Sixty-miler (60-miler) is the colloquial name for the ships that were used in the coastal coal trade of New South Wales, Australia. The sixty-milers delivered coal to Sydney from ports and ocean jetties to the north and south. The name refers to the approximate distance by sea from Newcastle to Sydney; the distance, from the Hunter River mouth at Nobbys Head to the North Head of Sydney Harbour, is 64 nautical miles.
Coastal coal-carrying trade of New South Wales
The coastal coal-carrying trade of New South Wales, involved the shipping of coal to Sydney for local consumption or for bunkering steamships. The coal was carried from ports of the northern and southern coal fields of New South Wales to Sydney. It took place in the 19th and 20th centuries. It does not refer to export coal trade that used larger vessels and continues today.
Coal from the northern coalfields was loaded at Hexham on the Hunter River, Carrington (The Dyke and The Basin) and Stockton both near Newcastle, at jetties on Lake Macquarie, and at the ocean jetty at Catherine Hill Bay. In the early years of the trade, coal was loaded at Newcastle itself on the southern bank of the Hunter River, at the river port of Morpeth, and at a wharf at Reid's Mistake at Swansea Heads.
Coal from the southern coal fields, at various times, was loaded at Wollongong Harbour and Port Kembla and at the ocean jetty ports: Bellambi; Coalcliff; Hicks Point at Austinmer; and Sandon Point, Bulli. Port Kembla was originally an ocean jetty port but two breakwaters were added later to provide shelter.
At Sydney, coal wharves were located at the gasworks (Millers Point, Mortlake, Neutral Bay, Waverton and Spring Cove at Manly). Coal was unloaded at the Ball's Head Coal Loader—for steamship coal bunkering and in later years for exportInterpretive signage at Ball's Head Coal Loader—and at the coal depot at Blackwattle Bay. Before the Ball's Head Coal Loader opened in 1920, coal was manually loaded by 'coal lumpers' to steamship bunkers, from sixty-milers standing alongside. Some industrial customers, such as CSR at Pyrmont, had their own facilities to unload coal
Coal was also unloaded on Botany Bay, from time to time, at the Government Pier (or 'Long Pier') at Botany and also for various customers at wharves located on the banks of the Alexandra Canal (also known as Shea's Creek).
Sixty-milers sometimes also carried crushed basalt construction aggregate—or blue metal—from the port at Kiama and the ocean jetty at Bass Point (Shellharbour) on the South Coast of New South Wales. The blue metal was unloaded at Blackwattle Bay in Sydney Harbour. There was also a similar type of small bulk cargo ships, usually dedicated to carrying construction aggregate, known as the Stone Fleet. Some 'Stone Fleet' ships carried coal from time to time.
The sixty-milers Although the earliest sixty-milers were sailing vessels, the term was most typically applied to the small coal-fired steamers with reciprocating engines that were used during the late 19th and 20th Centuries. In the last years of the coastal coal trade, some sixty-milers were diesel-powered motor vessels.
Design The steam-powered sixty-milers were relatively small vessels typically between 200 and 1500 gross tons—most were under 1000 gross tons—but some were even lighter. The smallest of the sixty-milers—ships like the Novelty and Commonwealth—were suitable to use the shallow Swansea Channel at the entrance to Lake Macquarie. In the earlier years, some sixty-milers were wooden ships, most were iron or steel vessels. Ships larger than the sixty-milers were used for interstate and export coal carrying service. Some earlier vessels were paddle-steamers but most were screw steamers. The iron and steel vessels followed the British collier design of their day—unsurprisingly given the existence of a quite similar coastal coal carrying trade in Britain—and most were British-built.
The typical sixty-miler in the first half of the 20th-Century had a high bow but lower well deck where the hatches for the two holds were located. When laden, the ships had a low freeboard and relied upon the combings, hatch covers and tarpaulins over the hatches when the sea broke over the well deck. There was some variation in the design of the bridge and superstructure arrangements; the bridge could be either amidships or at the rear; the engine and fuel-coal bunkers could be amidships or toward the rear. Depending on the arrangement of the superstructure, the ships had either two of three masts. Some sixty-milers—such as the Marjorie, Bellambi and Malachite—had multiple gaffs on each of their masts, which were used when in port to suspend the planks used in manual coal bunkering operations.
William McArthur, built for RW Miller, and delivered, in 1924, was the first sixty-miler with aft engines and equipped with grabs to allow self-discharging.
For most sixty-milers, ballast was provided by several water tanks located low inside the hull and running for most of the length of the vessel. Ships like the Undola that worked shallow ocean jetty ports, were designed with a shallow draft and self-trimming hatches, to minimise the chance of touching bottom during loading and to allow quick departures to be made. Some sixty-milers in the 19th century and early 20th century were a type known as 'auxiliary steamers' that could raise triangular or trapezoidal sails on their masts. The Myola, could unfurl sails on her two tall masts and gain a knot or so of additional speed when the wind suited.
It was unusual for a sixty-miler to be converted from another type of vessel, but it did happen. The iron auxiliary steamer, Governor Blackall, was built at Mort's Dock in 1871, for the Queensland Government and originally carried mail and passengers; she later became a sixty-miler associated with the mine at Bulli, and ended her life as a coal hulk.
The ship owners and operators A vessel might be owned by one entity but chartered to another. The Hexham Bank may have been described as an RW Miller ship when in fact it was on charter from its actual owners McIlwraith, McEacharn & Company of Melbourne, which itself owned and operated other similarly named sixty-milers (Mortlake Bank, Pelton Bank and Hetton Bank). RW Miller not only chartered ships like the Hexham Bank but also owned its own ships such as the Birchgrove Park. The southern coalfield collieries (Coalcliff Collieries, etc.) owned their own ships but most of these were chartered to the Southern Coal Owner's Agency, which operated the ships. Some coal merchants, such as Jones Brothers Coal, owned their own ships.
Ships were bought and sold, and changed ownership, while still carrying coal cargoes for their new owners. Sometimes, a change in ownership also resulted in a ship's name changing, such as when Corrimal was renamed Ayrfield or when South Bulli became Abersea. There were many owners up to the middle of 20th-Century, sometimes just owning or operating on charter just one vessel. There are also numerous instances of new vessels taking the name of their predecessor (e.g. Bellambi, Wallarah, etc.).
Some operators ran not only the ships but also mines or port operations, even for some at both ends of the sixty-miler's run. A notable example was the Wallarah Coal Co, which operated Wallarah Colliery, Catherine Hill Bay jetty, and, between 1934 and 1963, the Balls Head Coal Loader. Wallarah Coal also owned two of the three mechanised coal hulks that worked on Sydney Harbour, Fortuna and Muscoota; the other one, Sampson, was owned by Bellambi Coal. Another such operator was RW. Miller, a company that began life operating lighters on Sydney Harbour. It bought its first sixty-miler, Audrey D., in 1919, going on to become a major operator of sixty-milers. In 1920, it purchased the Ayrfield Colliery, followed by other mines in the Hunter Region. The company had a coal wharf and depot at Blackwattle Bay, and, from 1959, RW Miller also had a coal loader at Hexham.
The little ships' operator, in most cases, could be identified by a letter or letters, inside a light-coloured band or diamond-shaped background, on the sixty-miler's funnel; for example, 'B' was Bellambi Coal Co., 'C & A' was Coal & Allied, 'J' was J & A Brown (later JABAS), 'JB' was Jones Brothers Coal, 'M' was Miller (RW Miller), and 'W' was for Wallarah Coal Co.
Operation and crewing
Due to the short distances between Sydney and the coal ports, and for commercial reasons, the sixty-milers made frequent trips of short duration, carrying coal to Sydney and in ballast for the return trip.
The coal cargo was stored in the holds in bulk and needed to be "trimmed" to ensure that its distribution did not result in a list to one side or the other. Typically, trimming was done by the ship's crew, although depending on the sophistication of the loading arrangements coal was loaded in such a way as to minimise the need for trimming.
The ships could be loaded relatively quickly and be at sea in time to complete the trip to Sydney from Newcastle in six or so hours; it would take longer in bad weather. Operation of the sixty-milers was typically six-days per week and around the clock.
A crew of 10 to 16 was typical, depending upon the size of the ship. A crew of a sixty-miler (1919) would include a master, two mates, two engineers, a donkeyman, two firemen, four to six seamen, a cook and a steward.
Incidents, losses and inquiries Over the years of the coastal coal-carrying trade, many sixty-milers were wrecked, involved in collisions with other ships or reefs, or foundered. A common factor in most of the losses of sixty milers was bad weather. In some losses, a factor seemed to be a haste to put to sea and get the cargo to Sydney. Another factor was the use of ocean jetties at some coal loading ports.
Hazards of ocean jetties
The waters in which the ocean jetties were located were in nautical parlance called "open roadsteads", meaning "an area near the shore where vessels anchor with relatively little protection from the sea." Ocean jetties typically were located so as to have some natural protection from the south, against the common "southerly buster". While somewhat protected from the south, all the ocean jetties were exposed to the "black nor'easter", a violent storm that can arise quickly. The jetties had little protection from the winter storms known as 'East Coast lows'. The rocky reefs that provided protection from one direction would themselves become a hazard, when the weather was from the opposite direction.
The loading operation at an ocean jetty itself could be hazardous. In the days before movable loaders, the ship needed to be repositioned under the fixed loading chutes, either to change hatches or to reduce the amount of trimming needed. All this, while in shallow water and close to a rocky shore or beach, made working the jetty ports hazardous.
Ocean jetty ports were more hazardous for sailing vessels than for the more manoeuvrable steamships. Yet, in the earlier years of the coastal trade, coal was mainly shipped on sailing vessels. The perils of these operations were shown by the events of the night of 7 September 1867, when two barques—Matador and Bright Planet—were blown ashore and wrecked at Bulli.