Moving on Up

Last Friday was our final day at HHI. Although it was a little depressing knowing that we would probably never set foot inside the shipyard again, after three full weeks of touring we also felt that we had seen enough and were ready to move on. The final week at the yard was spent in the engine department. For those of you who don't quite know the magnitude of HHI's engine manufacturing capabilities, at maximum capacity, they can put out an average of more than two 2-stroke engines per day. This isn't the kind of engine you find in a car. No, this one is about three or four stories tall and puts out over 108,000 horsepower. Oh, and that figure doesn't include the maximum of around 2,500 smaller 4-stroke engines per year.

Those statistics make the HHI engine division look impressive and don't get me wrong, it is incredible... just not four days' worth of lectures and touring incredible. We learned about forging and casting on Monday, followed by machining, 2-stroke engines, and 4-stroke engines on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday respectively. After the previous week walking around the shipyard and getting close to the ships and physically into the work, a week spent mostly in conference rooms listening to powerpoint presentations just didn't excite us much. In the end of the day, as naval architects, we really don't care that much about engines. We returned all of our HHI-issued paraphernalia and after yet another "interesting" lunch, we returned to the HHI dorms to pack and leave for the University of Ulsan.

Until next time,

-David Rood