redmondej
HMS Enterprize - Steering Mechanism - Demonstration
Video showing the steering mechanism in action.
The steering cable is wrapped several times around the barrel of the ship's wheel.
Both ends of the steering cable descend through holes in the quarterdeck, and run vertically down through the captain's quarters.
After going through the floor of the captain's quarters, the cables angle out just along the ceiling of the berth deck, through pulleys attached to the sides of the ship, and then back to the tiller in the center. That way the tiller can be moved left and right as far as possible, with the minimum necessary tension on the line and steering mechanism.
Turning the wheel pulls the cable, which pulls the tiller, which moves the rudder, which steers the ship.
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(I did not notice until watching the video that I reversed the setup: spinning the wheel to port will turn the ship to starboard. I was under the impression that the cables should cross in a vertical "X" pattern as they descended from the wheel to the lower deck, but that was wrong.
There is a bit of historical precedent for this behavior, however. The ship's wheel was invented in the early 1700s. Before that, sailors relied on tillers, which worked in "reverse"--pulling the tiller to port turned the ship to starboard. Even after the wheel was invented, the tradition-bound officer corps continued giving orders according to the direction the *tiller* should turn, rather than the ship or wheel.
This mess persisted right up into the 20th century, and it generally fell to the helmsman to figure things out. However, in an effort to "simplify" things, individual ships occasionally had their wheel mechanism reversed, so that its behavior matched the tiller. Apparently that's how the captain decided to rig HMS Enterprize. He must be a bit idiosyncratic...)
HMS Enterprize - Steering Mechanism - Demonstration
Video showing the steering mechanism in action.
The steering cable is wrapped several times around the barrel of the ship's wheel.
Both ends of the steering cable descend through holes in the quarterdeck, and run vertically down through the captain's quarters.
After going through the floor of the captain's quarters, the cables angle out just along the ceiling of the berth deck, through pulleys attached to the sides of the ship, and then back to the tiller in the center. That way the tiller can be moved left and right as far as possible, with the minimum necessary tension on the line and steering mechanism.
Turning the wheel pulls the cable, which pulls the tiller, which moves the rudder, which steers the ship.
--------------------
(I did not notice until watching the video that I reversed the setup: spinning the wheel to port will turn the ship to starboard. I was under the impression that the cables should cross in a vertical "X" pattern as they descended from the wheel to the lower deck, but that was wrong.
There is a bit of historical precedent for this behavior, however. The ship's wheel was invented in the early 1700s. Before that, sailors relied on tillers, which worked in "reverse"--pulling the tiller to port turned the ship to starboard. Even after the wheel was invented, the tradition-bound officer corps continued giving orders according to the direction the *tiller* should turn, rather than the ship or wheel.
This mess persisted right up into the 20th century, and it generally fell to the helmsman to figure things out. However, in an effort to "simplify" things, individual ships occasionally had their wheel mechanism reversed, so that its behavior matched the tiller. Apparently that's how the captain decided to rig HMS Enterprize. He must be a bit idiosyncratic...)