'The keels were built of wood and were approximately forty feet long and twenty feet wide. They had a single mast and two large oars, but no rudder. A large sweep was used for steering. The keels were loaded from a riverside chute, with the coal being piled high and boards placed in it to stop the pile from sliding down. Using the ebb tide, and if the wind was up their sails, the keels would head downstream to the waiting colliers. The keelmen, usually a skipper, a two man crew and a boy, would then shovel the coal, in excess of twenty tons of it, into the collier. This would have been extremely hard work, not helped by the fact that they were shovelling upwards onto the larger collier'
