"DSK" wrote

If you get a copy of Joshua Slocum's "Voyage Alone Around The World"
he
includes a diagram of his steering rig. Guess which way the wheel
turned...

Clockwise?

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 07:43:27 -0400, "Scott Vernon"
wrote this crap:

My wife watched Titanic the other night, I sat down for the 'crash'
scene. When they spotted the ice cube, they yelled 'hard to
starboard, but it looked to me like they turned the wheel to port.
Then the order 'hard to port' was given and , to me, they turned to
'the right'. Anybody else notice this? Should I quit drinking?


No. That's what happened.





Pathetic Earthlings! No one can save you now!

OzOne wrote:

On 22 Sep 2004 12:31:15 GMT, (Bobsprit) scribbled
thusly:


Doug was correct about the wheel.

I was wrong.

RB


Hey Bubbles, I think you can regard this as a milestone.


It's a milestone for Dig too.

Cheers

The sad part about this observation is that, if true, they might not
have lost the ship if the turn had continued. By turning back in course
the iceberg was able to breach the hull along many watertight sections.
If I remember correctly, she was designed to survive three sections
flooding but not more.

Cheers

DSK wrote:

Scott Vernon wrote:

My wife watched Titanic the other night, I sat down for the 'crash'
scene. When they spotted the ice cube, they yelled 'hard to
starboard, but it looked to me like they turned the wheel to port.
Then the order 'hard to port' was given and , to me, they turned to
'the right'. Anybody else notice this? Should I quit drinking?


Yes, it was quite a little controversy and some people will still argue
about it.

It used to be common for the watch officer or pilot to give helm orders
in terms of a tiller... ie, to turn starboard, they'd order the helmsman
"put the helm to port." and vice versa. That way, it was up to the
helmsman to know how his helm worked, not the officer. A pilot could
step aboard any ship using a tiller, wheel, whipstaff, shin-cracker, or
whatever, and bring her safely in.

Somewhere around World War 1, people noticed that no ships had tillers
any more. So they changed the standard terms. the Royal Navy held on to
"reverse helm orders" until the early 1930s, most everybody else changed
about 10 ~ 15 years sooner.

So, when 2nd Officer Murdoch received the report of an iceberg right
ahead (and the odds are good he saw it himself about the same time), he
ordered the boatswain's mate of the watch (who survived BTW, a man named
Hitchins) to put the helm "hard a-starboard" in order to put the ship to
port. Then as the ship started swinging, Murdoch ordered the helm put
the other way in order to swing the stern out away from the iceberg.

They almost made it.

Regards
Doug King

DSK wrote:



So, when 2nd Officer Murdoch received the report of an iceberg right
ahead (and the odds are good he saw it himself about the same time), he
ordered the boatswain's mate of the watch (who survived BTW, a man named
Hitchins) to put the helm "hard a-starboard" in order to put the ship to
port. Then as the ship started swinging, Murdoch ordered the helm put
the other way in order to swing the stern out away from the iceberg.

Doug, apparently he did not reverse the order. See:

http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org...an_collins.pdf

It would seem that reversing the engines to full power would have been a
mistake that would have reduced rudder effectiveness.

Cheers

Nav wrote:


DSK wrote:



So, when 2nd Officer Murdoch received the report of an iceberg right
ahead (and the odds are good he saw it himself about the same time),
he ordered the boatswain's mate of the watch (who survived BTW, a man
named Hitchins) to put the helm "hard a-starboard" in order to put the
ship to port. Then as the ship started swinging, Murdoch ordered the
helm put the other way in order to swing the stern out away from the
iceberg.


Doug, apparently he did not reverse the order. See:

http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org...an_collins.pdf

It would seem that reversing the engines to full power would have been a
mistake that would have reduced rudder effectiveness.

Cheers


Coupla points:

1. When he shifted the rudder, from (new world) hard port to hard stbd,
the ship would continue to swing to port for a time before starting to
swing to stbd. It's a matter of timing and conjecture as to whether his
was right or wrong.

2. Putting the engines astern on a ship that is running full speed, is
not the fastest of processes, so he probably still had good steering
power ... i.e., doubt they got the engines stopped and started astern
prior to collision.

Nav wrote:
Doug, apparently he did not reverse the order. See:

http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org...an_collins.pdf

Encyclopedia Titanica is a great web site. If you poke around, you'll
find a couple of contributions I've made to it.

As for whether Murdoch did or did not order the helm reversed: the above
cited article is taken solely from the Inquiries, which came to several
notably (possibly deliberately?) erroneous conclusions. Hichins would be
in a position to know, so there's no point in arguing with him...
although it should be noted that he made several mistakes in his testimony.

BTW the oft-quoted estimate of 37 seconds is based on Hichins testimony
that the Titanic had turned "about" 2 points before hitting the berg.
The U.S. Inquiry made underway tests with the RMS Olympic to determine
the time & distance this would have taken, and this is the origin of
that figure. Its accuracy is a very open question.



It would seem that reversing the engines to full power would have been
a mistake that would have reduced rudder effectiveness.

Funny they should say that, and it is corrected in another article on
that same web site. More below.


Cheers


otnmbrd wrote:
Coupla points:

1. When he shifted the rudder, from (new world) hard port to hard stbd,
the ship would continue to swing to port for a time before starting to
swing to stbd. It's a matter of timing and conjecture as to whether his
was right or wrong.

Yes, the ship was almost 900' long and 70,000 tons of mass. Not going to
stop on a dime; nor turn on one. It would also take the steering engine
some seconds to put the rudder from hard over one way to hard over the
other.

Certainly if the ship had maintained a turn to port throughout the
collision, the impact area along the hull would have been longer.


2. Putting the engines astern on a ship that is running full speed, is
not the fastest of processes, so he probably still had good steering
power ... i.e., doubt they got the engines stopped and started astern
prior to collision.

Here is where things get tricky- the Titanic and her sister ships had a
rather unusual engine arrangement. She had triple screws, the outboard
ones driven by big reciprocating engines (in fact, the largest ever
built). Her central prop was driven by the exhaust from these engines
into a big turbine which was not reversible. The recips had a valve
train lever to shift into reverse very quickly, which was linked to a
set of valves bypassing the central turbine.

So if the Titanic was ordered astern (another seperate issue... the few
survivors among the engineroom & boiler room crew gave testimony that
she was not reversed), the central engine would have freewheeled and not
affected the rudder.

It is also very likely that if the order was given to go astern, that it
could not have been effectively engaged in reverse in the short time
before impact.

For people interested in the matter, there is a very large amount of
good info available on the web.

Regards
Doug King

"Scott Vernon" wrote in message ...
My wife watched Titanic the other night, I sat down for the 'crash'
scene. When they spotted the ice cube, they yelled 'hard to
starboard, but it looked to me like they turned the wheel to port.
Then the order 'hard to port' was given and , to me, they turned to
'the right'. Anybody else notice this? Should I quit drinking?



Just Hollywoods average idiots at work. It was a Flik Flub. I noticed it to.

Joe