Coal Fired Steamship Question

[BuffaloBobS]

In my years of working in the engine room on a steamboat, all the boats were equipped with water tube boilers. It was still referred to as "blowing flues". That was probably lingo that was carried on over the years, but you knew what it meant when the Engineer told you that we need to do "flues".

[FWE]

Darryl: Only 1 fireman per watch and he had the Wiper/Coalpasser at his disposal to assist in all duties . - Scotch boilers ( fire tube) or Water tube boilers all had a means to jar the combustion side soot off the tube surfaces, whether coal or oil fired .

[Pete in Holland MI]

In boiler terms, "flues" are for a fire-tube boiler where the fire travels inside of the flue. "Tubes" are what are what a water-tube boiler is built with, and the fire travels around the outside of the tube.

[BuffaloBobS]

When refering to "blowing flues" (tubes) on a water tube boiler, you are blasting the outside of the tube with HP steam to clean off the soot to allow for better heat transfer. All the soot goes up and out the stack.

[Lakercapt]

SAMUEL MATHER (1927 Amship) 3 coal fired B&W sinuous header water tube boilers with Dayton underfed stokers. Had 3 doors per boiler, when we came on watch the middle doors were already pulled and and the rest of our watch we pulled ash from outer doors, then shot all of them over the side via the ash gun. Also had to manually blow tubes each watch with 1-1/4 steam hose with a 6 foot wand fitted to the end, the sides of the boilers had pigeon holes where the wand was inserted and a blast of steam was admitted to the tube pass.Watch the steam pressure/fill the coal day bunker/hose the fireroom deck down then last half hour of the watch pull fires from each boilers middle doors, but leave for the next watch, and it all starts over, BOY that was fun!

I am a bit confused with parts of this post.
You said they were water tube boilers and then go on later to say you blew tubes.
I only knew of water tube boilers as being high pressure. The ones I sailed on were water in the main boiler and the tubes were where the fires were directed. The engineer or donkeyman blew the tubes which was not done from the stokehold.

As it was a long time ago I may be wrong.
Water-tube boilers were mainly for turbine steamships.

[Darryl]

FWE, that was two firemen a watch, with a wiper, or just yourself with a coalpasser and no stoker?

[FWE]

SAMUEL MATHER (1927 Amship) 3 coal fired B&W sinuous header water tube boilers with Dayton underfed stokers. Had 3 doors per boiler, when we came on watch the middle doors were already pulled and and the rest of our watch we pulled ash from outer doors, then shot all of them over the side via the ash gun. Also had to manually blow tubes each watch with 1-1/4 steam hose with a 6 foot wand fitted to the end, the sides of the boilers had pigeon holes where the wand was inserted and a blast of steam was admitted to the tube pass.Watch the steam pressure/fill the coal day bunker/hose the fireroom deck down then last half hour of the watch pull fires from each boilers middle doors, but leave for the next watch, and it all starts over, BOY that was fun!

[Jon Paul]

Here is a blast from the past I took of the Heron Bay unbound struggling against the current at Port Huron in Oct '77. I was on the beach because of the Iron Miners Strike and took my motorcycle to PH for a day of photo taking.

[alerickson]

i had a big black handlebar mustache when i was a coalpasser and i ignored the basic rule of standing sideways when the fire door was open. yup! got blowback from the open door and burned 1/2 of one side of the stache. didn't realize what happened until i went up to the chadburn and everyone started laughing at me. took a month to grow back my mexican bandito stache, but i never fronted the fire doors again either.

[Lakercapt]

A couple of points I forgot to mention that do have some relevance.
When shovelling in a pitch of coal you never stood directly in front of the furnace opening but to the side. This in case there was a flashback. The other thing was you turned your belt buckle to the side as it would get extremely hot from the radiant heat.

[Lakercapt]

lakercapt the blood line is an old british saying dont hear it used very muck in 2021!

I don't believe you would hear it at all now as this was in the 1953/56 era when I was on the ship. Yes it was a British ship called s.s Firby an Ocean class build from WWII

[Lakercapt]

Did you try to limit the burn down too open lake where less steam other than a bit of lost speed wouldnt effect manouvering, and also how much steam pressure did you keep when in port?

I was not on the lakes but ocean-going on a tramp ship.
In port, the pressure was the same 220 lb/sqin

[Guest]

On the Lyman C Smith, we had Dayton under fed stokers and pork chop grates. All seemed to work well as long as the coal was halfway decient. Normally, we pulled the two high fires on each boiler at the start of the watch and the low fire at the end of the watch. Some time, the coal at Lime Island was poor at it would puff up like popcorn and produce little heat. We would have to pull fires two or three times a watch and the First Assistant Engineer would help us fire the boilers. One time we had to reduce speed because we could not maintain pressure. It was normally a easy job and I would only be in the fire hole for 45 minutes at the start of the watch and 30 minutes at the end. Only shoveling of coal was to build up the fire after pulling.

[Guest]

Did you try to limit the burn down too open lake where less steam other than a bit of lost speed wouldnt effect manouvering, and also how much steam pressure did you keep when in port?

[jim1]

lakercapt the blood line is an old british saying dont hear it used very muck in 2021!

[Lakercapt]

A little more to add to my earlier post about coal-fired steamships.
The black gang did work hard and the start of a watch the routine was. One furnace which the previous watch had let burn down was cleaned, which meant breaking and cleaning out any clinker and building up again. Course the other two furnaces had to be stoked up.
The steam pressure at this time was impossible to maintain and the ship slowed down. The trimmer at this time was clearing up and dumping ash as well as keeping up the supply of coal. This was a very busy and hard work period.
When we managed to get the boilers up to blood we would relax a little and only stoke the furnace when needed. There were three firemen per watch and one trimmer.

[Guest]

Well I did check that link about firing the S T Crapo and a bunch of other related links that were there too. I'm far too lazy for that kind of work. Perhaps they would just let me steer...

Seriously tho- that looks like work! I thought you fired a little, then relaxed for 10 or 15 minutes- like that. My hat is off to those of you that have done it!

[djwmusk65]

I recall a set of books in our library that has everything you needed to know about steam locomotives. On the section on firing ,it depended on weight of the train as to how deep a fire to carry. A heavy train would need 6" fire where a passenger train would have a 2-3" fire. Anything bigger than a certain size grate area would need to have a stoker because it became impossible for one man to fire. Pennsylvania Railroad's K-4 pacifics had grate areas that didn't need stokers, but they had two men firing on trains like the Broadway Limited. Also it said to fire half the firebox at a time so as the gasses in the coal burned off, the hot side would consume them. In the back was a chart that had the names of all the coal mines and listed how many btu's in a ton of coal, also how much moisture, how much ash it produced, chemical makeup, etc., by the mine and even down to which particular seam the coal came out of. I don't know if the steamship companies bought their coal the same way or if they got it at which ever port they were in that had coal fueling dock.

[Guest]

It’s hot hard gritty work in the fire hold. The term “black gang” was aptly applied to the coal passers, firemen n wipers on the coal fired steamers of the past. As for “ why would anyone do it” A newbie sailor had to start somewhere. Many started in the engine dept. you started in the fire hold and worked your way up from there as far you wanted to go. There is a you tube video of boilers being fired n fires being pulled. I think it may be on the Crapo. Search and you can find some.

[Guest]

I have this idea that firing a locomotive or a ship must be impossibly difficult, yet common sense tells me it couldn't have been that bad or nobody would have done it.

So, what is it like to fire one of these ships? How often do you have to actually shovel coal, and what do you do in-between time? I'd enjoy learning about this.