ships steering wheel

[Keith Tindell]

I look at todays ships steering wheels and they obviously do the job fine, but dont have the appeal of the old times. What are pubs going to put behind their bars in future years? or people make gates out of ? etc. I came ashore in 1964-5 and encountered only one non proper steering wheel!!!, cannot remember what ship it was, but consisted of a port/starboard push button, and a rudder indicator, but you had no feel for the ship. On the old system of wheel changeover you were able to advise your relief that she was taking a couple of spokes to port or starboard to hold her course, but i suppose today little time is spent with a man on the wheel, regards KT

[Captain Kong]

I have a wooden steering wheel mounted on the bulkhead, my next one will be a little joy stick. People instantly recognise the wooden wheel but they will say , What the hell is that thing pointing at the joy stick six inches long.
Daft
Brian

[Keith Tindell]

Stood at the wheel today, where the hell do you carve your name??? KT

[Captain Kong]

Yes there are a lot of wheels with my name carved on, My best one I carved was, "I love Elsie" on the TILAPA`S wheel,
It helped to pass away the time on a boring two hour wheel.
Brian.

[Tony Wilding]

Thats a good point you made, a joystick is just dead, at least with a wheel you can get the feel of her,

[john sutton]

I think it was on the liberty ships that the wheel was detachable and some of the wags would hand it to you saying"your wheel"
also some of the ships with upper steering position you could uncouple the wheel and again some wags would disconnect after giving a little tweek to go off course.this was obviously done in the dark watches
john sutton

[Roger Dyer]

I look at todays ships steering wheels and they obviously do the job fine, but dont have the appeal of the old times. What are pubs going to put behind their bars in future years? or people make gates out of ? etc. I came ashore in 1964-5 and encountered only one non proper steering wheel!!!, cannot remember what ship it was, but consisted of a port/starboard push button, and a rudder indicator, but you had no feel for the ship. On the old system of wheel changeover you were able to advise your relief that she was taking a couple of spokes to port or starboard to hold her course, but i suppose today little time is spent with a man on the wheel, regards KT

Hi Keith (Bill),

Having read your post I took the liberty of checking the ships on which you served and am inclined to think that both the 'Baltic Trader' and the 'Baltic
Exporter' (both U.B.C.) would have had the push button system or a similar system requiring a regular watch on the helm (or rudder) indicator as well as the compass or course indicator. The 'Verdaguer' (one of mine - I missed you by two months) as one of MacAndrew's ships, was probably from the same
German shipyards as the U.B.C. boats, where, in those days, there seemed to be a tendency to use all manner of helm controls other than the conventional wheel. As much as I've tried I cannot remember what system was adopted on the 'Verdaguer'. Having sailed in a number of 'Baltic Boats' and 'Mac Boats' I came across various types of helm controls. Apart from the push-button system, there was another that consisted of a small half-wheel about the size of a small car steering wheel( but shaped like that of an aircraft pilot's), which was operated by steering right (S) or left (P) 1-5 notches depending on the degree of rudder required. One other was simply a small vertical pole (about 2 feet high) that was pushed to P or S , again with 1-5 notches as mentioned above. All required a watchful eye on the rudder indicator. I didn't mind them once I got used to them, but they didn't have the 'feel' one got from a conventional wheel. I raise the matter, Keith, not in any way doubting your word, but it would have been interesting to find out what system these three ships were fitted with and besides that old mate, it was all fifty years ago and memory dims One of our members, Alec (Trader), was also on the 'Baltic Trader' at one time, so hopefully he may read this and be able to help us.

.....regards Roger.

[John Arton]

I guess that once the Auto-Pilot came into common use, steering as such became a bit of a lost art. Sure we could all steer but the hand steering system on an auto pilot just consists of an electronic signal telling the hydraulic steering gear to operate the rams or vanes in a certain direction for a certain length of time, unlike the old telemotor system where the ships wheel was connected directly to the steering gear.
Using the hand steering of an auto pilot usually meant that the trainee helmsman watched the compass heading in front of him rather than the foremast (or similar mark) against the hodizon. This is especially apparent when steering under pilotage and the helmsman trys to steer by watching the compass instead of lining up his ships mark with a prominent building or landmark ashore.
The number of times I have had to show young helsmen this is beyond count and when you explain to them that by watching the ships head rather than the compass you get a far quicker appreciation of which way and how fast she is paying off as opposed to watching the compass which will lag behind the actual ship, most of them cannot believe it and will still be seen glancing down at the compass even if they are steering on a landmark. This is why most pilots these days will give helmsmen courses to steer rather than using to port/stbd easy, steady and steady as she goes, commands that were in common use when I started ar sea.
rgds
JA
p.s the button system as described in earlier posts was also fitted on the Beaverfir along with a tiller system. Both were a bitch to work with.

[Louis the Amigo]

Hi Shipmates, The ones with chain steering and big wheel made of wood , with a proper compass that moved were the worst feeders, so they tell me ?and they had a strange glow in the dark on the bridge/wheel house and too much brass to clean, Never put a mark on any wheel / or any where else ? you get logged.

[Captain Kong]

Hi Roger, On the VALDIVIA of Macs, German BUILT, the Steering wheel was a half wheel about 8 inches ? diameter, and a half turm was hard over, never seen that before.Took a bit of getting used to.
Cheers
Brian