The Mechanical Handling and Storing of Material

FLOATING LOADING DEVICES 493 direction, and although we are probably better equipped in this country at our principal coal ports than any other country for mechanically disposing of cargo coal, we lack in other ports the facility for transferring bunker coal mechanically into ships, and in this respect some of the Continental ports, particularly that of Hamburg, are in advance. In the Port of London, even, a great deal of hand bunkering may be seen, in spite of the continual labour troubles, and where mechanical means are used they are often of the most primitive kind, consisting of a barge with a couple of steam winches which raise the coal in baskets out of the lighters, and then transfer it to the bunkers. By these primitive means, and with nine men filling the baskets in the lighters and emptying themjnto the bunkers, as well as three men working the winches, etc.—in all twelve men—only 240 tons in ten hours are handled, at a cost of 9d. per ton. In addition to the expense and the time required for hand bunkering, there is a further drawback in the fact that the ship has to be cleaned down after this method of bunkering, whilst this is not necessary after mechanical bunkering. Notwithstanding the above-mentioned facilities, available at some of the Continental ports, the North German Lloyd at Bremen still bunkers almost exclusively by hand.