Cane sugar

It was thanks to my American friend who posted a video showing sugar cane.
 It was in the 80s that my Best Pal introduced me to a guy who I will call B. He was a pleasant man and once he had been introduced would often call and see me when he was around.
 It was on one occasion that he told me he was a Turbine boiler service engineer and the best job he had, was working for CEGB on recommissioning some turbines on the Isle of Wight. He told me that he, and a few other workmen were  put into a 1st. class Hotel all at the expense of CEGB.  He told me that the pay was very good also. He had an Agent who would find him work. He remarked that whenever he wished to get some more work, he would contact his Agent and within a few days his Agent would find some work.
 He told me that the most unusual job he had was one that sent him to the Caribbean. He didn't say exactly where and I never asked him. He told me that when he arrived on site he was informed that he was in charge of recommissioning the working system. This was an old steam generated turbine. It was one that was used to crush cane sugar to extract the juice and then it was sent to turn it into refined sugar, although he told me he had nothing to do with that part of the operation.
 He was told that the first thing he had to do was to teach and inform the workforce. He told me he had done nothing like that before. He had to take them in a classroom and tell them what the operation would consist of.
 He told them that they had to make sure that once the system was working it was important that the turbine was not stopped.
 He told them how to get heat from a firebox to generate steam to build up the pressure to turn the turbine.
 He gave them a formula. It was the 3 Ts. Time, temperature and turbulence. The time was to make sure you had enough time to get the fires lit, temperature was vital to turn the turbine and turbulence was also vital to give the burning fuel air to generate the heat required.
He then told me that the cane sugar arrived by a sort of train. It was trimmed down to the size where the sugar could be extracted, the rest of the  canes which was considerable was to be burned. This I think he called it rafatia. I plead guilty if this is not correct but I honestly do think this is so.
 The rafatia was stored in sort of barns to dry off. This was then used to get the heat from the firebox to create steam to turn the turbine.
 He told me that after explaining all for a couple of days he was satisfied that the men had now got the idea.
 He told me that he would have gone a day later but he was in his office when he had a call. He had to go on site immediately as everything had stopped.
 On arriving on site the charge hand explained what had gone wrong. He told B that the cause of steam failure was because of the 4Ts. B asked him what he meant as he had only told the men about 3Ts. The charge hand then told him that the 4Ts were, time temperature, turbulence and too much rafatia. I burst out laughing but B didn't see the funny side. He told me it was important and it put back his time to leave by over a week.
 What had happened, B told me was that the man in charge of the firebox had just put too much rafatia on the fire thus starving it of oxygen and therefore losing steam. He told me that he informed his Agent not to offer him that sort of work again. True to his word, B told me he never offered him a tricky job like that again.
 By the way, last night we had some welcome rain, the first for over a month, but it is a lot colder and frosts are forecast over the week end. Must give tender plants some protection. More soon.