An editor has recently seconded a contemporary press report that the ‘W.H.Gilcher’ possessed what was (in the 1880s) modern machinery for cargo loading/unloading. It would be interesting to learn more about this machinery. I suspect that it was a deck-mounted donkey engine that could be used, with a block and tackle positioned by deckhands, to lift or lower pallets of freight to and from the hold, but it would be great to learn more. Bigturtle (talk) 13:42, 21 August 2020 (UTC)Reply
- I examined the pictures and pictures of similar vessels fromt hat era and it looks like these vessels did not have any real unloading machinery, they clearly have no booms or winches. i assume the cargo was unloaded either by port equipment or manually by stevedores.Crook1 (talk) 23:25, 21 August 2020 (UTC)Reply
