Stokers duties

[David B]

I was talking to an old mate of mine who was a very lucky survivor of the Voyager disaster and was was on watch in the boiler room

when the ship was struck by the Melbourne. He retired as a CPO SM. He states that a trimmer was a person who smoothed out the coal

in the boiler after it had been shovelled in, to produce more heat from the boiler fire, improving efficiency etc. In my post of April 8

re coal/oil fired warships I think it was intimated that a trimmer was a guy who kept the bunkers level

David

[ionia]

A trimmer was responsible for trimming coal in the bunkers and transferring the coal from the bunkers to the firing platform. Had your friend ever served in a coal-fired warship?

[old-ted]

David, one of the key roles carried out by a Trimmer was to ensure that bunkers on both sides of the ship were Trimmed evenly to prevent listing. See http://www.titanic-titanic.com/titanic_boilers.shtml for an interesting piece on the Titanic.

Regards

John

[David B]

Oh well we cant win them all. I apologize. One would have thought that a Chief Petty Officer Stoker with 22 years naval

service 6 years in the army as a small boat captain and years travelling the world in his yacht would have known what

he is talking about.

Trimmers trim

stokers stoke so be it

David

[horatio2]

Don't be too hard on him. He probably joined the navy fifty years after a stoker last 'stoked' a boiler at sea or a trimmer 'trimmed'.

[David B]

Well he was about 6 feet from the action when the Melbourne sliced the Voyager in two and was lucky he was on the

aft end and not the other

David

[ionia]

There were coal fired naval vessels in WW2 (including in the RAN) which was the reason for my question about whether he might have served in one, not knowing his age.

[truthergw]

I know next to nothing about the navy but am old enough to remember coal fired boilers in factories and ships. There is a confusion of terminology here. A trimmer moved coal around inside a ship to preserve the ship's trim. They also delivered it to the stoke hold or furnace room. Stoking a coal fired boiler, be it the fire box on a train or the boilers of a great ship was a skill and required careful regulation of amount of coal and how itwas distributed inside the furnace. It seems like standard English to describe that as trimming. This was also a skill displayed by the ovenman in a bakery when these were coal fired. A coal fire of any size required tending and is a skill largely lost nowadays.

[centurion]

I don't know if this applies to ships but when oil fired steam locomotives were first tried part of the stoker's job was to ensure that the jets of burning fuel were 'trimmed' so as to ensure a consistent and even heat. Might some thing similar have applied to early oil fired warships so that the stokers 'trimmed'? Someone must have been responsible for keeping the oil tanks at the right levels to avoid effect on stability etc (much as a flight engineer did on large aircraft). What was the position on those pre dreadnaughts that carried both coal and oil?

[David B]

Ionia,

I get your point, no he joined up in the early 50's, but he did mention that there some vessels such as tugs, harbour

vessels etc that were still coal fired during WW2.

Centurion, I cant answer that but as the oil tanks were close to the bottom of the ship stability was probably not as

critical regarding trim. I also remember back in the dim dark days of my naval service references to ensuring that fuel was

taken out with an eye to stability. I do not know whether the oil tanks were interconnected, or whether feeds to the boilers

were only from individual tanks as required. I do remember that the capacity of my last ship the Yarra a type 15 frigate was 300

tons which is quite a lot for a small ship.

david

[Peter and Ellen]

I know next to nothing about the navy but am old enough to remember coal fired boilers in factories and ships. There is a confusion of terminology here. A trimmer moved coal around inside a ship to preserve the ship's trim. They also delivered it to the stoke hold or furnace room. Stoking a coal fired boiler, be it the fire box on a train or the boilers of a great ship was a skill and required careful regulation of amount of coal and how itwas distributed inside the furnace. It seems like standard English to describe that as trimming. This was also a skill displayed by the ovenman in a bakery when these were coal fired. A coal fire of any size required tending and is a skill largely lost nowadays.

In response to the coal distribution in a firebox, it is vital. Having been a fireman on the Victorian (Australia) Puffing Billy Railway, the "fire" must be level and have no "holes" in it. The thinner the "fire", the hotter the "fire" becomes and therefore, you consume less coal. Yes, here we are back at economics.

When very thin, the "fire" (the burning coal) burns white and you are then harvesting the maximum calorific value of the fuel - coal. Therefore, coal consumption is down and you save money. The other bonus is that the trimmers on the ships would have had to do less work carrying coal. On Puffing Billy, we have some heavy handed fireman and they build "thick fires", OK, they still steam OK but they burn up a lot of coal. The consumate fireman is the one who returns with plenty of coal still in the coal bunker.

A "hole" is where the "fire" is not even and the air (draught) breaks a hole through the coal layer. The coal on the sides of the hole then burns away very quickly and the hole grows in size. When the air has an easy path, then you cease to draw an even flow of air through the coal bed and your temperature falls away rapidly.

Hope this helps, regards, Peter

[per ardua per mare per terram]

In the Navy the 'stoker' was used for both trimers and firemen, which were the terms used in the mercantile marine. It is possible that their terminology was different from that used outside the Navy too.

[centurion]

I find that in merchantmen part of the trimmers' duties were to rake out and dispose of the ashes. Presumably this was also done on warships

[Kath]

Can anyone tell me about an ash-pump?

Kath.

[joseph]

Kath,

At the bottom of the fire was an archimedes type screw below the grate, this drew out the ash to the pump which sent it to a slurry tank here it was mixed with water and discharged overboard.

Regards Charles

[Kath]

Thanks, Charles.

Kath.

[centurion]

Kath,

At the bottom of the fire was an archimedes type screw below the grate, this drew out the ash to the pump which sent it to a slurry tank here it was mixed with water and discharged overboard.

Regards Charles

Reading an excellent work on marine boilers it would appear that this was peculiar to certain types of boiler where forced draught was used (this produced a very fine ash which could be turned to slurry with the addition of water - very analagous to some coal fired power stations I have known.

[David B]

More scuttlebut. MY ex CPO Stoker told me the other day another common practice in the stoke hold was

the throwing of empty glass bottles into the furnace where the would melt and fuze instantly onto the boiler brickwork.

Was supposed to and air flow through the boiler thus making the whole process more efficient. It also

made the rebricking of the boiler a lot harder because the fuzed glass had to be chipped off first.

Take it or leave it gents

David

[Ghost]

I recall reading through the Titanic site some time ago. It is mostly written by an enthusiast who has an interest in the Titanic. Not someone with practical knowledge of ships. This is demonstrated by the many erroneous statments. Treat it like Wikipedia.

Trim is the differance in draft fwd to aft. List is the degree of inclination from upright to port or stbd.

A ship may sail with a trim , either head up or head down, but very very rarely with a list.

Stability is the tendency of a vessel to return to its original position after it has been inclined by an external force. This is both applies to both longitudinal and transverse inclinations.

Oil in bunkers, whether it be in the double bottoms, or on the funnel decks will always have a great effect on stability.

Coal bunkers were trimmed, by trimmers, to ensure a pile of coal was always available at the bunker doors, for transfer to the firing platforms. Coal bunkers were were not trimmed to adjust the trim of a ship. Titanic was a rather large ship, can you imagine trying to trim a ship that big by shoveling coal around a bunker? No. The rate of coal or oil consumption from port or stbd bunkers would decide the list, and a close eye would always have been paid to the sailing condition by Ch Mate, Ch Engineer and watch officers.

Glass bottles, usually green or brown beer bottles were regularly thrown in to the furnaces of steam ships whilst at sea. The main reason being to repair/ stop deteriation of the brickwork in the furnaces. Shutting down a boiler, thus slowing down a ship, to repair refractory did not earn anybody browny points. A second reason to inject bottles was to give the brickwork a nice glazed look. The silica in the bottles did a very good job. I have myself had to consume copious bottles of Tiger, (always prefered) to keep the furnaces on T2s looking pretty for the second and Chief.

Ash is notoriously hard to pump. On many ships an ash pump was used to pump operating water at about 200 psi to an ash eductor, which then discharged the mix overboard.

Of couse with oil fired boilers, no ash remains in the furnace and so no need of ash pumps and no need of tall funnels for natural draft either, induced then forced draft being the norm.

Alan

[joseph]

The Royal Navy didn't have Trimmers just Stokers, who were an all encompassing Marine Fireman. The Stoker was trained in the loading, distribution, storage and use of coal. The basics of a Royal Navy steam propulsion system that uses coal, has to use three compartments firstly the bunkers where the coal was stored, then the stokehold where the coal was held until required to be sent down chutes to the boilers.

Bunkers where strategically placed around the ship and used as extra armour by being placed between the outer skin and the boiler/engine rooms, so usually long thin compartments. Coal also came in different grades and calorific values the lower values being used for normal cruising, the higher saved for exercise or battle and stowed near the stokehold (Welsh coal being the preference).The location of coal within the ship would effect the ship's "trim" (i.e., if all of the bunkers on one side of the ship were emptied, she would lean drastically to one side), so the use of coal was monitored to keep the ship in trim. This was supervised by the Chief Stokers and their tanky's the water used to feed the boilers was also a large part of this equation both in what was used and what was produced.

As you could imagine during normal cruising this was a calm steady process, well oiled and managed by the Chief Stoker with Stokers manning or managing the three parts of ship, this gave the younger Stokers time to train and perfect their skills. A large ship would use 500 tons of coal a day under normal cruising conditions, three times that if on exercise or in battle conditions.

The bunkers were hot, often humid, and the air thick with coal dust. Each bunker had to be periodically emptied totally and the build up of dust cleaned out to stop the chance of spontaneous combustion, caused by the coal absorbing moisture and creating heat which would build up until the coal began to burn, a problem to put out usually done by flooding the bunker pumping out and then using the coal straight away.

Working within the bunkers was a terrible job. Since the coal bunkers could be long, men had to shovel the coal around in the bunkers, so that the bunkers could be filled evenly. When the coal was being used, a shovel relay would be set up in the bunkers, so that the coal in the bunker could be used evenly, and a ready supply kept at the entrance to the bunker for transfer to the stokehold. From this point it was shovelled in manageable quantities into the boiler rooms.

The job of 'Trimming' the bunkers was normally done by Sailors and Marines and the first place any army embarked where employed, this task was supervised by PO and Leading Stokers. The Stokers moving the coal from the stokehold to the boiler rooms and feeding the furnaces.

Regards Charles

[Heid the Ba]

Thank you gentlemen for comprehensively filling a gap in my knowledge that I didn't know was there. Impressive as always.

[Kath]

Further to the awful working conditions of the men who kept the engines going.

From the Logs for two trips by SS Royal Edward from Avonmouth to Canada and back.

1st. to 22nd. July 1913:

5th. Engineer - severe scald of right foot - caused by escape of steam from valve (treated by ship's surgeon).

Fireman - suffering with acute pleurisy (sent as out-patient to Bristol Infirmary).

Fireman - poisoned thumb caused by splinter (Bristol Infirmary).

Fireman - bruise of index finger, right hand (Bristol Infirmary).

Fireman - poisoned finger from splinter (Bristol Infirmary).

Trimmer - bruise of thumb.

26th. July to 16th. Aug. 1913:

Trimmer - Haemorrhage of lungs.

Fireman - suffering with sciatica.

Trimmer - suffering with acute rheumatism.

Fireman - strain of muscles of calf of left leg caused by fall in engine room.

Trimmer - orchitis of left testicle caused by being struck by handle of barrow while working in stokehold..

All were admitted to the ship's hospital under the care of the surgeon.

Kath.

[David B]

Thanks everyone for the most comprehensive answers to my original post. Most grateful

David