THE COASTER.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3138, 9 October 1922, Page 7

THE COASTER.

There are those who scoff at the coaster because she is so small, savs a writer in a London daily. Well, they know little of her hard "lot for some eight months of the year—a time when there is scarcely a dry patch on her decks. There lias always been good stuff in little bundles, and the coaster with her fantastic name is no exception.

She is the craft that will bt- seen most at the seaside at any time of the year, because she is one of a hug© array. Mansfield talks of her as coming "through the Channel in the mad March days" with a cargo of tin trays above all things. But whatever her size or her cargo, she is a ship worthy of respect. She carries her engines aft, and these weigh down her stern to a sometimes' alarming degree. Of masts she has an infinite variety—three, two, one, and sometimes none. If three, then she has a couple of cargo holds and two der]'.'c'vs - If wo, she carries one for cargo lilting and one as a sort of general setting-off feature.

If time permit, she Hies an ensign ironi one of these two masts. With one mast she manages to life her cargo, while with no mast at all there are obviously facilities at the wharfs for discharging. Right up in the bows is the fo'c'sle head. Here the crew berth in a sort of rsemi-cirlc. It is a cosy enough place, but not entirely dry in winter, especially when green water is spraying down the stove-pipe or washing uiider the door Under the bridge the skipper has Ins cabin- not a big place but a comfortable one. If she be a biggish) vesse sbe can b e steered from the wheelhouse, or by ;, smaller wheel perched above this.

Her cargoes are various in the extreme. She is not too proud to carry anything with which her owners think lit to load her. ft may range from a deck cargo of timber to a consignment ot cattle. But most coasters carry coal in their time. Think of the constant stream of traffic plying between Ireland and th t » western coa I fields.. Ireland would be iost without the coaster. In the same way there is a big traffic run between Northumberland and Durham and the fishing ports of Hull and Grimsby.

Ihe coaster earns good fat dividends for her owners, so what matters her cargo? Her funnel may lie salt-caked, her hull streaked with' rust, her crew grimy and perspiring; but she doesn't like to be spoken to condescendingly. She has a certain reputation to maintain—the reputation of keeping up our great coastwise trade.