harbour for the four decades between 1909 and 1949. Her equipment was steam powered, with two 60-foot high grabs on her starboard side for loading from a "sixty-miler". She could carry 2,250 tons of coal, and was capable of coaling a ship at a rate of 200 tons/hour. The Fortuna, was launched, in 1875, as a fully rigged, iron-hulled ship, the Melbourne, with accommodation for sixty passengers. She was sold and rechristened Macquarie in 1888 and, in 1903, rerigged as a barque. In 1905, she was sold to Norwegian interests. In 1909, she was stripped of her tall masts and figurehead—in the likeness of Queen Victoria—and was converted to a mechanised coal hulk, the Fortuna. Fortuna was also the name of an earlier coal hulk. By early 1925, the Bellambi Coal Company had introduced its own mechanised coal hulk, fitting an old coal hulk Samson with two coal hoists. This vessel was still working into the early 1930s at least. The coal-handling equipment aboard Sampson was powered electrically and capable of coaling at 240 tons per hour. Sampson had grabs which were used to transfer coal from a 'sixty-miler.' The "sixty miler" Bellambi (formerly Five Islands) was modified so its holds could be readily accessed by the grabs of Sampson. After lying idle in Sydney Harbour from 1922, the barque Muscoota was sold in 1924 and converted—at the Mort's Dock, in 1925—to be a second mechanised coal hulk for Wallarah Coal Company. As a coal hulk, the Muscoota had only one electrically powered coal hoist. She carried 4,000 tons of coal. In 1943, she was refitted and was towed to Milne Bay, New Guinea, in early 1944, to recoal ships there. She was involved in an accident with a Dutch steamer during a storm, following which she was towed to nearby Discovery Bay, where she sank slowly. Balls Head Coal Loader The Balls Head Coal Loader, at Waverton on the Lower North Shore, opened in 1920. It was owned and operated by the Sydney Coal Bunkering Co., a subsidiary of the Union Steamship Co. It was mainly used for bunkering steamships using the port of Sydney but also supplied some coal to local hospitals and other customers needing heating coal. Coal was unloaded, from the holds of "sixty-milers" moored parallel to the shoreline by two gantry cranes fitted with grabs—later reduced to one crane, after the other suffered irreparable storm