Hand steering a boat
November 1st 2006 22:49
Dale at the helm
For many of us the image of boating is a clear blue sky, a sturdy boat and us on the helm with the breeze ruffling our hair while we carry a nonchalant bemused look that conveys our
Basic canoe paddling is the best way to learn to steer, or maybe a good old fashioned row boat. Too much power on one side or the other soon has you steering in circles. Easy to learn and quick to master for most people. Take the same canoe or row boat and put it say in white water for the canoist or a strong tide with a short sharp chop for the rower and your degree of difficulty increases quite incredibly. It takes time and patience a certain amount of skill building and the fitness level that builds as you do that to get to a point where you can safely steer and handle a boat in those conditions.
I tend my yacht mostly with my 14' tinny which has a powerful outboard. When I need to use my tiny rowing tender (which is a converted child's sailing dinghy) I am fine with the rowing untill the chop builds up with the wind strength. I am out of touch with hard rowing due to easy motoring with my tinny.
Some time ago I delivered a power boat on a cosatal passage and we hand steered her for four hundred miles. The first day we had huge seas and it was a task that nobody could handle for more that hour at a time. Later as the seas smoothed and we adjusted the trim tabs steering became a breeze and with the large cushioned and well padded helmsman's chair it was a comfort to steer and we had to almost deglue peoples fingers from the helm to give someone else a turn.
Similarly steering a yacht, I find that the bigger the waves the harder the task. It is not just a matter of steering to a compass course set by the navigator. That is just a pencil line on a chart, somewhere we wish to go. In reality there are waves, currents tides, fish trap bouys, fishing nets and other boast to avoid. Steering through waves means a certain amount of pounding on the boat. Too much pounding and the boat slows down, starts to break up or is just plain uncomfortable. so a course must be steered by the helmsman that takes into consideration that pencil line on the chart and the safety and well being of the boat. It is a taxing task after say a few hours.
A lot of modern yachts are built with a steering wheel. This wheel is then placed as far aft as possible to increase the size of the cockpit for "drinkies" at anchor or entertaining on the mooring. It does not take into consideration a helmsman standing, steering for 30 hours in storm conditions. I have done it and it starts to hurt after just four hours and by the time the storm blows out you are numb. Some say "no brain no pain". The back of the boat is rubbing against your legs and there is no room to move forward as the wheel is there. Poor design for seamanship but great for entertaining.
I could go on but for a moment I will dwell on auto pilots and self steering. Magic, not so dear and a must for all vessels that are to do longer miles with fewer crew. But I have been on board a yacht where the autopilot refused to hand the ship back to us when conditions became so bad we had to start hand steering again. I am not technicly inclined but I will say what we had to do was disassemble the whole autopilot system and repack it in it's box before we got hand steering back again. was it robots trying to take control? I don't think so but a malfunction of technology can be more dangerous than a tired sailor trying to save his life.
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