(SPOILERS) From David re: a certain ship's fate

StealthSeeker wrote:To my way of thinking coal is going to be a fairly common comodity just about everywhere. I place that belief on the idea that coal isn't just used for heating buildings. I imagine that it is used in stoves for cooking. In the few wood burning stoves that I have seen the "firebox" is separate from the oven so smoke doesn't permeate the food being cooked. Coal would also be used in industry, you can't make weapons if you haven't got coal to heat the hearth. In my mind a lot of that industry, and the associated supply of coal, is going to be near the water front. Another potential reason for the coal being at the water front is because it arrives by ship. Coal in the Safehold world just seems to be universally available.

However, I do agree that you could not depend on coal being available. But I would plan on taking advantage of every opportunity to pilfer coal that I could to extent the effective operation limits of my ships that depend on that coal.

Coal may be common and near the water front, but that does not mean that it can be easily obtained in a quick raid. Steam ships have fuel bunkers measured in tons, moving this requires a lot of time or semi-specialized equipment, often both. Spending too long stripping warehouses means that land based reaction forces can arrive before you leave.

The main problem comes in that coal is likely to be in either large sacks (50 to 100 lbs) or in large piles of loose gravel. The only way I can see a raid getting useful amounts of coal is if it is in a barge or canal boat waiting to be unloaded, in which case the whole container is towed away.

StealthSeeker wrote:
To my way of thinking coal is going to be a fairly common comodity just about everywhere. I place that belief on the idea that coal isn't just used for heating buildings. I imagine that it is used in stoves for cooking. In the few wood burning stoves that I have seen the "firebox" is separate from the oven so smoke doesn't permeate the food being cooked.

Haven't we seen that the church lands are short on coal at the foundrys since they used to get most of their coal from Sidermark? I don't think there will be much around to collect. Besides, how many stoves supplies of coal does it take to supply one ship?

jeremyr wrote:

StealthSeeker wrote:
To my way of thinking coal is going to be a fairly common comodity just about everywhere. I place that belief on the idea that coal isn't just used for heating buildings. I imagine that it is used in stoves for cooking. In the few wood burning stoves that I have seen the "firebox" is separate from the oven so smoke doesn't permeate the food being cooked.

Haven't seen that the church lands are short on coal at the foundrys since they used to get most of their coal from Sidermark? I don't think there will be much around to collect. Besides, how many stoves supplies of coal does it take to supply one ship?

They were starting to make up the difference from Harchong who is gouging the church on price.

Don

Harchong gouging the CoGA while its fighting for its life, some ally they have there.

Besides knowing how the mainland operates there is a reason they got their coal from Siddarmark, everywhere else is a noble who will try and cheat on cost/quality.

CJK wrote:Harchong gouging the CoGA while its fighting for its life, some ally they have there.

Well yeah. Harchong's orthodoxy that Clyntahn loves so is merely habit and general conservatism. Getting people over the barrel and squeezing them - in the most polite, civilized fashion, at least over the working classes - is the core of Harchongese civilization.

Besides knowing how the mainland operates there is a reason they got their coal from Siddarmark, everywhere else is a noble who will try and cheat on cost/quality.

There's that. Although there's also location - I suspect Howard has its own coal sources rather than shipping them all the way from Glacierheart or North Harchong, and those sources would be what ICN raiders of Desnairian ports could - if/when they are lucky enough to find large sources conveniently placed for easy pickup - make off with.

Castenea wrote:Coal may be common and near the water front, but that does not mean that it can be easily obtained in a quick raid. Steam ships have fuel bunkers measured in tons, moving this requires a lot of time or semi-specialized equipment, often both. Spending too long stripping warehouses means that land based reaction forces can arrive before you leave.

The main problem comes in that coal is likely to be in either large sacks (50 to 100 lbs) or in large piles of loose gravel. The only way I can see a raid getting useful amounts of coal is if it is in a barge or canal boat waiting to be unloaded, in which case the whole container is towed away.

Well, some of the "raids" have been fairly "through" and took a bit of time. So there would have been enough time to collect coal in those raids. However, there also have been "whistle stop" raids, during which no coal could be collected. So it would depend on the raid as to whether or not you would have a chance to get coal.

The mechanism I had in mind to collect it would have been at least 4 boats, all of them stored aboard the coal tender ship. Those 4 would have consisted of 10 man row boats that would tow a special build boat that would hold a couple of wagons worth of coal, either sacked or loose. The coal tender ship would have a crane that could lift the whole small boat full of coal onto the deck to be dumped into a bunker.

It's not going to be like pulling up to a dock and having a conveyor system streaming endless amounts of coal into the ship. But if the raid lasted for several hours as the marines did a through job, quite a bit of coal could be loaded.

Depending on your fuel load (coal) margins for the mission, a 100 wagon loads of coal could be a very welcome added margin of safety.

All of this gets me wondering... how do they fill the tender ships with coal at a home port? How do they move the coal from tender to steam ship, can they do it at sea? And with the new long range guns on the "city" class ships, could they put lookouts in the tower of some building that could direct shelling of any forces that may approach the town?

I had taken it that the sea charts were mostly drawn up by Trading Vessels who would've stayed in sight of land for as long as they could due to weather, etc. And the ships that surveyed the channel, did the survey how many years in advance of this excursion?
As I understand it: Sandbars in the Gulf of Mexico and the Chesapeake Bay (I grew up in Baltimore)change with each Hurricane and heavy tide. Not always eroding away. Dolphin Island grew up over many centuries, but some sand bars seem to appear almost overnight. Sometimes the deposit is from the coastline and sometime the buildup is deposited from the lower continental shelf.
I forget which friend of my dad's said this, but he harvested crabs for a living in Chesapeake Bay.

TN4994 wrote:I had taken it that the sea charts were mostly drawn up by Trading Vessels who would've stayed in sight of land for as long as they could due to weather, etc. And the ships that surveyed the channel, did the survey how many years in advance of this excursion?
As I understand it: Sandbars in the Gulf of Mexico and the Chesapeake Bay (I grew up in Baltimore)change with each Hurricane and heavy tide. Not always eroding away. Dolphin Island grew up over many centuries, but some sand bars seem to appear almost overnight. Sometimes the deposit is from the coastline and sometime the buildup is deposited from the lower continental shelf.
I forget which friend of my dad's said this, but he harvested crabs for a living in Chesapeake Bay.

All true. Plus see Sable Island which is more in my area. But bars which come and go do not generally have proper names. This mud bar does have its own established name. So it is a solid underwater land form.

As I mentioned very early in this thread with Capt. Cook's chart of Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, some mud bars are very stable and last for centuries. While I don't know your area and Dolphin Island is hardly a unique name (!!!), the fact it has a name implies it is probably pretty permanent as opposed to all the shifting bars.