Abstract:
A pneumatic seacock retrofit is provided for convenient closing of all or a portion of the seacocks, whether as a matter of every day convenience or for use in an emergency, in which all of the vessel&#39;s seacocks can be pneumatically closed at the same time, leaving the possibility of selectively overriding seacock closure, with all control valves operating to provide a momentary pulse of air to the rotary actuators and then return to a neutral position, leaving the actuators free for further control. Moreover, an operator is free to manually close a valve in the event that the pneumatic system fails.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     This invention relates to a vessel sinking protection system and more particularly to a convenient pneumatic failsafe system for closing seacocks. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     A major cause of vessel sinking is the failure to close seacocks when the vessel is at anchor or docked. Recent insurance industry estimates report that for every boat that sinks at sea four boats sink while safely moored at their slips. Of those that are safely moored at their slips half of these sinkings are due to seacock failure. Thus for every boat that sinks at sea there are at least two that sink because their seacocks fail while they were sitting at the dock. 
     The failure of seacocks happens for two main reasons; a leak in the seacock or a leak in the line or hose from the seacock to the device or unit that the seacock is coupled to. Thus, for instance, a hose that is coupled to a seacock and is run to a device or a unit may come off of the seacock due to improper double-clamping. Secondly, even if the hose to the seacock is intact, if the hose lets loose from the device or unit to which it is attached and then extends down below the water line the vessel will fill with water and sink. 
     A major problem with manually operated seacocks is that they are very inaccessible and must often times be closed with a wrench that may be temporarily lost. Thus, in an emergency there may be no manual way to close up all the seacocks to prevent flooding, Moreover, one may not want to close all of the seacocks involved if it can be ascertained which seacock is responsible for the vessel flooding. 
     An electric solenoid system exists to close seacocks. However electricity may not be available as a vessel floods due to battery failure. Therefore these systems are ineffective precisely at the time when they should be effective to prevent the sinking of the vessel during an emergency. 
     It will be appreciated that a seacock is any valve that is below the water line and is utilized for instance to admit raw sea water into such devices as an engine, a refrigeration unit or a water purification unit, or for shooting out waste. 
     As will be appreciated, the operator of the vessel is supposed to close all of the seacocks when the vessel is moored, because if a hose pops off and if it is below the water line, sea water floods the boat, filling it quickly and the vessel sinks. 
     While relatively large ocean going vessels have hydraulically controlled sea water valves, due to the fact it takes so much force to open these large valves, smaller boats are left to manual operation of their seacocks. 
     While operators of smaller boats want to be able to close the seacock or valve causing the trouble, they may also want to be able to leave other valves open, for instance to leave the raw water intake seacock for the engine open. Moreover, it may be desirable to have a seacock open if the faulty seacock or line is to a non-critical unit such as a head. It is thus important to be able to shut off the affected seacock without closing an unaffected seacock. Thus, it is desirable to be able to leave selected seacocks open, especially the seacock that is utilized to provide for the ingest of water to cool an engine, if the engine seacock is functioning correctly. 
     On the other hand, prior to ascertaining what seacocks and lines have failed, one would very much like to have a convenient and fail safe system for closing all of the seacocks to allow the operator to figure out which seacock or associated line is leaking or has failed. Once the leaking seacock has been diagnosed, it is desirable to have the operator can keep open the seacocks that are working properly. 
     For instance, if one is offshore fishing and one has discovered that a seacock is leaking, one could still operate un-affected equipment while simply keeping the affected seacock closed, allowing the boat to reach port where the affected seacock and associated line can be repaired. 
     Additionally, in terms of manual operation of seacocks or thru-hull valves, often-times manual operation requires a lever that is six inches long. There must thus be at least  6  inches of clearance around the seacock in order to be able to manually activate the seacock valve. Since these seacocks are in inaccessible spaces, it is either inconvenient or near impossible to be able to manually close a seacock. Moreover, depending on the seacock size and style it usually takes about 35 pounds of pressure to open and close a seacock, which means it takes 70 pounds of force that one has to exert on the seacock valve in order to open or close it. For many seacocks they are in a place where one cannot physically exert that much force on the valve. 
     Prior systems have been utilized to close off water inlet valves such as illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,786,782; 5,947,047; 6,343,965; and 4,697,535. It is apparent from the above that there are no retrofit pneumatically operated systems to close all seacocks either for convenience or in an emergency. 
     Those systems requiring electricity are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,947,047 and 4,697,535, both of which operate with electrical power to close valves. It is important not to have electrically operated seacocks because the seacocks are located in a very damp and corrosive environment. It is noted that electrical systems generally do not last indefinitely in such environments. As mentioned above, when the sea water gets above battery level, the entire electrical system shorts out and one has no electricity aboard. 
     Referring now to U.S. Pat. No. 6,786,782, it will be appreciated that pneumatic valve actuation is described. However, it can be seen that the pneumatic valve actuator is placed on top of the seacock, meaning that an additional piece of apparatus must be added in series with the seacock to be able to shut off the water flow. A pneumatically actuated valve in series with the seacock is both cumbersome because it adds additional structure on top of the seacock, and is also counterproductive in that a failure can occur between the seacock and the pneumatically actuated valve. As a result, its use with existing seacocks is problematic. 
     In order to close a particular valve utilizing this patent, positive pressure must be maintained in order to keep the valve closed. Thus, for instance, in the piston arrangement shown, since it is spring loaded to keep the valve open, pressure must be continuously applied to the piston in order to keep the valve shut. This requires a constant source of pressure and a large reservoir. 
     Further and as will be appreciated, U.S. Pat. No. 6,343,965 relates to a pneumatically-actuated marine engine water drain system in which the water drains into the bilge of a boat or overboard. However, as can be seen, here there is no seacock. 
     Most importantly, not shown in the above-described art is the ability to close all of the seacocks in an emergency situation in which pneumatic closure overrides the actuation of any of the open seacocks. Moreover, nowhere is shown the ability to selectively open unaffected seacocks so that once the emergency situation has been addressed through the closing of all the seacocks, non-critical seacocks can be reopened for normal operation. 
     SUMMARY OF INVENTION 
     In order to provide a convenient way of controlling seacocks and/or for vessel sinking protection, a failsafe system is provided for closing all of the seacocks in a vessel and thereafter selectively opening unaffected seacocks. In the subject system a pneumatically-driven seacock valve stem actuator is provided for each seacock in which in one embodiment an adapter is fitted over the manually actuated valve stem which protrudes from the side of the seacock housing, with the adapter being powered by a pneumatic rotary actuator, in one embodiment a rack and pinion rotary actuation system to pneumatically move the seacock from an open position to a closed position and vice versa. 
     While the above applies to original seacock installations, a retrofit package may be used to retrofit existing seacocks with pneumatic actuation. Moreover, in one embodiment the normal seacock handle remains in place for manual operation. 
     In one embodiment, the adapter is bolted to the flange of the seacock through a mounting bracket or collar that saddles the seacock and positions the rotary actuator over the flange of the seacock. This collar piggybacks on the bolts that anchor the seacock such that it is unnecessary to modify the seacock for retrofitting. 
     The reason that this retrofit is successful is that all seacocks of either ball type or tapered cone type have a valve stem to control the position of the internal system. 
     The aforementioned adapter fits over this rod and engages the valve stem. As a result, the retrofit involves removing the handle and slipping on the adapter so that it only contacts the flats and not the threads. Thus there is no damage to the seacock. 
     Note that the adapter is kept tight against the seacock by the design of the mounting collar which pulls the rotary actuator tight against the seacock. The adapter contacts the bolt in a loose fit such that the adapter can float slightly about an eighth of an inch. As a result, there is no squeezing force on the ball of the seacock. 
     The pneumatic actuator in one embodiment utilizes the aforementioned rack and pinion rotator that can operate at any pressure from for instance 35 PSI to 120 PSI. For the application involved, one chooses the lowest pressure specified by the manufacturer that is necessary for rotating the seacock valve. Seacock manufacturers routinely specify a baseline torque for moving the valve so that the pneumatic pressure can be appropriately set. Note that the rotary actuator torque is linear with pressure so that the correct pressure for operating the valve can be easily calculated. 
     Moreover, in one embodiment, the valve is not over rotated when the stops are taken off with the removal of the handle. Rather, internal stops within the rack and pinion rotator provide for the stops necessary to limit the valve rotation for instance between 0° to 90°. It is noted that rotary actuators are factory set from 0 degrees to 90 degrees, but can also be set from negative 10° to 100°. Since most seacocks operate in the 0 to 90 degree range, setting the stops within the rotary actuator is not required. 
     Moreover, in order to prevent vibration damage to the seacock valve, a needle valve is positioned between the reservoir and the rotary actuator such that the actuator does not experience the full volume of air when a control valve is opened to supply the air to the rotary actuator. 
     The rack and pinion rotary actuator is chosen because of its compactness so that it may be easily positioned in hard-to-reach areas which are usually inaccessible by the vessel&#39;s operator. Note seacocks exist where there are exhaust lines or intake lines going over the seacocks, or the seacock may be underneath an engine or underneath hatches. Thus most seacocks are relatively inaccessible. 
     The rotary actuators chosen are extremely compact and will fit in the places where one could extend one&#39;s arm to get to a seacock and move the valve stem. 
     While there are many types of other actuators that could have been used, impact wrench type actuators are not practical because of their torque output. This is because of the large volume of air required and because the air supply must continuously available. Moreover, there are no stops in impact wrench actuators so they must be operated without knowing if the valve is already closed or open. 
     Other designs include a two air piston design known as a kinematic device which is likewise impractical because of the amount of space utilized and also because the large volume of air requires an exceptionally large reservoir. 
     As part of the subject invention the system for preventing vessel sinking includes an air reservoir and a number of control valves interposed between the reservoir and the rotary actuators, each of which can individually open or close a seacock by momentarily applying a pulse of air to a port on the rotary actuator. Once the initial pulse of air is delivered to the rotary actuator the control valve returns to a neutral position after which no pneumatic pressure is applied to the rotary actuator. 
     This has two consequences. First, if one seeks to manually close or open a particular valve one can do so because there is no internal pressure operating on the rotary actuator that would limit seacock valve rotation, all the ports to the rotary actuator being exhausted to the ambient. Secondly, when one utilizes an emergency shutoff valve coupled to the reservoir, the valve connections or circuits are in parallel to those associated with other control valves such that regardless of the position of a seacock valve, when the emergency valve is moved to close all seacocks, a pulse of air is delivered through the actuator&#39;s control valve to the appropriate port on each rotary actuator to close the associated seacock valve should it be open. The emergency control valve is also spring loaded back to a neutral position so that it only provides a momentary pulse of air to all of the seacock valve actuators. Thereafter, there is no back pressure on the rotary actuator. This means that this actuator can be again controlled by its control valve regardless of any prior emergency closures. 
     In one embodiment, a control panel is located between the reservoir and the control valves, with this panel being supplied with an air gauge to indicate the condition of the reservoir. 
     It is noted that the subject assembly is retrofittable to any valve that has a valve stem extending from the seacock body. Thus any seacock that has a handle can be retrofitted with the subject apparatus. Note that the bolts that hold the seacock in place are used to mount the actuator. As a result, the rotary actuator does not create any undue pressure on the valve itself. Thus, unless one exerts an extraordinary amount of torque one cannot snap off the valve stem by installing the actuator and adapter onto the flange because the flange takes all the load. 
     Note also that the aforementioned adapter does not apply any force to the valve that is not designed to take. Nor does it affect the friction that the valve was designed with to keep the valve open. 
     Further, it is noted that by providing the subject retrofit unit one is preventing the ingress of water at its lowest point, thereby eliminating the necessity of providing additional apparatus above this point to close off the flow of water. 
     Finally, when one closes all of the valves in an emergency shutoff situation it is important to prevent engine operation once the seacock to the engine closed. For gasoline engines it is very common that vessels have a neutral safety switch so that one cannot start up the engine when the safety switch is engaged. In one embodiment there is either an electrical or mechanical linkage to this safety switch from the associated seacock. Also, gasoline engines have switches which cut off the engine if it overheats. 
     As to diesel engines that do not require electricity for operation, the seacock that supplies the raw sea water intake to the engine may be mechanically linked to a mechanical fuel shutoff for the engine that prevents the engine from running when the associated seacock has been turned off. 
     Regardless it is part of the subject invention to provide a fail safe system for turning off an engine when its associated seacock has been closed. 
     In one operative embodiment with a reservoir having a three gallon capacity, seacocks have been opened and closed for a period of 15 cycles without having to recharge the reservoir. This means that in an emergency situation there will be sufficient air supply to be able to close all of the seacocks, while at the same time providing sufficient reserve for normal valve operation. 
     In summary, a pneumatic seacock closing system is provided in which seacocks can be conveniently closed or in which vessel sinking can be prevented by the ability to pneumatically close all of the vessel&#39;s seacocks while at the same time leaving the possibility of selectively overriding seacock closure, with all control valves operating to provide a momentary pulse of air to the rotary actuators and then return to a neutral position, leaving the actuators free for further control. In one embodiment, the subject system is provided in a seacock retrofit package. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       These and other features of the subject invention will be better understood in connection with the Detailed Description, in conjunction with the Drawings, of which: 
         FIG. 1  is a diagrammatic illustration of a vessel with a vessel sinking protection system that includes a pneumatically actuated series of seacocks under the control of a control panel; 
         FIG. 2  is an exploded view of a rotary actuator retrofit to a standard seacock to rotate the seacock valve stem through pneumatic actuation of the rotary actuator; 
         FIG. 3  is a diagrammatic illustration of the actuator  FIG. 2  assembled to a seacock and utilizing a collar bolted the seacock flange; 
         FIGS. 4   a  and  4   b  illustrate the rack and pinion mechanism for rotating the rotary actuators of  FIGS. 2 and 3 , showing opposite movement of the upper and lower racks to open or close the associate seacock valve; 
         FIG. 5  is a schematic diagrammatic of the valves in the control panel of  FIG. 1 , showing an emergency all close/all open valve connected in parallel to valves controlling associated seacocks, illustrating the airflow for controlling the rotary actuators for each of the seacocks, with the emergency all close/all open valve overriding the action of the individual control valves for the seacocks; and, 
         FIG. 6  is a schematic and diagrammatic illustration of the parallel connection of the emergency all close/all open valve to the individual control valves coupled to the associated actuators. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     As illustrated in  FIG. 1 , vessel  10 , herein illustrated as a lobster boat, is shown provided with a number of seacocks  12 ,  14  and  16  which admit sea water respectively to a refrigeration unit  18 , an engine  20  and a head  22 . These seacocks are of a conventional variety which should be closed when the vessel is moored or at a dock so that inadvertent failure of the hoses from the seacocks to the indicated apparatus will not result in the sinking of the vessel. 
     In order to provide for the subject seacock closing system a control panel  24  is utilized to control the pressure over line  26  from a pressurized air supply  28  coupled to compressor  30 . 
     As will be described, various control valve levers or switches may be utilized to close all of the seacocks in a value closing operation that bypasses or overrides any previous condition of a seacock and its associated actuator. 
     While the actuators will be described in  FIGS. 2 ,  3  and  4 , pairs of air supply lines from control panel  24  illustrated at  32 ,  34  and  36  control these actuators. 
     It is noted that the pneumatic actuators for each these seacocks are coupled to an air supply by these pairs of lines, with an air pulse on one line opening the associated seacock through the actuation of the associated rotary actuator, and with a pulse on the other of the two lines closing the associated seacock. 
     Also shown is an engine shutdown module  40  which is mechanically linked to seacock  14  as illustrated at  42 . When seacock  14  is closed, module  40  shuts off the fuel supply to engine  20  as illustrated by dotted line  44 . In this way when seacock  14  is closed it is impossible to run engine  20  which would otherwise be damaged with the cutoff of cooling water. 
     While a mechanical linkage is shown for diesel engine shutdown, conventional internal combustion engines may be shut down by solenoids for cutting off the power to the engine. 
     The cause of vessel sinking may be a failure of the hose or conduit between the associated seacock and the unit to which sea water is applied or from which waste is to be jettisoned. Here it can be seen that seacock  12  is coupled to refrigeration unit  18  by hose or conduit  50 , whereas seacock  14  is connected to engine  20  by hose or conduit  52 . Likewise a hose  54  connects the outflow of head  22  to seacock  16 . 
     It will appreciated that if there is any failure of these hoses, either due to leakage or due to a hose slipping off an associated nipple either at the seacock or at the device to which it is attached, downflooding of the vessel can occur, sometimes in a rapid fashion. 
     As will be discussed, a retrofittable system is provided to be able to retrofit each of the seacocks with an actuator which is pneumatically driven to be able to close or open all seacocks, and to be able to selectively control seacock actuation based on the position of the control levers on control panel  24 . 
     In operation, when an operator wishes to leave his or her vessel, the operator actuates an emergency “all close” valve lever to close all seacocks. Thus, when an operator leaves a vessel, he or she can be assured that the vessel is secure against leakage, at least from the seacocks. 
     When the operator comes aboard, he may wish to open all of the seacocks and this can be accomplished by the same emergency lever so that whatever the condition any of the seacocks in, they will all be turned to an open position. 
     Because of the parallel series connection of the emergency control valve to the individual control valves that supply momentary air pressure pulses to the actuators of the seacocks, an operator of the vessel can override any previous condition of the emergency valve by applying air pressure to the appropriate opening or closing line for an actuator. 
     This gives the operator of the vessel a procedure by which he can immediately close all of the seacocks in his vessel as for instance when an emergency situation arises. After closing of all of the seacocks, the operator can investigate the cause of the leak and can selectively open unaffected seacocks. 
     If in an emergency situation the operator closes all of the seacocks, in one embodiment the seacock associated with the engine is arranged to turn off the engine, be it a diesel engine or a conventional gas engine. Thus when the seacock associated with the engine is closed the engine will not overheat due to a lack of cooling water. 
     Alternatively, assuming the seacock associated with the engine is not compromised, the sea engine seacock can be re-opened simply by applying an appropriate pulse of air to the associated actuator. 
     Referring to  FIG. 2 , as part of the subject invention, the pneumatic actuator assembly, here illustrated at  60 , may be rapidly retrofit to a seacock  62  through the use of an adaptor  64  that slips over a shaft  66  extending from housing  68  of seacock  62 . Adaptor  64  is the only piece of apparatus that is required to be specially fit, with the adaptor slipping over the rotary shaft of the actuator and also the valve stem bolt or shaft  66  from the seacock. 
     Actuator  60  is mounted to seacock  62  through the use of a collar or frame  70  that is bolted to flange  72  of seacock  62 , with the collar or flange  70  having a “u” shaped cut out  74  adapted to fit around the cylindrical seacock outflow pipe  76  when the collar or flange  70  is bolted to flange  72  by bolts  78  that are screwed into threaded orifices  80 . 
     Actuator  60  is mounted to flange or collar  70  through bolts  82  such that the mounting of the actuator as a retrofit package to a seacock is simple. 
     As will be seen, actuator  60  is provided with a pair of inlet ports  84  and  86 , with port  84  being provided with a pulse of air indicated by arrow  88  to rotate adapter  64  for closing the associated seacock, and with port  86  provided with a pulse of air  90  to rotate adapter  64  in the opposite direction to open the associated seacock. 
     Referring to  FIG. 3  the assembled retrofit package is shown in which actuator  60  is bolted or secured to seacock  62  through the utilization of the aforementioned flange or collar  70  that is bolted to the two units. 
     Referring to  FIGS. 4   a  and  4   b , actuator  60  of  FIGS. 2 and 3  may include a rack and pinion arrangement in which rack elements  100  and  102  cooperate with a pinion  104  that is utilized to rotate a shaft  106  in the direction of arrow  108  when the racks are moved in the direction of arrows  110  to open the associated seacock through the rotation of shaft  106 . As seen in  FIG. 4   b  when it is desired to close the associated seacock, pinion  104  is rotated in the direction of arrow  112  through the action of the associated rack elements  100  and  102  which are moved in opposed directions as shown by arrows  114  and  116 . 
     As mentioned hereinbefore, utilization of a rack and pinion type of actuator provides the utmost in simplicity for seacock valve turning in a minimum amount of space and with a minimum amount of mechanical complexity. 
     Such an actuator is commercially available as model ECV63DA from Rotex Controls in which stops are provided at the factory such that shaft  106  in  FIGS. 4   a  and  4   b  can be rotated only through 90°, for instance from 0° to 90°, thereby eliminating the need for valve stem stops. 
     As will be appreciated, in order to retrofit the actuator to the seacock, it is often times necessary to remove the handle from the seacock, with the handle in most instances being provided with mechanical stops. However, by utilizing internal stops in the actuator, the seacock valve may be rotated, but not over rotated. 
     Referring now to  FIG. 5 , control panel  24  of  FIG. 1  is illustrated, in which the control panel houses an emergency all close/all open valve  120  that is provided with a handle or toggle lever  122  which when rotated causes air from an air line  124  to be supplied either to a “valve closed” line  126  or a “valve open” line  128 , with these lines being coupled in parallel to individual seacock control valves  130 ,  132  and  134 . Regardless of the position of the levers associated with valves  130 ,  132  and  134 , namely levers  136 ,  138  and  140 , pressure on lines  126  and  128  is passed through these valves over lines for instance  126 ′ and  128 ′ to close and open the associated seacock through its actuator. 
     The reason that the emergency valve  122  can override the action of the valves  130 ,  132  and  134  is because all of the valves in the subject invention are momentary actuation valves in which the opening or closing movement of a lever is only momentary, with the lever being returned to a neutral position by spring biasing or other means. 
     This means that a pulse of air over a line is momentarily delivered to an actuator after which there is no residual pressure in any of the lines going to the respective actuators. 
     Moreover, because of the rack and pinion arrangement, once the racks are moved to a position, they stay there, and no additional air pressure is necessary to maintain their position. 
     As a corollary to the fact that there is no pressure on the actuators when the control valves are in their normal neutral position is the fact that it is easy to manually control any seacock to close or open it&#39;s valve because there is no back pressure from the system, once the system has set the valves in an open or closed position. 
     As can be seen in  FIG. 5  the condition of a seacock is shown by an indicator  140  or  142 , indicating respectively an open seacock or a closed seacock. Thus the operator of the vessel can easily ascertain the condition of each of the seacocks. Note, each of the control valves is provided with such an indicator, with the indicators coupled to seacock condition sensors at the associated seacock. 
     Finally, as illustrated at  150  the pressure delivered to the control panel can be continuously monitored such that if the pressure drops below some predetermined level compressor  30  of  FIG. 1  can be utilized to recharge pressurized air supply  28  to bring the system up to normal operating pressure. 
     In one embodiment a pressurized air tank is on the order of 15 gallons pressurized at 120 psi providing a pressure of 45 psi which can control for instance up to 5 actuators cycling 15 times before recharging. 
     Referring now to  FIG. 6 , the parallel connection of the emergency all closed/all open valve  120  is shown coupled to a pressure supply  160 . As can be seen, lines  126  and  128  are routed to the respective inlet ports of control valves  130  and  132 , each also supplied from pressure supply  160 . These two inlet lines are then coupled by the indicated valves to respective actuators  164  and  166  and seacocks. 
     Since these are momentary actuation valves, the pulses of pressure are only momentarily delivered to open or close the seacocks through the momentary action. If there are no control pulses from valve  120 , then valves  130  and  132  operate in the normal fashion. 
     While the present invention has been described in connection with the preferred embodiments of the various Figures, it is to be understood that other similar embodiments may be used or modifications or additions may be made to the described embodiment for performing the same function of the present invention without deviating therefrom. Therefore, the present invention should not be limited to any single embodiment, but rather construed in breadth and scope in accordance with the recitation of the appended claims.