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It was black, longer than a football pitch and about 100 feet high. It was ugly and it had been squatting in
the one place for some years when I first glimpsed it in 1931. During my formative years I saw it daily. It was once instrumental in showering my body with red hot cinders. Another time it had me suspended by
my thumb. yet it provided me with some tasty meals.
The 'Coal Hulk", as she was referred to locally, was an unnamed static floating marine equivalent of a
landlubber's coal-yard. Moored in Portsmouth Harbour and recognised officially as the Cl, she supplied solid fuel to the, now extinct, coal-burning tugs and battleships for more than half a century.
My family moved to Hardway — a parish on the harbour side of the Gosport peninsula — in 1931, and already in
place, about 300 yards offshore from our sea-edge garden, was the Coat Hulk. A smoldering leviathan tethered by gigantic chains to the sea-bed. Its bulk dominated the centre of my family's I80º vista of the harbour.
During the days of my youth I did not feel compelled to enquire of her pedigree; it is only in retirement
that I have felt a need to find out more about her and to share the information. Research revealed construction of the Cl commenced as an Admiralty contract job in 1901. The hull was launched from the Swan
Hunter and Wigham Richardson Yard on February 27, 1902. Work continued aboard while she was afloat, and, at the same time her cranes were constructed in the nearby Yard. Completion was effected in June 1904.
With dismantled cranes stowed within her hull she left the Tyne on June 23, 1904 and commenced her
three day east, south coast journey under tow, to Portsmouth. The work of assembling the wheeled cranes, locating them on the deck rails and generally making the vessel ready was undertaken in Portsmouth
Dockyard. She was ready by October 1904, when she was put into service on a mooring close by Portsmouth Dockyard.
In the ‘20s she was moved up harbour to be moored close to Hardway, where she was to complete her 60
years of service, I often observed The Hulk' at close quarters, when, as a child, my parents would usher my brothers and sisters into the family dinghy, then row past it on a tour of the harbour.
Colliers laying low in the water regularly tied up alongside to discharge hundreds of tons of Welsh Steam
Coal into its cavernous hull. Spilled coal tempted passing boatmen to collect it from projecting ribs along the hull side. Those in the know ignored it having already found it unsuitable fuel for use on a
domestic open fire.
The refueling of visiting ships was a noisy affair. The Hulk had four rail-mounted cranes with booms that
pointed skyward when idle and horizontal when about to transfer to, or take in coal from, vessels alongside. I would frequently watch as giant coal-filled steel buckets, large enough to accommodate ten men standing,
would be wrenched upwards by cable from the Hulk's belly passing through clouds of airborne dust.
Metal cable-controlled trolleys would convey the suspended bucket along the outstretched boom. As it did so
the metal on metal squealed like pigs at the trough. The trolley would finally jolt to a stop, the loaded bucket would swing, then be allowed to steady, A small adjusting movement placed it immediately over the
customer ship's hold and the bucket would descend. Responsibility for the dangerous job of releasing the ratchet that allowed the full bucket to upturn and spill its contents, lay with the crew of the ship
being loaded.
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Well I'm Blowed, would you believe it! - a dictionary of Sayings from Pompey and Turktown
