Calling all Royal Navy E-class fans

[KevinD]

Looks like a Carley float in the enclosure underneath, with a rather heavy fitting. The box above will include the chart table, if that's what it is (seems likely).

I agree, certainly looks like a 'float' IMO, but more like a circular 'life ring' than a 'Carley' no? Although what an odd place if so. Below shows her with life ring on Bridge wing.

[81542]

'Tis a life buoy, known to some as a life ring: one can take one's pick. It can have no other function other than a decorative one in that position especially if she did not have a ship's badge at that stage of her career. The white ones on what I take to be wings of the flag/signal deck may well have been more functional as an aid to life saving.

81542

[KevinD]

A question re the loss of HMS Encounter that a friend has asked me to post.

The following from Capt. Morgan's AAR.
"...........report was received from the engine room that the main engines were out of action. I therefore turned to the northward to cover myself with my own smoke. As the sprayers were shut down the smoke screen stopped...I received the report that both suction pipes to the Forced Lubrication pumps had fractured, due, it was at first reported, to shell splinters, and that this damage had not been discovered until all the bearings had gone. I learnt, further, that it would take at least 20 minutes before the bearings would have cooled sufficiently for anything to be done to them. I ordered my Engineer Officer to do what he could, deciding to continue as long as the guns were in action." He then decided to scuttle his ship. "The main engines were out of action and it was unlikely that anything could be done in the short time available. There was real perceived danger of boarding by the Japanese."

And from Sir Sam Falle's (an officer aboard HMS Encounter at the time) book, My Lucky Life, he says of the same moment: "Chief Engineer Ted Tyrell came up to the bridge and reported that a lubricating oil pump had been damaged and would take two hours to repair."

My question then, can anyone with engineering knowledge say: Is an overheated turbine actually repairable once it has ground itself to a halt? (It sounds like they didn't discover the break till the engines locked up.)

And: How fast till the engines lock up if the pump connection is broken?

TIA