Walter Warren

In May of 2017, I (John Helsley) started a Facebook conversation with Walter Warren.

He was a startup engineer on the Hoel power project in Brazil.

These are some of his comments during that exchange...

I was a startup engineer on the Hoel power project in Brazil.

Was there for 6 months until the project ended. My father was on one of the Hoel's sister ships, Charles F. Adams DDG-2.

Five of us plus project manager. Locals actually ran the boilers and generators.

Had to learn Portuguese to communicate with them.

I was the water treatment engineer. Really enjoyed it.

Was a great idea. The company should have finished the conversion in Charleston.

I think the project would have been a success if they had.

I read somewhere that she was scrapped in Brazil. I assumed it was over near the Petrobras docks. But not sure.

Had a whole roll of pics. Interior, exterior, local crew. Someone walked off with them. We never made power for any real length of time. But I do believe we made the full 50 MW for a while. Blew a lot of economize tubes. Replacement parts where a bear to get thru customs. All the people were great. The dock was on ElectroNorte property. There was four or five generators in that power plant. Don't remember the actual plant output.

The pic of the ship at priestess taken at high water season. At low water season, the river level was 40-50 feet lower. We used to catch a ferry boat out to the boat under the pier.