# Oil fuel - ss niagara ussco



## kiwijohn (Jan 31, 2017)

My grandfather John Dunlop superintended the building of the Niagara (13,414 tons) at John Brown's Clydebank yards. The Niagara was the first British merchant ship with a Board of Trade Certificate for oil fuel and my grandfather was the first of the USSCo engineers with experience in it. The Niagara left Glasgow on her maiden voyage on March 13,1913.
When she left Glasgow eight of the ten boilers were coal fired and the other two were fitted for for burning oil fuel.. They used coal until they reached Honolulu and then used the two oil fitted boilers till they reached Vancouver where they converted all boilers to oil fuel. The Niagara had 72 engineers, firemen, greasers and trimmers when she reached Vancouver and when she left Vancouver she had a total of 27. This proved a turning point in the profitability of the company and the Makura, Maunganui and the Tahiti were converted soon after.


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## YM-Mundrabilla (Mar 29, 2008)

kiwijohn said:


> My grandfather John Dunlop superintended the building of the Niagara (13,414 tons) at John Brown's Clydebank yards. The Niagara was the first British merchant ship with a Board of Trade Certificate for oil fuel and my grandfather was the first of the USSCo engineers with experience in it. The Niagara left Glasgow on her maiden voyage on March 13,1913.
> When she left Glasgow eight of the ten boilers were coal fired and the other two were fitted for for burning oil fuel.. They used coal until they reached Honolulu and then used the two oil fitted boilers till they reached Vancouver where they converted all boilers to oil fuel. The Niagara had 72 engineers, firemen, greasers and trimmers when she reached Vancouver and when she left Vancouver she had a total of 27. This proved a turning point in the profitability of the company and the Makura, Maunganui and the Tahiti were converted soon after.


Interesting about the reduction in Engine/Boiler Room personnel with the conversion to oil firing.

I have just read the book _'Down Amongst the Black Gang - the world and workplace of RMS Titanic Stokers'_ which was mentioned somewhere here on SN not so long ago.

Amongst many other things there is reference to the reduction in the 'Black Gang' with conversion to oil firing:

Aquitania from 350 to 50 
Mauretania from 446 to 175 
Olympic from 280 to 54 

I can recommend the book to anyone interested in the era of coal fired steamships early last century. I got mine from Book Depository (UK) delivered to Oz post free for around $A 21.00.

Geoff (YM)


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## spongebob (Dec 11, 2007)

This must be the Niagara lying on the sea floor of NZ's Whangarei heads after being sunk by a German mine. Post WW2 , gold bullion was recovered by notable diver Johnstone.

Bob


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## kiwijohn (Jan 31, 2017)

Yes Bob that's the one. As you mentioned she was carrying GBP2,500,000 worth of gold owned by the Bank of England. They recovered gold worth GBP2,360,000 a remarkable achievement in those days


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