184 ECONOMY IN USE OF OIL AS FUEL FOR HARBOR VESSELS. 
of atug converted from a coal burner to an oil burner, but I think that one should use 
that data with caution in applying it to cases in which the working conditions are 
not similar. The economy effected is largely due, I think, to the cause given on page 
180, namely, ‘‘ For nearly nine-tenths of the time she must lie at the wharf with steam 
up and be ready for an immediate call at any time a vessel is reported as coming into 
port.” That is a condition of affairs in which oil fuel possesses tremendous advan- 
tage, but you do not get that condition of affairs with the ordinary commercial tugs. 
I do not suppose you will get it in a New York tug, waiting for work, because they 
keep the steam up at full pressure all the time, and they are burning the fuel at an 
even and high rate, as they are working continuously through the day. 
But there is another trouble that I see in this paper, and that is this when 
you look at the Table I, you see that the tons of coal for hours underway, for October 
1909, were 101.50, taking the first line, and that 49.0 tons of coal were used. That 
is about a half ton of coal per hour, or about twelve tons for the twenty-four hours. 
That is a very high rate of coal consumption, and I have noticed, in comparing 
results procured with coal and oil, how much one can do to improve the coal situ- 
ation by a little care in the management of boilers, having furnaces to suit the coal, 
using forced draft, etc., which I presume this boat did not have. 
We had a case not long ago where we wanted to decrease the dead weight of the. 
boat, and we thought we could use oil, and do away with the weight of the bunkers 
carried, and tried it out. The boat was burning about seven tons of coal an average 
day, and that at $2.50 a ton, comes to something like $17.50. When we tried oil 
fuel, we found that we could only burn one and one-half tons, in order to keep under 
the coal price. I will mention a curious circumstance that most of you are familiar 
with, that the price of oil automatically rises—I do not know the reason why it is 
so—just under the figure at which you could use coal, and I notice that Captain 
McAllister, in his arrangement, has suggested that he might be able to convert 
back into a coal burner pretty quickly—that is a good provision—but it is unfor- 
tunate from his point of view, because the keeping of the fire bars and under-grate 
arrangements in the furnace is definitely a drawback in the oil situation. You will 
not get to-day, with an oil flame, unless it is properly distributed around the furnace, 
the greatest heating effect from over the whole furnace, and most people take out 
everything that prevents the circulation of the fire to and around the furnace, and 
if you cut out half of the furnace, in order to keep in the grate bars, you interfere 
with the efficiency of the oil-burning process. 
Then as to the question of strikes or accidents. It happens to be our mis- 
fortune that we have to employ a class of men who are very troublesome, and those 
are the firemen. In the Lake trade, with which I have a good deal of familiarity, 
the firemen are an everlasting source of trouble and worry, and if you can cut the 
fireman out, it is worth your while to use oil, even if you have to pay niore for it,. 
both in first cost and also in the cost of the fuel from day to day. 
This paper is certainly a step in the direction of oil burning, as regards modern 
