore and aft passageway above, andin moments the whole ship was filledwith thick oily smoke.

Power was lost, the wheelhousejust off Burma Road also had to beevacuated, the ship could not besteered, and no communication wasavailable with the boiler room. It

Forty years ago this destroyer escort suffered a devastating gearbox explosion and fire thatclaimed the lives of nine of her crew. The tough lessons from that tragedy may seem wellentrenched now, but other main gearing failures on board Skeena, Gatineau, Chaudièreand Fraser in the early days created worrisome bumps for naval engineering credibility whichare lessons in themselves for our fleet today.

Fig. 1. The blackened engine room of HMCS Kootenay in the aftermathof a devastating gearbox explosion and fire bears dark witness to thehorrific events of October 23, 1969. An improperly assembled forwardpinion journal bearing lay at the heart of what should have been anavoidable tragedy. (All photographs property of DND)

would be 40 minutes before the mainstops could be tripped and the shipwould finally lose way from over 20knots. Only after some power wasrestored around 08:45 could the taskgroup be alerted to the emergency,and within minutes the ships were onthe way, preceded by helicopters andTracker fixed-wing aircraft from


Looking Back

HMCS Bonaventure. Help fromthese units was crucial as Kootenayhad only seven Chemox breathingunits on board, and at one point hadjust one can of foam left to fight themassive fire.

It wasn’t until 10:15 that all fireswere reported out. For two hours,hundreds of sailors and airmen hadgiven everything they had to fight thefire, deliver firefighting supplies fromthe other ships to the fire attackteams, rescue the trapped sailors inthe cafeterias and boiler room, andtreat and evacuate the more seri-ously wounded to Bonaventure. Itwas then, and remains, the Canadiannavy’s greatest peacetime tragedy.

The CauseUnknown to Kootenay’s crew,

the ship’s two gearboxes had beenimproperly reassembled four-and-a-half years earlier.1,2 Both journalbearings on the primary pinion gearhad been installed incorrectly insidethe starboard gearbox, as had one inthe port gearbox. It was a disasterwaiting to happen (Fig. 1).

Journal bearings are essentiallysmooth cylinders. Friction between

the journal (shaft) and the bearing isreduced by a constant supply of lu-bricating oil that is pumped in throughcarefully designed openings andgrooves in the bearing insert struc-ture. The bearings were constructedas top and bottom halves to allowinstallation, and great care had to betaken by fitters and inspectors toensure the two pieces were orientedcorrectly to maintain the flow of lubeoil. To reduce the number of sparesthat had to be carried, the bearingsfor the Y-100 gearboxes were de-signed to fit in more than one loca-tion inside the gearbox. Unfortu-nately, because of the commonalityof their design, it was possible to in-stall them backwards.

This is exactly what had occurredin Kootenay. Installing the three pri-mary pinion bearings — the highestspeed bearings in the two gearboxes— back to front blocked the supplyof oil to the surfaces (Fig. 2). By it-self the high heat generated by thefriction was not enough to ignite theoil. The ship had attained full powermany times during the previous four-and-a-half years without producingenough heat to trigger ignition. In

October 1969, however, the failureof the forward pinion thrust bearingat full power suddenly provided theincreased heat necessary for ignition.

In single helical gearing designsthe thrust bearings handle the largeaxial load generated by the helicalgears. The thrust bearing in Koote-nay failed because after four yearsof excessive bearing wear the jour-nal began to rub against the labyrinthseal of the thrust bearing oil cham-ber, wearing it away on the bottomhalf by a third of an inch (0.85 cm).This left a gap at the top for the oilto escape, and with only half the re-quired oil in the chamber it was justthe bottom thrust pads that could re-ceive lubrication. To make mattersworse the pinion shaft had becomemisaligned due to the wear of thejournal bearing, thus increasing theload on the unlubricated top pads.The sudden failure of the pads at fullpower produced temperatures in ex-cess of 900ºC, sufficient to heat theoil mist into ignition.

The rapidly accelerating combus-tion in the starboard gearbox pro-duced high-pressure gases whichevacuated through the gearbox vent

Fig. 2. These two pinion bearing halves from Kootenay (left) and Chaudière (right) illustrate thedifference between incorrect and correct assembly of the bearing inserts. In Kootenay ’s starboardforward bottom-half bearing the insert is installed back to front such that the cut-out (black circle)to allow oil into the insert is opposite the lube oil inlet port at left. In Chaudière ’s port forward top-half bearing the cut-out (white circle) is properly matched to the oil inlet.


just before the gear casing fractured.This is what made the “organ-like”sound reported by people in the caf-eteria. The subsequent initial fractureof the aluminum casing produced the“welding torch” sound heard by theengineering watchkeepers, and atthis point the complete casing rup-tured (Fig. 3)

It was later calculated by NDHQgearing technical authority DonNicholson3 that a failed primary pin-ion thrust bearing at full power woulddevelop a friction power loss thatcould reach six megawatts (over8,000 h.p.). If Kootenay’s starboardpinion thrust bearing had failed ear-lier at lower power the ship wouldnever have been able to reach fullpower and the friction loss would nothave been large enough to generatethe heat to sustain a fire. It was be-cause the ship was already at fullpower when the failure occurred thatthe casing exploded.

More IncidentsEarly lessons from the October

1969 disaster were quickly applied.All gearboxes were inspected andfitted with thermocouple bearingheat sensors in December that sameyear, but in June 1971, barely 19months after the explosion, Skeena,Chaudière and Gatineau experi-enced major gearbox failures withinten days of one another. Two of theships reported a fire in the gearbox.

These incidents came closeenough to repeating history that themaritime commander released amessage in language rarely seen inthe navy: “I believe we have reachedthe point where our technical cred-ibility has been severely compro-mised by these events. We are alsobeyond the point where messages tothe fleet that – quote – the situationis well in hand – unquote – will suf-fice.” A board of inquiry was imme-diately set.4,5

Skeena, it turned out, had an in-correctly fitted bearing on the port

outboard primary gearwheel. The topand bottom parts had been inter-changed, cutting off the oil supply tothe bearing surface. The newly fit-ted thermocouple was not monitored.Oil ignition produced a small pressuri-zation in the gearbox which causeda small discharge of black smokethrough the vent.

Gatineau had the identical bear-ing misassembly problem. When amillivoltmeter was connected tomonitor the bearing during post-refitfull-power trials, an abnormally hightemperature was detected. Therewas no oil ignition.

Just the day before Gatineau’s in-cident, Chaudière had reported ig-nition in the port gearbox during thesecond day of trials. Her problemwas quite different. Contamination ofthe lubricating oil by loose zinc parti-cles from oil canisters downstreamof the filters caused the failure of theprimary pinion thrust bearing. Thebearing’s temporary detection sys-tem showed higher temperatures

than normal, but because the vibra-tion analysis readings appeared nor-mal the trials were not interrupted. Itwasn’t until a flash of burning oil wasobserved by a persistent assistantengineering officer that speed wasreduced. The vibration detector waslater found to be defective.

How could the gearboxes be fail-ing like this again?

A Question of QAThe board of inquiry identified the

main problem to be at the level ofsupervision and inspection, coupledwith management trying to do toomuch too quickly. At the time thatGatineau’s gearing was being in-spected and the thermocouples werebeing installed, two other ships werealso being worked on. Difficultscheduling combined with limitedexpert resources produced a situa-tion where some bearing installationswere checked only by the fittersthemselves, not by the lead hand orcharge hand of the shop (who weretechnically responsible, but too busy

Looking Back

Fig. 3. The violent force of the explosion inside Kootenay ’s gearboxruptured the aluminum gear casing. Steel is now used in place ofaluminum in modern gearbox covers.


on other tasks), nor by the one gear-ing inspector. During the work onSkeena, for example, the contrac-tor’s schedule required the gearingwork to be done in two shifts. Thegearing inspector would have had towork sixteen hours a day, seven daysa week for three weeks to meet thecontract refit deadline. It was animpossible situation.

Machinery monitoring in 1969consisted mainly of gathering tem-peratures, pressures, speed data,etc., directly from the equipment. Itinvolved physical contact with themachinery, listening for uncharacter-istic sounds and feeling for tempera-tures and vibrations. Although usingtemperature-sensitive thermocouplesto monitor bearings was not new,Kootenay’s gearboxes had not beenequipped with these simple devices.Due to cost, a proposed engineeringchange in 1958 to retrofit all ships ofthe St. Laurent and Restigoucheclasses with bearing thermocouplesand monitoring systems resulted inonly the two lead ships being fitted

Looking Back

with the equipment that had beenacquired for evaluation. By contrast,the newer Mackenzie-class shipswere fitted with 40-point bearingmonitor systems.1,2

Soon after the disaster the navydetermined that bearing temperaturesshould be monitored with thermocou-ples, and indeed some ships wereequipped by the end of 1969. Unfor-tunately, a console thermocouplemonitor system to display alarm situ-ations would not be available for an-other three years. The 40-point moni-tor installed in the Mackenzie classwas no longer in production, and theonly systems available commerciallyused resistance temperature detec-tors (RTDs). Since the decision hadalready been taken to go with ther-mocouples, a completely new moni-toring system had to be designed andproduced — a process that took un-til 1972. In the meantime the shipsused a mixture of systems, some rou-tinely monitoring just six bearings(the other bearings being monitoredonly during trials).

Thermocouples played a majorrole in one other thrust bearing fail-ure, this one in HMCS Fraser just ayear after the explosion in Kootenay.Thermocouples had been installed inFraser and other ships at the sametime as the gearboxes were beinginspected in December 1969. Unfor-tunately, some installations were doneincorrectly. The impending failure ofFraser’s thrust bearing in October1970 was not detected because theoil bath thermocouple in the primarypinion thrust bearing housing did notprotrude through the housing into theoil bath as required by the design. Itcould not possibly indicate the tem-perature of the oil bath.

Other FindingsThe board of inquiry also deter-

mined that the details of Kootenay’sexplosion were not properly commu-nicated throughout the fleet. The dis-aster was still somewhat of a mys-tery to most crews who had heardonly rumours of “organ-like noises”and a “fireball,” but very little infor-mation on the actual causes of theexplosion. This lack of informationmay have led Chaudière’s crew todelay corrective action when hightemperatures were detected. Thefact that the West Coast was concen-trating more on the ventilation of thegearbox than the temperature detec-tion system — contrary to headquar-ters’ findings — likely affected thecrew’s reaction as well.

In July 1970 the British Minis-try of Defence set up a gearbox ex-plosion working party6 mainly be-cause of the Kootenay incident.After studying the behaviour of at-mospheres inside gearboxes, theynoted in their report: “…under nor-mal running conditions the oil mistatmosphere is too lean for ignitionto occur. The oil mist present iscontinuously eliminated by thescrubbing action of the relativelycoarse oil spray and splashingwhich occurs in a running gear-box.”

Gearing incidents in four other destroyer escorts in the two yearsfollowing the 1969 Kootenay explosion highlight the need even todayfor attention to detail with all matters of engineering maintenance,and constant vigilance over machinery. (HMCS Fraser shown.)


References:1. Report of the Board of Inquiry –

HMCS Kootenay – dated No-vember 7, 1969.

2. Report of the CFHQ investigationteam – HMCS Kootenay – datedDecember 4, 1969.

3. D.K. Nicholson, “The KootenayGearbox Explosion,” The Instituteof Marine Engineers, 1981 (R-23-050-001/AB-001).

4. Boards of Inquiry – Chaudière/Gatineau – dated July 2, 1971.

5. DDE/DDH main gearing prob-lems – Report of the technical taskgroup – dated July 16, 1971.

6. Final report on investigations car-ried out by the MOD(N) gearboxexplosion working party (July1970 to December 1978).

Claude Tremblay is the Transmis-sion Systems Engineer in the MainPropulsion section of the Directo-rate of Maritime Ship Support inOttawa.

Acknowledgement:The assistance of Stephen

Dauphinee in reviewing this articleprior to publication is gratefully ac-knowledged. Mr. Dauphinee is theMarine Systems Engineering Officerof Fleet Maintenance Facility CapeScott in Halifax, and previouslyworked for gearing expert DonNicholson in the Directorate of Ma-rine and Electrical Engineering inOttawa from 1982 to 1988.

Looking BackThe report also pointed

out that it would take ex-ceptionally high tempera-tures to overcome this ef-fect, and that ventilationwas not a factor. Nonethe-less, even today gearboxventilation is often pre-sumed to be at the centreof explosion risks.

The last critical areacommented on by the Ca-nadian board of inquiry wasthe degree of experienceand expertise of fleet engi-neering personnel. Theboard noted that the seaexperience of engineeringofficers and even chiefERAs was becoming moreand more limited. It may behard to imagine today, butin those days engineeringofficers even had additional bridgewatchkeeping duties.

Lessons for TodayModern gearing designs include

many direct lessons learned from theKootenay explosion. The journalbearings shell design now includesdowels in unique positions to preventincorrect assembly, and every singlebearing is closely monitored by RTDsor thermocouples connected to acontrols system. As well, the use ofdouble helical gearing has practicallyeliminated the gear-generated axialloads and the requirement for highlyloaded thrust bearings. Gearbox cov-ers are today made of steel ratherthan aluminum.

Many things have changed since1969, and it may well be that full-power trials have become routine,dull affairs as viewed from the rela-tive comfort and safety of a fullyinstrumented machinery controlroom. In a modern frigate as soon asan abnormal increase in a bearingtemperature is detected, audible andvisible alarms warn the engineeringofficer of the watch of the problem,and speed can be reduced immedi-

ately. It all seems so controlled, butthe same risks remain. The complexissues of quality assurance, person-nel training and technical accuracyaddressed in the aftermath of theKootenay incident still require con-stant vigilance to ensure history doesnot repeat itself yet again.

The seeds of major disaster werepresent in Kootenay and in otherships well before the accident oc-curred, but there was almost no wayto detect them. If the gearbox had notexploded in Kootenay it would havehappened in another ship. The humancost was horrendous, but over the last40 years the hard-won lessons ofKootenay’s tragedy have no doubtsaved countless other crews in na-vies around the world from a similarfate.

HMCS Chaudière


During the world wars sailorswere sent in to fight fires

wearing rudimentary combat flashgear and multiple layers of clothing.After being soaked with water toprotect against heat and flash, theyadvanced on a fire using hoses to pushback flames, smoke and heat. Fol-lowing a technique still taught by thenavy’s damage control divisions intothe 1980s, the modestly equippedfirefighters found clean air to breathenext to the stream of water rushingfrom the hose nozzles.

The navy’s first formal breathingapparatus — the Chemox BA sys-tem — was introduced in the early1950s. The system had been designedand produced by the Mine Safety Ap-pliances Company in Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania in 1947, primarily tosupport mine rescue operations in theUnited States and Canada. The origi-nal Chemox set underwent numerousmodifications and improvementsprior to being marketed as firefightinggear to the United States Navy, andlater, the RCN.

The Chemox BA is a closed cir-cuit breathing device worn over thechest that uses a disposable canisterfilled with potassium superoxide(KO

2). The moisture and carbon di-

oxide from the user’s breath reactswith the potassium superoxide to pro-duce oxygen. The user breathes theoxygen and releases more moistureand carbon dioxide into the closedcircuit of the Chemox, continuinguntil the potassium superoxide is de-pleted.

A New (Dräger) Self-Contained BreathingApparatus for the Canadian Navy

Throughout its naval service lifethe Chemox system was modifiedwith improved face pieces, a bail toreplace the screw-in canister inser-tion method, and the addition of anoxygen-generating, sodium chlorateactivation “quick-start” candle.

The Need for ChangeThe need for a new firefighting

breathing apparatus became appar-ent when problems were experi-enced with the quick-start candles inthe Chemox canisters. When acti-vated, this candle is meant to provideoxygen until the moisture in the us-er’s breath can initiate the chemical

reaction with the potassium superox-ide. As early as 1999 users began toexperience excessive heat along withsparks and fire when the quick-startcandles were ignited. After repeatedunsuccessful attempts to have themanufacturer rectify the problem thenavy decided to search for a newbreathing apparatus system. In themeantime, a supply of Chemox can-isters without the quick-start candleswas purchased.

A similar requirement for abreathing apparatus replacementexisted on board Canadian subma-rines. While submariners do not useChemox for firefighting, their system,the SUBRON self-contained breath-ing apparatus (SCBA), was no longersupportable. A replacement had tobe found. To attain consistency inthe navy’s surface and subsurfacecomponents, the two separateprojects that had been stood up to re-place the Chemox and SUBRONsystems were combined under a sin-gle procurement process.

After extensive technical andlogistical analysis and consultation,Public Works and Government Serv-ices Canada awarded a contract inMarch 2008 to Dräger SafetyCanada to provide 1,571 SCBA setsto the navy for use on board HMCships, submarines and auxiliary ves-sels. The contract, which includesprovision for maintenance support attwo new OEM repair centres beingset up on the coasts, was expectedto be fully implemented by Decem-ber 2009.

Article by Cdr Marc BatsfordPhotos courtesy CFNES Damage Control Division Kootenay, Halifax

For half a century the Chemox® BA chemical oxygen breathing apparatus was theCanadian navy’s primary respiratory system for fighting fires. Having stood the test oftime for so long, the now unsupportable Chemox is giving way to a state-of-the-artreplacement apparatus — the Dräger SCBA.

The Dräger SCBA is a self-contained unit consisting of arechargeable cylinder worn onthe back, high- and low-pressurelung-demand valve regulators, aface mask with colour head-updisplay, and a harness. The bottleis rated for 4,500 psi (300 bar) andcan last 60 minutes.


The New ApparatusThe Dräger SCBA is a self-con-

tained unit consisting of a recharge-able cylinder worn on the back, high-and low-pressure (HP/LP) lung-de-mand valve regulators, a face maskwith colour head-up display, and aharness. The bottle is rated for 4,500psi (300 bar) and can last 60 minutes.The head-up display in the face maskprovides the user with indicators cor-responding to 100%, 75%, 50% and25% air remaining in the bottle, withan audible alarm sounding at 25% tosignal that a bottle change-out is re-quired. A fleet SOP will mandate thata user must leave a damage controlscene once the audible alarm hassounded.

As a temporary measure, air bot-tles on board the frigates, destroyersand AORs will be recharged usingone of two diesel-driven compressorsthat will be installed on the weatherdecks. Two were provided so as toprovide emergency charging capa-bility at opposite ends of the ship. Asecond benefit is that the temporarycompressor units can be connectedto a ship’s HP air system to chargethe main air bottles should the ship’scompressors sustain major damage.When implementation of the Drägersystem is complete the bottles will berecharged from the ships’ own fittedHP air systems, and the weather-deck compressors will be used as anemergency backup recharging capa-bility.

The smaller Kingston-class mari-time coastal defence vessels(MCDVs) will carry one compres-sor, while Orca-class patrol vesselswill normally recharge their bottlesashore. Submarines will continue touse their existing breathing air charg-ing panel that was installed for charg-ing the old SUBRON system.

Halifax and Iroquois ClassImplementation

The Dräger SCBA for the Hali-fax and Iroquois classes is beingintroduced in three phases:

Phase One, which is now com-plete, included the installation of 29sets of the new SCBA, 25 spare cyl-

inders and two diesel-driven com-pressors in each ship to recharge thecylinders. The fleet maintenance fa-cilities (FMFs) will mount the SCBAsets and spare bottles in pre-deter-mined locations throughout the ship,nominally in the vicinity of the sec-tion base team areas. Due to thephased implementation plan, allChemox sets will remain on boarduntil Phase Two is complete to en-sure operational capability. Chemoxwill be the backup in the event thatDräger bottles cannot be filled, butattack teams will use either the newDräger SCBA system or theChemox, and not a mixture of thetwo. The SCBA sets currently heldby ships’ crash rescue teams, airdepartments and training units willalso be replaced with the Drägerapparatus.

Phase One implementation alsoincluded a one-day session of initialcadre training for all ships’ crews onboth coasts at the formation damagecontrol divisions. Having the entirefleet undertake this training simulta-neously allowed the DC training fa-cilities to resume their normal train-ing programs with the least disruptionand establish SCBA training as core

training as soon as possible. SeaTraining will be conducting mini shipreadiness inspections (SRIs) to en-sure the new equipment is being usedcorrectly and within accepted dam-age control doctrine and standardoperating procedures. The newequipment is not expected to signifi-cantly alter navy damage control tac-tics.

Phase Two will see necessarymodifications to the HP air system inHalifax- and Iroquois-class ships.Filling stations will be installed in thevicinities of the forward and aftersection bases, hangar and manningpool. These filling stations will boostthe air pressure to 4,500 psi (300 bar)and filter the air to CSA StandardCan/CSA Z180 Compressed AirSystems. The Naval RespiratoryProtection Program has adopted thisCSA standard.

Once the air filling stations havebeen installed and commissioned, anadditional 31 SCBAs will be installed,bringing the total on board to 60SCBA sets. At this point in theproject, all Chemox sets and sparecanisters will be returned to storesfor disposal. On completion of Phase

The increased reliability and improved individual protection promisedby the Dräger SCBA system will offer crews an increased level ofconfidence during firefighting operations on board Canadian navy shipsand submarines.


Two only the Dräger SCBA will becarried on board ship.

Phase Three will allow time forships’ staffs to become comfortablewith the charging stations and giveSea Training an opportunity to con-duct a final SRI of the complete sys-tem. This will ensure that the newsystem and equipment are well un-derstood.

Kingston ClassThe 12 Kingston-class MCDVs

will be fitted with one diesel-drivencompressor, 13 SCBA and 26 sparecylinders. There is no phased fit re-quired due to the small number of setsrequired. Because of the concernwith the frequent crew changes inthese ships, all Kingston-classcrews will be trained at the same timeto ensure that everyone sailing in theMCDVs is trained in the proper useof the Dräger SCBA and compres-sor. Also, since an outside contrac-tor (SNC Lavalin) will be conduct-ing the installation, this will have noimpact on FMF resources.

Victoria ClassThe Victoria-class submarines

will be fitted initially with a one-for-one replacement of the eightSUBRON SCBAs now carried onboard. The submarine version of theDräger SCBA will differ slightlyfrom the surface fleet SCBA in thatit will be fitted with a capability tohave two masks breathe from thesame SCBA. The CANAVMOD fiton the Victoria class also includesreplacement of the cylinder charginghoses and the 15-metre (50-foot) ex-

tension hoses with ones of equivalentlength, but with compatible Drägerquick-connect fittings. The completedinstallation will also see the emer-gency breathing system (EBS)masks, fittings and hoses replacedone for one with Dräger masks andDräger-compatible fittings andhoses. These changes mean that thesame mask can be used with a myriadof hose combinations with the EBSrail or the SCBA. Such interoperabil-ity will enhance the firefighting ca-pability on board.

Protecteur ClassProtecteur and Preserver will be

fitted with two large electric “breath-ing air charge centres” similar to theunits used at the damage control di-visions. The two AORs will each befitted with 77 SCBA, 77 spare cylin-ders, and two emergency diesel com-pressors.

Orca ClassThe eight Orca-class patrol ves-

sels, the navy’s newest addition, willsoon be outfitted with four SCBAsets each. As mentioned, the Orcaswill not be fitted with a dedicatedcompressor.

ConclusionIn retiring the Chemox and

SUBRON firefighting breathing sys-tems, this engineering change intro-duces state-of-the-art self-containedbreathing apparatus equipment to theCanadian navy. The increased reli-ability and improved individual pro-tection promised by this equipmentwill offer crews an increased level of

The assistance of David Sankey –DMSS 4-2-9 project manager forthe Chemox Replacement Project,and life-cycle materiel manager forCompressed Air Systems (Sur-face) – is gratefully acknowl-edged; as is the photographic sup-port of CFNES Damage ControlDivision Kootenay in Halifax.

Cdr Batsford is the former DMSS4 section head for Marine Auxil-iaries and Damage Control Sys-tems in Ottawa.

• To promote professionalismamong maritime engineers andtechnicians

• To provide an open forumwhere topics of interest to themaritime engineering community

Objectives of the Maritime Engineering Journal

can be presented and discussed, evenif they might be controversial.

• To present practical maritimeengineering articles.

• To present historical perspec-tives on current programs, situationsand events.

• To provide announcements ofprograms concerning maritime en-gineering personnel.

• To provide personnel newsnot covered by official publica-tions.

.

confidence during firefighting opera-tions on board our ships and subma-rines. While the procurement of thenew Dräger SCBA has taken con-siderable time to materialize, this newequipment is the best and safestavailable to replace the Canadiannavy’s current firefighting breathingsystems.

Acknowledgments


Bridget Madill is an Associate Edi-tor of the Maritime EngineeringJournal.

Salty Dips Volume 9 “Carry On”Reviewed by Bridget Madill

Salty Dips Volume 9 “Carry On”Naval Officers’ Association ofCanada, Ottawa Branch © 2008ISBN 978-0-9691342-9-9 (soft cover)393 pages, illustrated, index$15.00 soft cover, $25.00 hard cover

Book Review

The ninth volume in the SaltyDips series, “Carry On,”

continues the tradition of capturingthe history of the Canadian navythrough the personal recollections ofCanadian sailors. This edition con-centrates on the post-Korean Waryears, with stories about peacekeep-ing, humanitarian operations, ship tri-als and modern wars. The 31 storiesare set in such places as Africa, Asia,Viet Nam and the Middle East.

Two prologues open the book. Thefirst, entitled “The Neglected Ser-vice,” describes the Royal CanadianNavy before World War II; the sec-ond, “Unification,” is a frank discus-sion of the integration of the Cana-dian Forces in the 1960s. Wherespace permits, nautical poems appearbetween the stories, and at the endof the book there is a summary of theprevious eight volumes in the SaltyDips series.

The dips (or stories) all come fromconversations with old salts (sailors),hence the name of the series. Theconversations were taped, tran-scribed and edited by volunteersfrom the Naval Officers’ Associationof Canada (Ottawa Branch), and re-flect the personal memories of thestorytellers. Told in the first person,the stories — from Whit Armstrong’shumorous Blue Cheese Incident, toStoker Petty Officer Hank Porter’sengaging 1944 logbook narrative,Destroyer Action in the Bay ofBiscay — are richly varied andwarmly intimate.

“Carry On” is well illustrated withabout 200 photographs, maps and

graphics. The book is easily acces-sible to a wide audience. For the mostpart the inevitable acronyms are wellexplained, and the abundant foot-notes give context to the stories with-out interrupting the flow of the tales.

The Naval Officers’ AssociationOttawa Branch started its Salty Dipsoral history project in 1979, and thenine volumes in the series tell the his-tory of the Canadian navy in a waythat is intensely personal, colourfuland alive. Salty Dips Volume 9“Carry On” is available from theNOAC Ottawa Branch, by mail atNOAC Salty Dips, PO Box 505 Sta-tion B, Ottawa, ON, K1P 5P6.

More information on the NavalOfficers’ Association of CanadaOttawa Branch and the Salty Dipsseries is available on-l ine atwww.noac.ottawa.on.ca

The Maritime EngineeringJournal is always on the

lookout for upbeat, positive re-views of recently published naval/nautical books that you would rec-ommend to other readers.

Reviews should be about 250words in length, and should gen-erally tell us:

• what the book is about;

Guidelines for Book Reviewers• how well the author did with the

work, and if there are any minordrawbacks; and

• what you like best about thebook.

Please include the following bookinformation with your review:

• Title• Author• Publisher• Date of publication• ISBN• Number of pages

Also mention whether thebook contains photos, illustrations,glossary, bibliographical refer-ences or index.

Finally, send us a high-resolu-tion scan of the dust cover if pos-sible.

Reviewers are encouraged toexpress themselves creatively,and in their own words.


News Briefs

NTO Award winners and runners-up

Lt(N) Steve Parker, Lt(N) Mike Noel, SLt Ed MacKenzie, Lt(N) Mathew Webb, Lt(N) Patrick Larose,SLt Michael Bathurst, Lt(N) Sarah Roberge, Lt(N) Jeffery Vanderploeg, Lt(N) Denise Dickson, SLt Chris Lien,Lt(N) Max Dion, Lt(N) Matt Cleary, Lt(N) Chris Vandenhoven (Photo by Cpl Robert Leblanc, Formation ImagingServices, Halifax)

Journal Production Editor Receives MarCom Commendation

Cmdre Richard Greenwood (DGMEPM), Lt(N) PatrickFortin (Journal PM), and Capt(N) Mike Wood (COSMEPM) were on hand to offer their support. FormerJournal PM Lt(N) Mark McKiel was unable to attend.

Production editor Brian McCullough has re-ceived the Maritime Command Commendation for

his “Outstanding contribution to the Naval TechnicalCommunity through his dedicated management and pro-duction of the Maritime Engineering Journal.” Thecommendation is awarded in recognition of exceptionalservices to Maritime Command. The long-serving editorbegan working full time on the Journal in 1985 while onClass C service, and has been producing the Branch tech-nical publication on civilian contract through his companyBrightstar Communications since 1994.

2008 Naval Technical Officer AwardsPhotographs by Cpl Robert Leblanc, Formation Imaging Services, Halifax

The NOAC Award is presented annuallyto the candidate with the best academicperformance and officer-like qualitieson completion of the Naval EngineeringIndoctrination Course. Lt(N) AndrewSargeant accepted the award shield andthe book, The Ships of Canada’s NavalForces 1910-1985, from Cmdre (ret.)Mike Cooper, NOAC, on behalf ofNCdt Jay Murray who was absentdue to illness.

The Mexican Navy Award is presentedannually to the candidate with the bestacademic standing and officer-likequalities on the NCS Eng ApplicationsCourse. Mexican Naval Attaché‚Captain Hector Capetillo presentedthe award plaque and Mexican navalsword to SLt Chris Lien.

The L-3 MAPPS Saunders MemorialAward is named in memory ofLt(N) Chris Saunders. It is presentedto the candidate with the best academicstanding and officer-like qualities onthe MS Eng Applications Course. GwenManderville (Saunders) and her childrenBen and Luke joined Wendy Allertonof L-3 MAPPS in presenting the awardplaque and the Modern MarineEngineer’s Manual to Lt(N) ChrisVandenhoven.

The MacDonald Dettwiler Award ispresented annually to the best overallnaval technical officer who achievesHead of Department qualification. SimonJacques of MacDonald Dettwilerpresented the award plaque and navalsword to Lt(N) Patrick Larose.

The Weir Canada Award ispresented annually to the best overallPhase VI candidate who achievesMS Eng qualification. Serge Lamirande,Weir Canada Inc., presented theaward plaque and naval sword toLt(N) Denise Dickson.

The Lockheed Martin Canada Awardis presented annually to the bestoverall Phase VI candidate who achievesNCS Eng qualification. Lt(N) TerryMoore accepted the award plaque andnaval sword from Steve Marsden ofLockheed Martin Canada on behalf ofSLt Byron Ross who was absent dueto his deployed status on board HMCSWinnipeg.

A photo of award winners and runners-up appears in theNews Briefs section of this edition of the Journal.

Naval Officers Associationof Canada (NOAC) Award

MexicanNavy Award

L-3 MAPPS SaundersMemorial Award

MacDonaldDettwiler Award

Weir CanadaAward

Lockheed MartinCanada Award

The NTO awards recognize the dedication, hard work and technical excellence of NTOs in obtaining theirtraining milestones during the previous year. Regardless of who wins any particular award, it is a significantaccomplishment even to be considered a candidate. The 2008 awards were presented at the Naval TechnicalOfficer Mess Dinner on March 26, 2009 at the CFB Halifax Wardroom.

cntha.ca

CNTHA ChairmanPat Barnhouse

CNTHA Executive Director andCANDIB Project LeaderTony Thatcher

Directorate of History and HeritageLiaisonMichael Whitby

Maritime Engineering JournalLiaisonBrian McCullough

Newsletter Production EditingServices byBrightstar CommunicationsKanata, Ontario

CNTHA News is the unofficial newsletter ofthe Canadian Naval Technical History Asso-ciation. Please address all correspondenceto the publisher, attention Michael Whitby,Chief of the Naval Team, Directorate of His-tory and Heritage, NDHQ Ottawa, K1A 0K2.Tel. (613) 998-7045, fax 990-8579. Views ex-pressed are those of the writers and do notnecessarily reflect official DND opinion orpolicy. The editor reserves the right to edit orreject any editorial material.

Preserving Canada’s Naval Technical Heritage

CANADIAN NAVAL TECHNICAL HISTORY ASSOCIATION

FALL 2009 / WINTER 2010

CNTHA News Est. 1997

After 14 years at the helm of theCanadian Naval Technical

History Association, Mike Saker hasrelinquished his chairmanship of the

CNTHA toco-foundingmember PatBarnhouseand is movingto MahoneBay, NovaS c o t i a .Mike’s moveprovided anopportunity toreview themandates ofthe CNTHA

and its main subcommittee project(CANDIB) investigating naval tech-nology links to Canada’s industrial

New Way Ahead for CNTHA and CANDIBbase. In recent years the distinctionbetween the two had become increas-ingly blurred as more resources weredirected toward CANDIB.

At a combined CNTHA/CANDIBmeeting on November 6, membersagreed that the all-volunteer organiza-tion should be restructured to allow theCANDIB subcommittee to widen itsfocus to encompass the broader objec-tives of the CNTHA under the newchairman. CANDIB itself will remainunder the direction of Tony Thatcher,who was newly appointed as the ex-ecutive director of the CNTHA.CANDIB will continue its work asnormal, but has been redesignated asa working group of the CNTHA.

Pat Barnhouse (left) takes over as CNTHA Chairman, while Tony Thatchercontinues his CANDIB Project leadership as Executive Director of CNTHA.

Mike Saker stepsdown as CNTHAChairman

CNTHA News — Fall 2009 / WINTER 2010


[This edited excerpt is fromthe author’s article, “TheCanadian Hydrofoil Project,”which appeared in the Winter1985 issue of the Journal.]

The computer-based com-mand and control Action

Information System (AIS) devel-oped for HMCS Bras d’Or re-quired the formation of a navalprogramming team at Westing-house in Hamilton, Ontario. Thisexpert team later developed com-puter programs for the naval tac-tical data command and controlsystem (CCS) for the DDH-280-class ships; thus, the CCS systemowes part of its existence to thehydrofoil project.

A variable depth sonar wasdesigned and built for the FHE-400, with Canadian Westinghouseresponsible for the electronics,and Fleet Industries Ltd. supply-ing the over-the-stern handlinggear. Sales of this technologywere later made to the Italian andSwedish navies.

The hull structure of HMCSBras d’Or was designed to air-craft standards. By appropriateinstrumentation of the hull for seatrials, the strengths and weak-nesses of this technology vis-à-vis conventional ship designpractices for hydrofoils were as-certained.

A number of other technolo-gies developed during the hydro-foil project have not been directlyapplied elsewhere:

a. the use of maraging steel(an extremely high-strength steel)in the main foil structure;

b. the innovative design for thetransmission of high power fromthe main engines through the nar-row foil-struts to the screws;

Disposition ofHydrofoil Technology


By Pat Barnhouse

A great deal has been written re-garding the Canadian Hydrofoil

Project of the 1960s. While the mediaviewed it as yet another DND disasterof escalating costs and program delays,within naval circles it became the cen-tre of attention partly for another reason.Should sea trials of FHE-400 prove theeffectiveness of using many relativelycheap hydrofoils to counter the Russiannuclear submarine threat, it could createa dilemma for proponents of large, “blue-water” ships for this purpose.

Setting aside details of how the projectescalated from an initial objective ofdemonstrating the seaworthiness of a200-ton hydrofoil (estimated cost of$10.1 million) to a complete ASWweapon system costing some $51 millionbefore it was mothballed, it is importantto remember what accrued from this.What has not been widely acknowl-edged is the fact that through the projectthe navy reaped many benefits in termsof new methods of design and acquisi-tion, weapon systems, and infrastructurethat might not otherwise have been de-veloped.

The acquisition process used for thehydrofoil FHE-400 Bras d’Or was radi-

FHE-400 in RetrospectBy Rolfe Monteith

cally new for the navy. Traditional war-ship procurement had been based on adetailed specification of the vessel andits systems, linked with comprehensiveoversight. For the hydrofoil, a contractwas awarded to a prime contractorbased upon a statement of require-ments and a design concept. This ap-proach was common practice in aero-nautics, but presented the navy with anagonizing learning curve. The experi-ence was invaluable, however, as thisprocedure worked so well it was suc-cessfully adopted for follow-on shipnew-build programs.

It was deemed important to mergethe separate responsibilities of the De-partment of National Defence and De-fence Production into a small jointproject office with a project managerresponsible for all aspects of the pro-gram, including in-service support. Thenavy was breaking new groundthroughout the project, and mistakeswere inevitably made because of inex-perience. Much was learned from theseerrors, and the benefits were obvious.As with the acquisition process, the

FHE-400 Bras d’Or — foilborne!(DND photo)


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CNTHA News — Fall 2009 / WINTER 2010


c. the use of aircraft electron-ics and preformed aircraft wiringharnesses; and

d. the design of the hydrofoilbridge in the manner of an aircraftcockpit.

Rigid adherence to a 60-knotfoilborne performance require-ment was the main offender inthe evolution of the ship from arelatively cheap vessel, suitablefor construction in large numbers,into a highly sophisticated designrequiring construction techniquesof the greatest refinement. To-day, in the advanced marine ve-hicle field, the specification ofmaximum speed is temperedgreatly by anticipated costs andby careful assessment of the re-lated operational advantages.

The most visible achievementof the FHE-400 design was herspeed of 63 knots which madeBras d’Or the world’s fastestwarship. A more meaningful ac-complishment was the demon-stration that a 200-ton hydrofoilcould operate successfully in theopen ocean, both foilborne andhullborne.

The use of aircraft technologyin hydrofoil construction is amixed blessing. It undoubtedlyresults in weight saving, but leadsto a less robust ship that costsmore. There are also expensiveinfrastructure and support costsover and above the support baserequired for conventional war-ships.

Undoubtedly, the most valu-able contribution of FHE-400 hasbeen the footing gained forCanada in the general field of ad-vanced marine vehicle technol-ogy.

Pat Barnhouse is Chairman ofthe Canadian Naval TechnicalHistory Association.

joint project office model became ac-cepted practice for all future projects.

Early in the design phase both theprime contractor and the HydrofoilProject Office became confident in theviability of the hydrofoil and, in light ofthe increasing ASW threat, proposedexpanding the project to include aweapon system. The Naval Board ac-cepted the HPO recommendation, andone specific consequence of this de-cision was that a contract wasawarded to Westinghouse for an ac-tion information system (AIS). Uponthe demise of the hydrofoil project, theAIS became immediately available tothe DDH-280 tribal-class destroyerproject.

Once it was accepted that the hy-drofoil would have a weapon system,it was also envisaged that FHE-400would tow a variable depth sonar at 45knots. Again, funding was made avail-able for research in the ASW field.

The HPO recognized the need forresearch into the issue of habitabilityfor the crew of 18, and funded exten-sive research at the Institute of Avia-tion Medicine in Toronto. The results

of this habitability research becameavailable to follow-on ship projects.

While FHE-400 had only one gas tur-bine, it was a first in the navy and pro-vided an early training ground for futurefrigate programs.

As part of the HPO responsibility forsupport, the project’s funding acquired aSyncrolift ship lift and transfer system.It was installed at the Halifax navaldockyard where it is now an invaluableasset for submarine support.

And finally, even today, FHE-400Bras d’Or holds the record for being thefastest warship in the world. To thoseintrigued by this fascinating saga, I rec-ommend John Boileau’s book, Fastest inthe World, and a visit to FHE-400 Brasd’Or at the Musée maritime Bernier atL’Islet, Québec.

Musée maritime du Québec (formerly Musée maritime Bernier) east of QuébecCity obtained HMCS Bras d’Or in 1983. (DND Photo).

Rolfe Monteith is a founding memberof the Canadian Naval Technical His-tory Association. He writes from hishome near London, England.

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