COALING SHIP

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 5, 1 October 1918, Page 8

COALING SHIP

NO "GO SLOW" NONSENSE IN THE NAVY. ■

Coaling ship in a Grand Fleet battleship is a real red-hot evolution. Everybody is on the run from tho moment the collier is made fast alongside until the last bag of coal is stowed in tho bunkers and the ship is once more ready for sea. There is a ceaseless rattle of winches, tho roar of steam, and the shrilling of whistles. The steel decks quivor as the hoiste of coal come thudding down, a ton at a time; and the men work around the dumps in a swirling fog of coal dust. No time is wasted in telling off the hands. Everybody knows his job and jumps to it on the pipe "Hands coal ship!"

The coal is dug and filled into nags in the collier's holds by the seamen, each of the four holds being allotted to one of the four parts of the ship— fo'c'sle, fore-top, main-top, and quar-ter-deck—which work against each other in the_ effort to get out the most coal. Nothing less than 300 tons an hour is considered a good coaling and merits the distinction of a signal"from tho. admiral: "Coaling well executed." The running of barrows from the diiniDS where the conl ie landed on the battleshin'e deck to the bunker chutes is done by Marines, who also supply the tippers at the chutes. They arc usually big R.M.A. gunners, for when the ship is doing a frood coaling each one of them has to lift some fifteen to twenty tons of coal an hour, hour after hour.

Otlir>r men are busy working winches, unhooking the strops with which the bags are hoisted inboard, collfctinn;, checking, and weighing bags: while the boys keep the decks clear of loose coal whioh inrnodes the barrows. Every man of the ship's company is employed in some, capacity, snve only the sick-berth ratings, who. like the surgeons, aro nevpr allowfd to coal ship.

Down in the bunkprs th" stokers nre trimming coal as though their lives depend on it. keeping pace with the (■h-isrlprs stream which pours down the chutes and working in an atmosphprp Ro thick that tho lamps can sea reply hum and a. man cannot distinguish the hlpfle of his own shovel.

A.bugle, blares out and the rnttle of winches stons suddenly. After the continuous racket of the last few hours tho silence is nnrnnny. A few flaps rrnnn to the vnrrl-nrm. flutter for a moment, and arc honied flown. The bosun's pine shrills out: "Rtnnrl hv to let go collier!" and a crowd of Mack finrurfw. iiiifnrl +o tho waist, swarms out of the ho'ds and casts off the Iwworx, evolution of cnalinp- is finished.—C.S.G., in the "Daily Mail."