Subject:
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Re: "Hard a starboard" (was John E. Doolittle)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.pirates
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Date:
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Sat, 29 Jan 2000 23:39:05 GMT
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Viewed:
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4160 times
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OK, now that I've recovered, but lost all the knowledge of which messages I
had read... (I've been thinking of writing my own customized newsreader, OEs
little crashes are making me seriously consider it...)
Bruce Schlickbernd wrote in message ...
> In lugnet.pirates, Richard Parsons writes:
> > Bruce Schlickbernd wrote in message ...
> > > Hard a'starboard. A command that will actually turn the boat to the left
> > > (port, larboard). The command is which way to turn the wheel, not the • boat. I
> > > think (and here I was watching the America's Cup last night and didn't • notice
> > > how it works on modern ships - yes, it's a sloop, not a ship, dang).
> >
> >
> > Really? So I turn the wheel left to steer right. I didn't know that. I
> > though only airplanes were that cock-eyed.
>
> I grew up with small sailboats that only had a tiller, where you push the
> tiller one way to go the other. But I've specifcally read somewhere that • "hard
> a'starboard" is the command for the wheel and the ship very specifcally • goes
> the other way. I'll be watching the next America's Cup race closely, as I
> said.
>
> >
> > And despite having taken the wheel of HMS Bounty (the one they built for • the
> > Mel Gibson version) on Sydney Harbour for half an hour one lovely • afternoon,
> > including for some hard braking, I never noticed this.
Ok, I found a nice little web page which describes how the confusion came
about, it even details why I thought I remembered something about the
command given to the Titanic helmsman was incorrect (though it doesn't
explicitly mention that, it does mention one of the references that I might
have heard this from). Anywise, what it comes down to is that when you have
a tiller, you need to turn the tiller opposite the direction you want the
boat to go. When you have a whipstaff or wheel, you turn the whipstaff or
wheel in the direction you want to go. However, the command given to turn
the rudder was historically always given in reference to a tiller, so you
turn a whipstaff or wheel opposite the command.
Here's the reference:
http://users.senet.com.au/~gittins/wheel.html
Incidentally, looking through several books on ships I have, every
illustration, which shows enough of the steering gear to figure out which
way you turn it to turn the rudder, shows that you turn a whipstaff or wheel
in the direction you want the ship to go.
Frank
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: "Hard a starboard" (was John E. Doolittle)
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| (...) Well done. Thanks for the excellent refernce. Yes, the America's Cup boats turn in the direction of the wheel. I learned to sail before I could drive, so the opposite direction tiller thing never bugged me. Bruce (25 years ago, 30-Jan-00, to lugnet.pirates)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: John E. Doolittle
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| (...) I grew up with small sailboats that only had a tiller, where you push the tiller one way to go the other. But I've specifcally read somewhere that "hard a'starboard" is the command for the wheel and the ship very specifcally goes the other (...) (25 years ago, 28-Jan-00, to lugnet.pirates)
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