Scrutable

There’s a remarkable video of Endurance, Shackleton’s famously doomed ship, showing the state of preservation. The guardian have a copy here. What struck me was that the ship’s wheel was facing backwards. It makes total sense, and when I think about it that is a much simpler arrangement, but every depiction I have ever seen shows the ship’s wheel facing forwards. Did ship’s wheels generally face backwards or was this a unique feature of Endurance?

IRC HMS Victory has two wheels so you can drive it either style.

An ex-navy man in my team says the wheel in this case is probably an emergency backup in case the bridge lost linkage, and would be receiving voice commands.

and the wheel needs to be approachable from all sides so , in foul weather, a couple of beefy crew members can stand upwind of the helmsman to (try to) keep the worst of the weather of him.

Still happens on (non-single-handed) round-the-world yacht races.= - espec those that go the "Wrong" way round the Southern Ocean.

monkey wrote: Thu Oct 10, 2024 10:48 pm IRC HMS Victory has two wheels so you can drive it either style.

I think HMS Warrior moored just near Victory has four wheels so you can get a substantial crew manning it, and on the deck below there's another four.

Martin Y wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2024 2:45 pm

monkey wrote: Thu Oct 10, 2024 10:48 pm IRC HMS Victory has two wheels so you can drive it either style.

I think HMS Warrior moored just near Victory has four wheels so you can get a substantial crew manning it, and on the deck below there's another four.

Yesterday I learned that it is officially HMS Warrior (1860) so as not to confuse it with the land station HMS Warrior in Northwood, the Operational Headquarters of the Royal Navy.

monkey wrote: Thu Oct 10, 2024 10:48 pm IRC HMS Victory has two wheels so you can drive it either style.

Well, the Titanic had three, cause more is better.

Martin Y wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2024 2:45 pm

monkey wrote: Thu Oct 10, 2024 10:48 pm IRC HMS Victory has two wheels so you can drive it either style.

I think HMS Warrior moored just near Victory has four wheels so you can get a substantial crew manning it, and on the deck below there's another four.

Just looked it up. It had 8! 4 up top, and another 4 below. Victory had a similar thing going on, but with 2 up, and 2 down.

The bottom ones were for when people were shooting at them.

Sucks to be you, Titanic.

Grumble wrote: Thu Oct 10, 2024 10:28 pm There’s a remarkable video of Endurance, Shackleton’s famously doomed ship, showing the state of preservation. The guardian have a copy here. What struck me was that the ship’s wheel was facing backwards. It makes total sense, and when I think about it that is a much simpler arrangement, but every depiction I have ever seen shows the ship’s wheel facing forwards. Did ship’s wheels generally face backwards or was this a unique feature of Endurance?

The helmsman wouldn't steer the ship like you drive a car (facing the wheel). They would more likely have stood to the side of the wheel. Here's an example from a modern day US Coastguard barque:
In rough weather there might have been several men at the wheel of the Endurance.

The helmsman wouldn't be looking out to sea anyway. The captain or whoever was in command would give the helmsman a course to steer. So the important thing for them to look at would be the compass.

The wheel isn't facing forward or aft in the sense that someone needs to look past it in order to see where they are going. As others have noted, lots of ships had a protected internal wheel.

[ETA] You can see on this plan that in the Endurance the wheel is aft of the compass. So the helmsman would have been looking forward.
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/cont ... rmat=2500w

Plan is on this web page: https://www.ernestshackleton.net/endurance-expedition

Grumble wrote: Fri Oct 11, 2024 8:00 am An ex-navy man in my team says the wheel in this case is probably an emergency backup in case the bridge lost linkage, and would be receiving voice commands.

I found some decent pictures of a scale model of the Endurance and a plan. There is an exposed bridge forward. It has a compass but no wheel. There is no sign of an indoor bridge.

Model: https://premiershipmodels.us/product/th ... LwFVGtg6Ya

Plan: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/cont ... rmat=2500w

Those guys were tough.

Thanks for that woodchopper