SPOTD: 6 Incredibly Ultra Wide Engine Room Panoramic Photos

Photographing a ship’s engine room is a daunting task for even the best maritime photographers because of the sheer size, breadth and scale of room and equipment but, when pro photographers do get the “right shot” the results are breathtaking. Their secret: taking multiple shots and sticking them together in photoshop to create high resolution panoramas.

One of gCaptain’s favorite maritime photographers, Lou Vest, explains how he got the above shot of the engine aboard a containership he was piloting on the Houston Ship Channel.

We had to pass through the engineroom of a big container ship on our way to the pilot ladder. I couldn’t resist an engineroom panorama. Even at 17mm I couldn’t get it in one frame…and this is just the top of the engine. It would have been nice to have a person in the shot for perspective, but they were all ensconced in an air conditioned control room behind me.

Shaft Alley

This photo by Don Victorio shows Shaft Alley aboard a commercial ship. Shaft alley is the long, narrow passage way where the screw shaft runs from the output of the turbine reduction gears to where the tail shaft exits the ship and connects to the screw.

USS Alabama

Boilers in the #1 Engine Room of the USS Alabama (BB-60)

Standing between the two boilers in the #1 engine room, photographer Matthew Normand, took this photo of the engine room aboard the 1942 built battleship USS Alabama. The USS Alabama’s propulsion system used oil-fired steam turbines to turn four propeller shafts giving the vessel a cruising speed of 27.5 knots. According to Matthew the ship has four engine rooms, each with two boilers and a main engine. This photo shows a 450v AC generator and the #1 main engine.

SS Rotterdam Main Engine Room

Ss Rotterdam Engine Room Main

This photo of the SS Rotterdanm is by Henk van den Berg, a Panorama photographer from The Netherlands. The SS Rotterdam, also known as “The Grande Dame”, is a former ocean liner and cruise ship, equipped with 2 steam turbines manufactured by de Schelde, Vlissingen (Flushing), Netherlands and 4 V2M 640PSI Boilers (3 active, 1 reserve), designed by Combustion Engineering and manufactured by de Schelde.

Cap San Diego

Main Engine

This photo by German Photographer Bernd Borchers shows the main engine room aboard the MS Cap San Diego is a general cargo ship, now situated as a museum ship in Hamburg, Germany. The vessel was propelled by a MAN two-stroke 9 cylinder diesel engine giving the ship a top speed of 20.3 knots

Mega Containership

This photo I took this week using Lou Vest’s panoramic advice. It is a panoramic HDR photo of the engine aboard the massive 18,000 TEU containership CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin. This engine is a MAN B&W 11S90ME-C9.2 which consumes 330 tons of Marine Diesel fuel per day with a total power output of 87,900 hp or 65,500 kilowatts.

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