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Flying Cloud Steering Gear
Flying Cloud was steered with the wooden and turned-spoke ship's wheel commonly found on sailing ships. However, the helmsman's spoke steering wheel was connected to the latest patented geared steering mechanism that was far more advanced than those installed in competing, new clipper ships being launched the same year as the Cloud.
This latest mechanical gearing was tighter and more precise with little lost motion at the wheel between helmsman and his feel for the rudder position.
Steering "tightness" may well have contributed in some medium measure to the Cloud's record 15,000 - 16,000 mile runs to California in 1851 and 1853. Rope wound around a drum, assisted by the mechanical purchase of dedicated wooden blocks -- though adequate -- resulted in a certain amount of slack tiller, which over time required reroving and tightening to take up steering slack.
Geared steering made the helmsman's "feel" for the rudder position more exact. There was a direct, positive rudder action as well as absence of sudden wave-induced rudder shock felt at the helm requiring human reaction, certainly less reaction than from tackle and tiller steering.
General Description: "By the 1850s, steering technology had resolved into a strong metal yoke [arrangement], keyed directly into the rudder post [end grain] -- eliminating block and tackle -- actuated by two arms moving in opposite direction from a common shaft with opposed threads."*
* To view diagrams of both the older tiller with tackle-over-barrel steering compared to American Pattern steering with cast iron frame support coupled with yoke, nut blocks and opposed-thread steering shaft, see China Tea Clippers, by George F. Campbell, pages 126-128 for text and author's illustrations. Published in the USA by David McKay Company, Inc., New York LCCC 74-6549
Flying Cloud Steering Gear
Flying Cloud was steered with the wooden and turned-spoke ship's wheel commonly found on sailing ships. However, the helmsman's spoke steering wheel was connected to the latest patented geared steering mechanism that was far more advanced than those installed in competing, new clipper ships being launched the same year as the Cloud.
This latest mechanical gearing was tighter and more precise with little lost motion at the wheel between helmsman and his feel for the rudder position.
Steering "tightness" may well have contributed in some medium measure to the Cloud's record 15,000 - 16,000 mile runs to California in 1851 and 1853. Rope wound around a drum, assisted by the mechanical purchase of dedicated wooden blocks -- though adequate -- resulted in a certain amount of slack tiller, which over time required reroving and tightening to take up steering slack.
Geared steering made the helmsman's "feel" for the rudder position more exact. There was a direct, positive rudder action as well as absence of sudden wave-induced rudder shock felt at the helm requiring human reaction, certainly less reaction than from tackle and tiller steering.
General Description: "By the 1850s, steering technology had resolved into a strong metal yoke [arrangement], keyed directly into the rudder post [end grain] -- eliminating block and tackle -- actuated by two arms moving in opposite direction from a common shaft with opposed threads."*
* To view diagrams of both the older tiller with tackle-over-barrel steering compared to American Pattern steering with cast iron frame support coupled with yoke, nut blocks and opposed-thread steering shaft, see China Tea Clippers, by George F. Campbell, pages 126-128 for text and author's illustrations. Published in the USA by David McKay Company, Inc., New York LCCC 74-6549