Donkey Engines on Ships

Subject: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: Naemanson
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 01:38 PM

In talking with my father the other night I mentioned that Hattie Atwood Freeman had sailed with her father in the 1890s on board the sailing bark Charles Stewart. She says in her diary that the crew consisted of 7 sailors, the mate, the captain and the cook. The painting of the Charles Stewart shows a full rigged sailing bark, one of the big ones. My father commented that they probably used their donkey engines for the heavy work.

This makes sense to me but... There was a lot of canvas on those ships and seven men could only do just so much at a time. And often a lot has to be done when a squall comes up suddenly.

Plus, it seems to me, that a donkey engine would be useful only in fair weather.

I checked our previous threads and we haven't discussed the donkey engines very much. A search of Google shows some donkey engines used in logging but none at sea.

So what can you find? If these were as ubiquitous as all that what information is on the web to look at. Are there any old photos? Any diagrams show placement on deck? What can this crack team of researchers come up with?

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: Amos
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 01:49 PM

Mystic has a demo of early donkey engines used in raising sail during the transition between sail and steam. There's one phot at this page which might help.

A

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: Gareth
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 02:00 PM

On early steam ships the "Donkey Engine" was an auxillary engine, self contained, to supply power to winches etc controlling the cargo hoists etc.

Many crew lists contained a member known as the Donkey Man whose purpose in life was to mantain/opperate the "Donkey"

But where the name originated .....?????

Gareth

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 02:03 PM

There's a nice write-up/description with photo of one in Maine on this page, Naes.

I put "sailing ship donkey engine" in the google search and came up with quite a bit. One was about a salvage operation; while another was the following review of this book:

Sailing history written by its' participants

The majestic age of sail, the large tall ships bearing up to seven masts in the later 1800's to the second world war is an age that everyone with an interest in the sea loves. Great ships that plied the world with coal, wool, tea and timber in direct competition with the steam ship. Unlike the warships such as the victory of Constituion they required small crews as the evolution of the industrial age saw the use of 'Donkey engines' to lift the enormous sails in minutes in comparison to days by manual labour. How do I know this? I bought this wonderful book.

Unlike the rest of the series, it is written by men of sail, not historians, and even the traditional line drawings are explained. When you peruse this book you can hear Greenhill and Manning argueing with each other about the way it was back "then".

The book contains the history of the tall ship as a cargo carrier, the history of this ship as well as line drawings and photos that would make Beken of Cowles drool.

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 02:11 PM

According to a couple of references, in logging they were called that because they took the place of the actual animals which did the work, previosuly, whether they were donkeys, horses, or oxen. Could it be that they were used first in logging, then the name was transferred into *shipdom*?:-)

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: Amos
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 02:21 PM

They are still used even in large diesel engine rooms, although they are not steam-driven any more. They are just small auxiliary engines used for specialized purposes. I believe Kat is right about the provenance of the name -- they replaced donkeys, and if they had been invented elsewhere they might well have been called buffalo engines or yak engines. :>)


A

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 02:25 PM

The OED has this entry for donkey engine: "a small steam engine, usually for subsidiary operations on board ship, as feeding the boilers of the propelling engines." This, of course, is a later use.
In American usage, a donkey engine is a small auxiliary engine (may be portable) that may be used for many tasks. The first usage in print that has been found is 1858.

Since they are used for all kinds of work, they are the "donkey" or beast of all work. A general laborer has been called a "donkey man."

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: Les from Hull
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 02:27 PM

When you think about it, there had been a simple 'engine' available for centuries - the windlass or capstan. So the donkey engine and winch, being non-portable, would do the jobs that the capstan or windlass had done, such as anchor work, warping and heavy lifting. It was in the same period that extra yards were added to make sail work easier (upper and lower topsails and topgallants) and keep the crew size down.

I suppose one problem with a steam donkey boiler would be the time taken to get steam up, or the waste of fuel in keeping boiler pressure, so I imagine the work done would be the sort that could be predicted.

I've no real knowledge of this, I should say, I'm just thinking aloud (as it were). But I'll look up some of my source books if I get the chance.

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: Santa
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 02:35 PM

Modern jet aircraft engines are known as "donks" in the trade.

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: Gareth
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 03:47 PM

Sorry Santa - I thought you used reindeer !!

Gareth *BG*

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 19 Feb 03 - 04:49 PM

I work at a collection of floating historic ships and boats, where we have an 1895-built lumber schooner which had a donkey engine aboard, in an amidship's cabin with sliding companionways, to shield it from the elements in foul weather. It didn't power the boat, but was used to help raise the main sail, the anchor, and for loading and discharging cargo. It was common for the crew of four sailors to work the cargo, since these schooners often went to ports where no longshoremen were available. The crew was paid more for that work ashore than they were at sea.

Chanteyranger

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: cetmst
Date: 20 Feb 03 - 05:44 AM

Gordon Bok and friends do a vocalization of the sound of a donkey engine on volume 1 of his February Tapes issued by Timberhead, Camden Maine.

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: Schantieman
Date: 20 Feb 03 - 05:49 AM

The engine in a sailing yacht is often referred to as a donkey. One might 'flash up the donk' shortly before entering harbour.

Steve

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: Amos
Date: 20 Feb 03 - 08:55 AM

That link of Kat's up above is to the beautiful three-master, Victory Chimes. Although homeported in Rockport, she used to spend a lot of time cruising Boothbay Harbor, where I spent my summers as a tyke, learning to sail and to fondle. I have planned many a tack around her course in my little Turnabout, just to ger up close and ogle. Wodda life -- sailing, ogling, fondling, and laying about. (Those are obscure nautical terms). I miss it! :>)


A

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 20 Feb 03 - 12:14 PM

Mention above of staem driven Donkey Engines ties this thread neatly to part of the discussion in the What's a PufferBilly thread where a distinction is made between 'steam engines' and 'steam locomotives'.

Nigel

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: David Ingerson
Date: 20 Feb 03 - 01:20 PM

Les mentioned the problem of how long it might take to get up a head of steam in a cold engine. Of course they were aware of that problem and were able to design steam engines that could get pressure up within several minutes. Horse-drawn, steamer fire engines would have a full head of steam by the time they got to the fire, the tinder having been lit before they left the station. And the Stanley brothers boasted their steamer could heat up so fast that once you started the fire, if you let the throttle open just a little and walked down the block to the corner mailbox, your car would have caught up with you! I don't know that I'd want to take them up on that boast, but my guess is that by the turn of the last century, you'd need only about 2 or maybe 3 minutes to start operating a well-designed engine. Of course, it would also depend on the ambient temperature.

David

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: GUEST,Allan S.
Date: 20 Feb 03 - 07:20 PM

Along these lines. Back in the late 1960's A ran across an article about the revival of sailing ships being designed to use "modern" techniques. One was a hollow steel vertical mast with a stainless steel sail that could be unrolled like a window shade. Other ideas were the yards afixed through a steel mast that could be rotated by a motor at the bottom of the mast within the hull or the ship the idea was that 3 or 4 men could control the ship using elect. engines to do all the work. There was suposed to be a German firm working on these ships. It sounded abit like the articles from Popular Science but was in a 16 mm. film Has anyone heard of this???

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: Gareth
Date: 20 Feb 03 - 07:42 PM

The Stanley (?) Steamer motorcar ran with a flash boiler, yes it could evapourate water very quickley - but then it's load fell between narrow weight limits, and likewise the ammount of steam required to shift that load.

With a railway locomotive, particullaly one designed for heavey freight, worked on a slightly different priciple. Whilst the thermal effeciency was constant, by running the water level down the driver (engineer) could produce more steam than the efficiency of the fire box was designed to produce. Which was good news going up a bank (grade), as the 'mortaged' output could be recovered on a down slope, or in a sideing.

I suspect that the same principle was used in marine donkey engines, a boiler with a constant steaming rate it could be used to work winches, and when the load was reduced, rebuild the steam poressure, water level.

Just a thought.

Gareth

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 21 Feb 03 - 01:24 AM

I always thought it was called a donkey because it was less powerful than a horse (< 1 h.p.?)

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 21 Feb 03 - 02:40 AM

When Gordon Bok taught at the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop in 1988, I was in his class, called "Things to do with more than one voice." We did a number of songs from the February Tapes, including the "Donkey Engine", mentioned by cetmst above. Gordon told us about all the quirks of the one-cylinder engine that this nonsense choral piece was meant to emulate. The piece includes the gradual entry of voices, each adding a repeated phrase that represented a particular noise the engine made as it warmed up, leading to a lurching, hiccupping, remarkably engine-like sound. I remember that the first voice repeats a German phrase that means "I can't do it." I also recall that on the first page of the score were the words: "Copyright refused, G. Bok." If anyone is really interested, you could email Gordon through his website, and he might send you a copy of the score, and an explanation of the engine sounds. Then again, he might not.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: Boab
Date: 21 Feb 03 - 03:16 AM

In my own engineering experience, the name was applied to a steam-driven ram pump which could force water through a "check-valve" [i.e. "non-return"]into a boiler at a higher pressure than the internal boiler pressure. Could have been a local term though. It's a name probably applied to a range of devices.

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: David Ingerson
Date: 21 Feb 03 - 07:10 PM

Thanks for the clarifications, Gareth. It's amazing to me how much detail of older technologies is lost on most of us--and how much there was to begin with.

David

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: Teribus
Date: 22 Feb 03 - 05:40 AM

The "Jammers", the big sailing ships that replaced the "Clippers", prior to departure would have rigging crews come onboard to put spare sails on the yards. If a sail blew out the spare would then be released from its lashings and the torn sail handed down to deck.

I have a lovely book about those ships and in it there is a picture of a rigging crew at work in Roanoke, where many fine Jammers were built. In this picture the rigging crew are being assisted by something that looks like a portable winch powered by a small windmill (eight spokes, each fitted with small triangular sails).

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: darkriver
Date: 23 Feb 03 - 03:01 AM

This is a wonderful thread.

Amos, I really, really liked that "where I spent my summers as a tyke, learning to sail and to fondle." A fine phrase indeed. Would that I had, in my life, a period of "sailing, ogling, fondling, and laying about." (Must admit to the o., f., & l.a., but all together with sailing? Sadly, no.)

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: Louie Roy
Date: 24 Feb 03 - 12:33 AM

I don't know the exact date donkeys came into Idaho but they were used by the large logging companies around 1900.They were on flat cars and the companies would build a short spur line up a canyon and pick a few large spur trees and log at least another mile on both sides. As the old gypos used to say when the relogged a strip that had been donkeyed for 40 years they logged with steers then they brought in donkeys.For 40 more they logged with yore but now its cats and jammers.I'm sure that donkeys were used on the East coast long before they ever made it to the WEST.I relogged some of these areas in the late 1940s and early 1950 with a team of logging horses that weighed over 2500 pounds and we used jay hooks jill pokes trail dogs and many other devices on slopes that wee 60 to 70 degrees and a lot of times with our fingers crossed and hoping the good lord was on our side.Louie Roy

Subject: RE: Donkey Engines on Ships
From: GUEST,(Dustin)
Date: 24 Feb 03 - 01:10 AM

A few comments: the donkey engine is indeed the little guy on deck
with a gypsyhead and a wildcat that substitutes for a dozen or two
guys on a line (or windlass, or capstan, or....). I don't know
why he's a "donkey," but then I've never heard why the drum for
line is a gypsyhead or the sprocket for chain is a wildcat. I do
believe I've heard modern square-rig crews refer to the pump as the
donkey engine, which seems like a different usage to me, but it
seems like a good guess that originally (i.e. when the donkey was
the only source of non-Norwegian steam power aboard) the utility
engine could be set up to run a pump as well as haul on lines. This
would be too obvious to miss, I'd think.

I don't recall ever seeing a definitive statement on the matter,
but it's quite clear to me that the donkey would not be required
for any particular job, for all the reasons you can guess. Its
a matter of safety to be able to strike and set sail under any
conditions, and not at all seamanlike to depend on one device for
something that critical.

The point I wanted to make, because it doesn't seem to have been
made yet, is that you don't need to imagine that the donkey is in
any sense mandatory for some jobs just for it to be a worthwhile
thing to have around (and all the talk about quick-starting engines
has nothing at all to do with whether one would sail with one,
because no level of engineering would make it acceptable to not
be able work the ship without it). The 19th century was a time of
ever-shrinking crews as margins were squeezed tighter and tighter.
A full-rigged ship would often be setting a couple of dozen sails
as she got underway, whereas at sea one would usually be striking
or setting a few at a time. Not only that, the urgent maneuver
is almost always going to be striking which isn't helped by an
engine. So the donkey would be quite a significant amount of help
on an undermanned ship the few times you needed to make all sail
starting from bare poles, possibly when bracing around if she's
really undermanned, and the like, without needing to imagine that
it had suddenly became necessary. This doesn't count those vessels
in trades where the sailors would have to work the cargo, in which
case the donkey would be at its best.

I recall a story told by a man who had shipped on a vessel running
coal around the Horn. The cargo caught fire, and they had to start
shifting many tons of coal up on deck to get to the burning portion.
The old man had his wife and I believe children aboard, and they
had to get all that loose weight off the deck while the weather
stayed nice, and yet the old man refused to let them burn any coal
to speed the work up with the donkey engine. The sailor later
calculated that it would have taken less than a dollar's worth of
coal. His point was that margins were such that this was the kind
of man that the owners hired in the last days of sail--a ship full
of coal and everyone's lives on the line, and still he's saving
pennies on sheer principle.

Dustin