In the shadow of the St. Louis Arch, Ingram Barge Company recently christened its new 9,000-bhp towboat, the John M. Donnelly. Designed and built by St. Louis Ship, Division of Pott Industries, the vessel features the exclusive Hydrodyne hull, and is the third towboat in the Ingram fleet built by St. Louis Ship.
The Donnelly's hull measures 200 feet by 50 feet by 11 feet 6 inches, with a normal operating draft of 8 feet 6 inches, and is designed to have an overall height of 38 feet 6 inches at design draft. The all-welded steel hull is heavily framed longitudinally and transversely, with the aft deck raised to provide additional strength to the stern.
Propulsion power is furnished by three GM Electro-Motive Division 16-645E7BA marine diesels, each developing 3,000 bhp at 900 rpm, fitted with Falk 30MRV48 vertical offset, reverse/reduction gears. The engines and gears are cooled with water circulated through a St. Louis Ship skin cooling system. The engines are started from the engine room only, and are controlled by WABCO pneumatic control equipment in the pilothouse and at each engine. Three five-bladed, stainless steel, 109-inch propellers turn in stainless steel lined Kort nozzles. In additional to the conventional engine room controls, the Donnelly is equipped with an Engine Monitor Inc. monitoring system featuring an alarm panel in the pilothouse and one in the engineer's control booth.
Electric power is provided by two GM Detroit Diesel 150-kw diesel generator sets. A General Electric deadfront switchboard located in the soundproofed and air conditioned control booth is wired for parallel operation of the generators.
Pollution-control equipment has been installed to bring the towboat into compliance with all existing environmental protection requirements. All propulsion engine, reduction gear, and generator diesel sumps, as well as the propulsion engine's lube oil filters and coolers, can be pumped by a Viking pump to the dirty oil holding tank, or to a valved discharge connection on the main deck. Provision is also made for pumping out the dirty oil holding tank to this deck connection.
All bilge suctions are pumped via a Gorman-Rupp bilge pump to the oily water bilge collecting tank. A Hyde bilge pump draws from the oily water collecting tank and discharges to the Hyde separator, where separation and dispersal by gravity takes place. A St. Louis Ship FAST model 13-M sewage treatment plant treats the sewage from the toilet drains, and is valved to discharge the effluent overboard or to a flanged connection on the main deck.
Deck machinery consists of two Schoellhorn-Albrecht 20-hp, motor-driven double-barreled capstans, and six NABRICO 10-hp motor-driven winches. Two Sasgin boat davits, one with an Ingersoll-Rand pneumatic hoist, are located aft, port and starboard on the second deck, to handle supplies, the small workboat, and the runabout.
All living quarters, lounge, galley, messroom, engineer's control booth, and pilothouse are heated or air-conditioned, with either hot or chilled water circulated through McQuay Perfex fan coil units, with circulating water being supplied from either a Weil-McLain heating boiler or a Carrier liquid chiller unit.
Two Varo 18-inch xenon searchlights are located atop the pilothouse. One Carlisle & Finch 14-inch, remote-controlled searchlight is located aft on the 2nd deck.
Navigation and communication equipment includes two Sperry radars, two Triton VHF-FM radiotelephones, one Northern SSB radio, two Honeywell fathometers, Hose McCann sound-powered telephone system, and a Galbraith E3750 public address system.