Fireman
Fireman (1925-1954): The Mather was "hand fired" which meant that the Fireman and Coal Passer each had to play the "Irish banjo," -- one fireman's term for the shovel they used to feed the hungry boilers. There was no automatic stoker, so as long as the needle on the steam pressure gauge remained in the acceptable area, the men could relax. When the pressure started to drop, it was time to "hit the doors." If the ship was traveling through fog, the men were constantly busy because the blasts of the whistle (three short blasts every minute) used up a prodigious amount of steam.
Each watch, there would be two tasks which had to be performed. The first was to "blow the flues." The Coal Passer was sent up to a catwalk which ran beside the boilers to open valves to blow steam into the boiler to clean out the soot deposits left by the burned coal. This would create a lot of smoke, so it was not done in the rivers or near populated areas. The second task was to "pull the fires" on one of the boilers. The hot fire was banked on one side of the grate, and clinkers and hot ashes were dumped on the floor of the fire hold and doused with a bucket of water. This would then be shoveled into an area called an "ash gun" that ground them up and shot them over the side.Fireman (1954-1965): The Firemen's duties changed significantly after the Mather was repowered in 1954, resulting in a reduction of one Fireman per watch (from two per watch). Rather than standing at the forward end of the boilers, shoveling coal into open furnaces, they now stood aft of the boilers with the watch engineers monitoring the proper firing of the furnaces keeping proper steam pressure, boiler water level, and fuel temperature. Occasionally, there was a need to open the furnace. Although "Bunker C" burned cleaner and more efficiently, there was still soot. To rid the boiler tubes of soot, steam powered soot blowers are installed in the boiler. Once a day, the Fireman or Wiper will "blow the flues" to remove the soot.
The Fireman position was completely eliminated in 1964 upon the installation of the Bailey boiler automation system.
