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Thread: Emergency steering

  1. #11
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    Post Re: Emergency steering

    Quote Originally Posted by John Arton View Post
    .......After a Greek super tanker ran aground on the French coast in the 60/70's all tankers and possibly all merchant vessels, were required to have two steering gear equipment one of which must be driven by power from the emergency generator.

    Another thing that came out of that tanker disaster was the requirement to be able to lock the rudder in an amidships position to prevent it flapping around if the vessel was under tow.

    Rgds
    J.A.
    Thanks for the memory jog JA. She was the OLYMPIC BRAVERY. Jan 24th,1976.She had just left the St.Nazaire shipyard after being handed over the previous day and was proceeding on trials prior to going to lay up in Farsund,Norway. Some good pictures HERE.



    [
    A few more facts: Prior to drifting aground she had machinery trouble,suffering no less than seven power blackouts. As she was in ballast due to proceeding to lay-up she 'only' spilled 1,200 tonnes of her bunkered fuel oil. As a constructive total loss she was worth £19.6m]

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  3. #12
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    Default Re: Emergency steering

    #10 It was a sad day when the electronic logs came in , as logline made good clothes lines , some ships streamed the old logs from a boom on the bridge wing and the watchkeeper could read the log himself , gave him something to do in the middle of the pacific. Your log reading as you know only gave you the distance steamed through the water and not over the ground , so was used as a last resort for a DR. Position . But also gave you an idea if the chief was flogging his engine miles , when he gave the 2 mate his estimated propellor slip. Not that it made much difference what he put down , that was for the scientists in the office to worry about . Cheers JS
    Last edited by j.sabourn; 30th September 2021 at 02:00 PM.
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    Default Re: Emergency steering

    Log lines can get you into trouble.
    On the Windsor some bright spark, a passenger, managed to get hold of a line from somewhere who knows and let run from the stern.
    There was all hell let loose when it was discovered and what would have happened had it ben caught around the screw?
    Happy daze John in Oz.

    Life is too short to blend in.

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  6. #14
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    Default Re: Emergency steering

    One didn’t just put out any length of line , the length had to be appropriate to the estimated speed of the ship. These were all assumed figures so to be an accurate measuring machine was always in doubt. But was better than nothing , navigation was never a 100 % science , was too open to man made mistakes , not so today as machines can now take the blame. But man can still be blamed for taking to much faith in his machine, or the machine can throw its hand in and leave poor old man with egg on his face .JS
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    Default Re: Emergency steering

    Hi Terry.
    When I was on the Trevose it was the same, the log was streamed down aft, the relief wheelman usually brought the reading up, and we tried out the emergency steering on a fairly regular basis. It was on her that we twice broke out the Jumbo, to discharge trains, I was over the moon when we did that.
    Des
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    Default Re: Emergency steering

    It was the normal practice to set the clock to zero every noon . The log reading was taking at the end of every watch so the run in distance as per log could if necessary be put on the chart , and was put on as a triangle and not a circle to denote a DR position. In theory on acquiring your noon position by sights or a running fix. The difference between the two would or could be called your slip + or - . And you were able also to use your own experience and guesswork to estimate your set and drift for weather and currents and maybe bad steering which was rarely mentioned . As said navigation was not a perfect accurate science as regards shipboard navigation. JS
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    Default Re: Emergency steering

    On UCL every day there was the 'Log Lottery', a gamble on the number of nautical miles the ship had done.

    For most just a bit of a game, but one lucky blood got very friendly, maybe too friendly with a helmsman.
    She won about two days out of three, he never disclosed how lucky he got though.
    Happy daze John in Oz.

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    John Strange R737787
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  11. #18
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    Default Re: Emergency steering

    If it was Bingo then , he was getting legs 11 every game then , with the occasional soixant Neuf 69 , maybe just to show there was no cheating Two little ducks and a quack quack 22 for good measure . Cheers JS

    A 10 degree snake John , which was going 5 degrees on each side of the course steered, and considered not too bad in any sort of weather. Would lose you 5 miles in every 100 steamed. So one could say on a days run of 250
    miles you were already 12.5 miles down to be losses in the paperwork as propellor slip or current etc. no wonder the chief engineer was always ahead of everyone else getting to the pub first , it was rarely he got the first round in though . Cheers JS
    Last edited by j.sabourn; 2nd October 2021 at 08:14 AM.
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