The task of unloading a vessel berth side for centuries has always been one of back breaking effort, one that was costly, time consuming at best, not to mention dangerous also. It did not matter what the cargo was, be it barrels of rum, crates & boxes filled with breakables or loose crushed stone or iron ore, the holds of the ship had to be unloaded and in good time as even then time was money & commerce was commerce. The introduction of the "self unloader" to shipping was a decided boon to the profession as well as a cost saving & labor saving device. The standard configuration of a ships hold was that of a boxy nature designed to hold cargo. With self unlaoders which can range from 500 footers to ones 1000 ft, the holds are hopper shaped. The hopper shaped holds are suited to carry any dry-bulk, free-flowing cargo such as, sand, iron ore, wheat, crushed stone, potash, grain, limestone, to mention a few. The slanted shaped holds have a series of grates in them that run along & near the bottom of the ships hold. Under the grates there is a continuous conveyer belt that runs the length of the ships hold. Up near the forward section of the ship there is a what is called a loop inclined conveyer belt where the cargo is transferred and from there it is transferred to the boom conveyer belt. The boom conveyer belt can be swung out over the side and the cargo dispersed quickly. There is no dock crew needed as with self unloaders a ship can arrive in the middle of the night and spend the few hours it take to deposit the cargo on the dock and and leave for her next port of call to pick up her next cargo. The self unloader can carry a cargo from 5,700 to 70,000 tons per trip and can offload up to 10,000 tons and hour. The vessel in the photo was the " Consumers Power," an older vessel outfitted with the unloading system. I had taken a bus to Welland and boarded the ship there for the 4 hour transit from the canal to Toronto arriving at the unloading dock at about 9:00 am. The trip there was uneventful and at 6:30 am the cook served breakfast. These guys who crew these freighter eat like kings and the donuts cookie made put Timmies to shame. At 8:15 or so the ship entered the ship channel and by about 8:50 she was tied off and the boom was swung out and the whole 23,000 tons of raw salt was unloaded and cast off and onto her next port of call. I left the ship and walked to my car which I had parked at 2:30 in the morn to get the bus to Welland to ride the ship back. As I said the cargo was salt and as you can see where I had parked they unloaded the salt. Needless to say my car was covered in salt dust, but a quick run through the car wash fixed that well enough...............thanks for the peek