Polar Diesel Engines

Got a nice Polar Diesel Engine sales catalogue from Ray Hooley on ebay at the weekend, missed a couple of other interesting ones, Ray always starts and finishes his auctions all together, so juggling to bid on a few at the last minute can be interesting!

The catalogue lists and pictures a few ships that the engines were fitted into, including the "Saint Martin Legasse" a motor trawler.

Interestingly, this name comes up on Google as part of a U-boat search fleet in the 1940's, and although I couldn't find any other references it probably led a charmed life.

The ship was possibly registered in France, but was built at Falmouth as one of four similar vessels, all with Polar diesels. The Builder was Cox & Company.

I will be putting the complete book on the website under the Marine section.

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

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Prepair Ltd
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Following on from that, as we do, I was looking at Polar engine links on Google and found this site in the land of the Kiwis:

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They have a couple of Polar diesels which replaced earlier National 450hp gas engines, and their picture of the original Nationals is pretty close to those we have on our site at:

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So it has pretty much come around full circle.

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

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Prepair Ltd

"> The catalogue lists and pictures a few ships that the engines were fitted into,

Peter,

There's many an interesting engine lurking in vessels, especially trawlers, tugs, and even Thames sailing barges - though the barge I sailed on had a couple of Perkins truck engines. However your note reminds me of a conversation my old skipper, Lawrance Tester (no longer with us) formerly of Greenhithe Lighterage. He showed me round his tug about 12 years ago, and it had an 8 cylinder Gardener - a 1950s GXLB or something similar. He fired it up and it blew beautiful smoke rings, and then he knocked off the injectors one by one until it was running on 3 cylinders. What a lovely engine - no expense spared! He assured me that when warm it would tick over on a single cylinder, and that after 40+ years. Well he is gone now, but the tug is no doubt still around.

However he then went on to tell me about the tugs he used in lighterage many years before. The steam tugs, where you had to keep the grate warm, as it took 36 hours to warm it from cold without damage. Then they had a diesel tug which had a Polar engine, and if my memory serves me he said it was a reversing engine (and of course reverse is fairly imprtant in a tug). Presumably you swap cams.

OK, its not quite stationary engines, but thought I would record it here before my memory fails me.

The drive to decomission fishing vessels to conserve fish stocks has led to many being cut up, and as these are the oldest of the fleets, some very odd engines have come to shore as a result.

Steve

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Steve Richardson

Not on these, they are two-stroke diesels, so a quick stop and change the injection timing by memory.

I know the feeling! :-))

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

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Prepair Ltd

I have started on the Polar pictures, look in the Marine section of the website under Sweden:

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2 pages only, got sidetracked by the Olds catalog coming in!

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

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Prepair Ltd

Aha, it was a reversing engine ! My memory still works. Though the Gardner was an 8LXB, not a GLXB

But while looking up the Gardner I came across this link

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about registering engine powers for fishing vessels. There is a big list of engine manufactureres at the bottom of the page and a list of models for each. Some variety out there ! Only one Polar model listed though (British Polar Engines) the 6 cylinder SF16RS-D.

Steve

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oldnoccer

I have put some more of the Polar brochure pages up on the website, they are a little grubby and wrinkled so it takes about 20 minuts per pages to clean them up and get them straightened out.

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:

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Peter A Forbes

All finished:

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Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:

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Peter A Forbes

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