COAIvING WARSHIPS FROxM COLUERS IN HARBOR. 129 



COALING the; U. S. S. MICHIGAN. 



Plates 38 and 39 are half-tone photographs' showing the U. S. collier 

 Vestal coaling the U. S. S. Michigan, Capt. N. R. Usher, U. S. Navy, 

 commanding. The Michigan has large coaling skylights (Plate 39), leading 

 directly to the main deck level and through which coal can be poured for 

 a time at the rate of 150 tons per hour. The coal on the main deck is 

 shovelled into chutes leading to the bunkers. The photographs also show 

 one of the buckets delivering coal to a pile (Plate 38), directly on the ship's 

 deck. This pile of coal is surrounded by men with shovels. The pile being 

 large, these men continue their work while the clamshell bucket delivers 

 coal to the apex of the pile. Shovelling coal on deck where the shovel 

 follows a plank is much more rapid than shovelling on top of the coal in 

 the hold. Then again, baskets or trucks can be used. The baskets will stand 

 alone and men are not required to hold them while being filled. Baskets 

 holding about 45 pounds are carried with little fatigue. If bags were to be 

 filled one man would do the shovelling while two other men held the bag, 

 and the men would be in each other's v/ay. 



COAIvING A TORPEJDO-BOAT DESTROYER. 



One of the most striking illustrations of the value of increased rate 

 of discharge and reduction in labor is found in a recent coaling of a torpedo- 

 boat destroyer. The destroyer was of the Flusser type. It received coal 

 from the clamshell buckets of the collier Vestal. This boat took on 40 

 tons of coal in seventeen minutes, which is at the rate of 141 tons of coal 

 per hour. Only two men were employed. On the destroyer two coal 

 hatches (abreast the two after stacks) were removed. The clamshell bucket 

 delivered its coal on the deck amidships, where it poured directly through 

 both hatches and filled bunkers on both sides of the ship at the same time. 

 Fully 70 per cent, of the coal flowed directly into the bunkers. 



If a torpedo-boat destroyer can take on coal at one point at the rate 

 of 141 tons per hour, battleships and cruisers can do as much. The battle- 

 ship Virginia received and stowed 550 tons of coal per hour for a short 

 time at a coaling station. When coaling from the Vestal only four or five 

 hatches can serve a battleship at the same time, hence, about 500 to 600 

 tons is about all that will be delivered. It therefore appears that the 

 maximum receiving capacity of the ship almost corresponds to the capacity 

 of Marine Transfers available at one time. 



