THE STOKER COMES UP ON DECK

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 90, 13 October 1934, Page 25

THE STOKER COMES UP ON DECK

Only- those who have descended into the stokehold of a big ship have any idea of the grim life of the average stoker, .says the "Children's .News-

paper."

It is true that, mechanical stoking and other modern advances have made many great improvements, but the fact remains that in the majority of steamships the stoker has an uncomfortably hot time of it. . :■'■.■

But now comes news from Norway of a new type of ship in which a change haß been made in the position of the boilers, a change so great that it has opened up entirely new prospects' for the stoker. It is difficult to understand why this simple invention has never boen thought of before.

A vessel of 2400 tons has been built by a Norwegian firm. In this ship the boilers have been placed on deck amidships, actually above the water-level. It has always been thought necessary in a steamboat to have the boilers and the engines as low down as possible in order that it should be stable in rough weather, but this daring experiment has shown that this is by no means necessary. The ship is not only perfectly steady and stable in the

sea, but its motion in rough weather is far smoother. ;

The stokers do their work in '*" the open air of the sea. The- coal bunkers are fixed in the upper decks, and the coal falls to the boiler-level by gravity. In the ordinary ship the; ashes- and clinker have to behoisted to the sealevel and thrown into the sea. "With tho boilers above the water the ashes are allowed to fall by their own weight into the seaj< and thus an . immense amount of labour. in trimming is avoided.

This remarkable ship has been doing excellent service on the sea since November. The shipbuilders who have made, the experiment have kept very quiet about it, but have recently made its success known at the summer meeting of the Oslo shipowners. It is a bold experiment with splendid results, for it not only means a new type of ship for the future, in which the life of many workers in the merchant service is going to •be far healthier and easier, but it means that when applied to passenger vessels the passengers are-going to have a great deal more comfort which they can obtain at present only with the costly and complicated equipment of the gyroscopic stabiliser.