the 'Ronsard'

The above pic shows engine controls on the mv Ronsard, a four hatch general cargo ship built for Lamport and Holt of Liverpool. The two-stroke Doxford six engine controls show the motor at rest shortly after arrival from deep sea and a standard arrangement like most motor ships of that time. The engine is started by the hand control levers on air and then diesel fuel is pushed in by injectors, the third lever is the governor control to maintain a steady speed and prevent damage if the vessel is pitching badly with the propeller out of the water.

Once away from land the vessel would operate on heavy oil, a thick treacle like substance that goes through a system of purifiers from the heated settling tanks to storage tanks and heated by steam pipes at a set temperature before injected into the main motor. Auxiliary plants, generators for electricity to power the ship, ran on diesel all the time as did the boiler in port but the exhaust gases from the motor were used for heating the exhaust boiler at deep sea. The Ronsard was broken up about a year after this was taken in 1979. The cover on the crankcase says North Eastern, the Sunderland builders of the main engine.

The oil painting of mv Ronsard shows her on the Rio Grande river in Brazil, with only a few feet of clearance from the river bed, which is dredged continuously. (Wallace Trickett painting)

Ship's data from bluestarline.org :-

Dimensions: 472.7 x 62 x 28.3 feet (144 x 19 x 9 metres)
Tonnage 7,948 grt 
Propulsion: 6-Cyl N.E.M-Doxford 2-stoke opposed piston engine with scavenge pistons, 7500 bhp by North East Marine Engineering, Co., Wallsend
Completed:  September 1957
Sold: 1980 to Obestain Inc., Panama, and renamed Obestain
Last voyage:  August 1981 Bangkok for Taiwan and scrapped at Kaohsiung