Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 219 (Part 2)" video.

  1.  @josephenders1893  One of the movies I saw, where the ship sat adrift for several hours, maybe "The Enemy Below", maybe "Action In The North Atlantic", showed one of the firemen lighting an oil fired boiler. He first picked up a metal wand, maybe 3-4 feet long. Tied a piece of cloth or wick material to the end. Opened the cover of a little cup on the front of the boiler, which was full of fuel oil. Dipped the wick in the oil, then lit it with a match. Then he stuck the wand through an access port in the front of the boiler near one of the burners, and turned on the oil valve to the burner. It follows that they need electricity first, to run the fuel pumps and blowers for the boiler, so that would come from an auxiliary diesel driven generator, that is started by a battery, or power from shore. At some point, the turbo-generators are cut in, so the ship can go on full internal power. Then, you can see about starting the main engines. In one of Drac's pieces from his US trip, he was in the boiler room of a ship, and might have touched on some of the procedure.
    1