DECK MACHINERIES

DECK MACHINERY

 The range of deck machinery is extensive

and varied, it can be divided broadly into:
Anchor handling (windlasses and capstans).
Mooring (winches and capstans).
Cargo handling (winches and cranes).

The basic requirement of all the above is

to control loads associated with chain
cable or wire rope and whilst each type of
equipment has its own operational
requirements, certain aspects of design
and operation are common.

 Most deck machinery is idle during

much of its life and due to this
intermittent duty requirement, gears
and drives are normally designed to
a limited rating of one half to one
hour.
Despite long periods of idleness,
often in severe weather conditions,
the machinery must operate
immediately, when required.

 It is essential that deck machinery

should require minimum maintenance.
Totally enclosed equipment with oil
bath lubrication for gears and bearings
is now standard but maintenance
cannot be completely eliminated and
routine checking and greasing should
be carried out on a planned basis.
Prime movers may be used to perform
more than one basic duty.

 For example, mooring winches are

often combined with windlass units so
that one prime mover drives both.
The port mooring winch motor can
thus be used to drive the starboard
windlass and vice versa.
This applies also to the power supply
where generators or hydraulic pumps
are also cross-connected.

 There are many instances where remote or

centralized control is of great advantage, for
example, the facility for letting go anchor from
the bridge under emergency conditions, the
use of shipside controllers with mooring
winches or the central control position
required for the multi-winch slewing derrick
system.
The three most common forms of main drive
used on deck auxiliaries are steam, electric
and hydraulic.

ANCHOR WINCH

ANCHOR WINDLASS

Windlasses
This equipment is self contained and
normally one electric or hydraulic
motor drives two cablelifters and
two warpends. The latter may not
be declutchable and so will rotate
when the cablelifters are engaged.
There is some variation in the
detailed design of cablelifters and in
their drives.

 Due to the low speed of rotation required

of the cablelifter whilst heaving anchor (3
5 rev/min) a high gear reduction is
needed when the windlass is driven by a
high-speed electric or hydraulic motor.
This is generally obtained by using a high
ratio worm gear followed by a single step
of spur gears between the warpend shaft
and the cable lifters. Alternatively, multisteps of spur gear are used.

CAPSTAN

 ANCHOR CAPSTANS
With this type of equipment the driving
machinery is situated below the deck and
the cablelifters are mounted horizontally,
being driven by vertical shafts. The
capstan barrel can be mounted above the
cablelifter. Nevertheless, on larger
equipments they are mounted separately,
the capstan barrel being mounted on a
separate shaft.

ANCHOR FAIRLEADER

MOORING CAPSTAN

MOORING MACHINE

MOORING WINCH

PUSH WIRE WINCH

 Winches
Mooring winches provide the facility for
tensioning the wire up to the stalling
capacity of the winch, usually 1.5 times full
load thereafter the load is held by the
motor brake, or by the barrel brake when
the power is shut off. The winch cannot
pay out wire unless the brake is
overhauled or recover wire unless manually
operated, thus wires may become slack.

 Automatic mooring winches provide

manual control and incorporate
control features such that, in the
automatic setting, the winch may be
overhauled and wire is paid of the
barrel at a pre-determined maximum
tension; also wire is recovered at a
lower tension should it tend to
become slack. Thus there is a certain
range of tension, associated with
each step of automatic control, when

 Mooring winches are usually controlled at the

local position, i.e. the winch. For vessels of
unusually large beam or where docking
operations are a frequent occurrence, remote
and shipside controllers are of great advantage.
The majority of automatic mooring winches are
spur geared to improve the
backward efficiency of the gear train for
rendering, the gearing and bearings
being totally enclosed and lubricated from the oil
sump.

 On larger mooring winches where a

barrel brake is fitted, it is now common
practice to design the brake to withstand
the breaking strength of the mooring
wire. Worm geared automatic mooring
winches are uncommon as the multistart feature required to improve gear
efficiency reduces the main advantage
of the worm gear i.e. the high gear ratio.

SPUR GEAR

WORM GEAR

HELICAL GEAR

BEVEL GEAR

WORKING WINCH