Wheelhouses/bridges

[Ivan Cloherty]

just an addendum to #4, forgot to mention my first ship had rod and chain steering, with a ships wheel about 6 foot diameter and boy did you need that leverage in bad weather, steered by periscope compass, the compass being on the monkey island.

Only chair on the bridge on any ship I sailed on was the Pilot's chair and that was usually lashed in a corner of the wheelhouse when at sea unless the old man wanted to use it, if you were even leaning on it you got a rollicking. There used to be settee in the chartroom, but that was only used by the old man at sea for a quick nap in fog, and used in port for putting charts on when sorting them for the next voyage (on trampers) on the liner trade they only had one set of charts and used them in reverse order on the homeward trip (tongue in cheek!!)

[vic mcclymont]

On the Clan Ranald the boiler was in the funnel, you Coul only spend a few minutes at time in there due to the heat.
I had working in there sweat pouring me, cheeks on fire, overalls soaked sweat.
Job done, thought stand on bridge wing get a nice cool breeze, looked in the wheelhouse, old man was glaring at me as though I had committed a crime., I ignored, stood there enjoying cool breeze.
Tap on the shoulder, mate says Vic, old man wants you off his bridge, he question what your doing here. Me cooling off after working in boiler room.
Mate was most apologetic, that he had to ask me to leave the bridge.
That was the only time I attempted to go on the bridge, I ignored the old barsteward for the rest of the voyage.
Other engineers thought it was hilarious and sarky comments within earshot of him.
Vic

[j.sabourn]

#9... Tony like a coiled spring waiting to spring into action. My final years at sea I never slept for more than 4 hours at a stretch and even then my ears were attuned to every little untoward noise on the ship , my sleep patterns today ashore are very similar. The noise I most dreaded or lack of it was the engine especially in bad weather and ones only solace was knowing your engineers on a personal basis. The other one was the alarm going off at your bedside telling you the bridge watchkeeper was probably asleep. Fings aint wot they used ter be. will say once again although I appreciated my life at sea , and found work satisfaction , am pleased that today am retired , and wish those still in the industry well. Attitudes may change hopefully, but I doubt it. Seismic ships , and there is good reason for it , that when shooting or running lines and recording one sits in a highly padded leather chair , surrounded by instruments and are totally immersed in conning the vessel as more than 1 degree off course and have to rerun costing many thousands of dollars , that is only a very brief description. One has to have a seaman on the bridge on such vessels even if just to fire the red flare from a verey pistol on vessels getting too close. I would certainly draw the line on such vessels being manned to the same unsafe level as most today. Cheers JS.

[happy daze john in oz]

On the cruise ships there are chairs for the 'helmsman' who has only a joy stick to hold.

Do not recall seeing any chairs on any ships bridges I ever sailed on.

[j.sabourn]

#14 The chair on a seismic ship is not just for turning a valve to put the rudder to port and starboard. You are surrounded by digital screens including Radar for watching for shipping just in case you are looking for extra work. You are watching a digital screen of the ships track keeping on a track put there by the seismic navigator sitting in some other part of the ship watching a similar screen. You are continuosly adjusting the settings of various thrusters to allow for set and drift , you also have to keep the ship at a constant speed of usually 4 knots , today this is all done by computers but at times you have to override them for various reasons. If you have a line run of say 40 miles then that is 10 hours sitting in the Chair. I would like to compare it with the electric chair , but such is too quick and easy its zzzzzz and its all over. After all the high tech. stuff you will probably have a whale watcher on the Bridge who if he sees a plume of air coming off the sea demands that you stop the explosions that are occurring every 2 minutes or so, so the whole period of stoppage has to be done again at a later date , when Moby Dick decides to move away. There are ships and ships , all ships are the same and are at the same time all are different. It would take a lot more than 50 years to even have a partial working knowledge of all of the different types today. Today a young fellow who has the urge and the temprement to take up a sea career will have a choice of type and he will specialize in that type of work, not like people of our era who were jack of all trades master of none. A bit more like the RN where they are all specialists in their own chosen branch. However in the mercantile world this will cause a problem , as the shipowner seems to have an allergy when it comes to manpower. Cheers JS

[Ivan Cloherty]

#15 Certainly a changing world and different one most of us oldies were used to, where-in we could board a ship and assess it's capabilities and its past within 5/10 minutes of boarding, it would have differences from your previous vessel, but not major ones. Looking at some of the vessels afloat today and their varying configurations one wonders how they say afloat or even upright, if they had to rely on pen and paper stability calculations in our era they would probably never have set sail. Computers certainly changed the world.

[j.sabourn]

Yes Ivan we had to be adaptable, In the offshore Industry it was an eye opener. Especially here in Australia where I had to go on shifting an oil rig one moment and then master on a drill ship the next. You had to act the part for if you said you couldnt do it you were out of work. If you had the licence for the job then you did it regardless of past experience. The likes of going on 6 old steering gear fishing trawlers in hand steering all the time , and then going to a thruster driven ship with no rudders was a fast learning curve. One thing about the North Sea though during my time the shipping side manpower wise was kept seperate. Here in Australia was slightly different as the law stipulated on any rig shift there had to be a master and marine crew and whoever was available got the job. Youd be surprised at how different it is positioning a semi-submersible as against a jackup . There are tricks of the trade in every industry and regardless of so called safety rules , corners can be cut with safety intact. Would I do it again ? of course I would , if I knew what I know now I would have gone on a different career course as regards specialized shipping. But I"d have to be much younger Cheers JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

I was on a ship with rod and chain steering, put muscles on your whatsit, As said big wheel, and a compass that swung like crazy in a little mirror from the monkey island. The ship I went over the side on had a chair in the wheelhouse, I remember clearly the Captain sat in it for nearly five days of horrendous weather, sometimes dozing, I bet his **** was sore when the storm was over, he'd have slept for a week.
Des