Ships of the seven seas

by Hawthorne Daniel

I said that a man could be taught to steer passably well in a few hours, and that is true at sea. But the steering of a ship amounts to more than holding her to her course across wide stretches of smooth water. Many a ship has been saved from collision because her officers knew accurately her “turning circle,” her “pivoting point,” her “kick,” and other fine points of her steering. It could readily happen if two ships were approaching each other “bow on” that they could safely pass if each put her rudder half over to the right, and that their sterns or even their sides would collide if each put her rudder full over to the right. Such a thing is due to the fact that ships steer with their sterns. To change a ship’s direction to the right the rudder moves her stern to the left. It is as if an automobile were being backed. To turn a corner its hind wheels would not change their course until the front wheels had been swung sharply to one side.

A FEW TYPES OF SAILING BOATS TO BE FOUND AROUND THE WORLD

Then, too, ships steer differently in shallow water than in deep. Sometimes a ship which, at sea, is responsive to the lightest shift of her rudder will behave like mad in a shallow channel. This is due to the shape of the hull and the paths followed by the displaced water as it flows past her sides and beneath her keel. In shallow water, the water that normally would flow beneath her cannot all do so, and the result is likely to be a difference in the way she answers her helm. For other reasons a ship must not be driven too rapidly through a shallow channel. I once saw a ship drawing seventeen feet ground sharply in the eighteen-foot channel leading into St. George, Bermuda, for at the speed she was making she was pushing a part of the water ahead of her and lowering the water level of the channel by more than a foot. Ships running on parallel courses at a considerable speed should not permit their courses to be too close, else a similar thing might happen, bringing them forcibly together. This happened to the Olympic and a British cruiser years ago in the English Channel.

These are only a few of the many things that might arise in handling ships. Other possible contingencies are almost infinite in number. Furthermore, it is the experience of sailors that no two ships, no matter how nearly they may be alike, are identical in their actions. This belief (and it has a very great deal of truth behind it) has probably had more than a little to do with the habit, that seems natural to seamen, of personifying ships. In addition to the fact that all ships have characteristic ways of their own, most ships react differently under different conditions of loading and when carrying their varying cargoes. A tramp loaded with iron ore will sometimes be uncomfortable in heavy weather even though she may be thoroughly comfortable in a similar storm when loaded with coal. The reason for this lies in the fact that iron ore, being heavy, loads a ship to her Plimsoll mark without filling her holds. Thus the heavy cargo gives the ship a low “centre of gravity” and she may roll heavily and constantly. Coal, on the other hand, is lighter than ore, and a cargo fills her hold to overflowing, raising her centre of gravity and reducing the roll. The captain, however, must know just how his ship handles whether she is carrying ore, or coal, or any of a score of different cargoes.

Let us take an imaginary voyage on a ship in order to see what seamanship is required of her officers and crew. Suppose we board a ship of 3,500 tons, loaded with coal, at Philadelphia, bound for Havana. The voyage is short, but a variety of conditions of weather and of climate will be contended with and the voyage will be a test of seamanship. Remember, however, that such a ship is far different from ships intended for passengers. Heavy weather will dash waves across her decks when the decks of passenger ships will remain entirely dry. This ship was not built for passengers and her decks are low and are unprotected from the sea.

The ship casts off from the pier above the city with the first mate in command, the captain being still ashore attending to the requirements laid down by law and seeing his owners. The tide being slack, and the currents temporarily stilled, a tug is not called. The steamer is lying with her stern to the river and with her starboard or right side next the pier. Six lines make her fast: a line leading from the starboard bow well up the dock—the bow line; a line leading from the same pair of “bits” directly to the dock—the bow breast line; a third line from about the same point at the bow, along the pier for a distance toward the stern—the bow spring. From “bits” on the starboard quarter—that is, at the right side, a little forward of the stern—three other lines are led similarly to the pier, and are named stern spring, stern breast, and stern lines, the last reaching as far astern as the bow line reaches ahead.

The lines, except for the bow spring, are cast off, and with this one line still fast from the bow aft along the pier, the mate orders the helmsman to throw his helm hard over to port. This brings the rudder to starboard, that is, toward the dock, and when the mate signals the engine room for “slow speed ahead” the stream of water from the propeller against the rudder swings the stern slowly away from the pier for the line from the bow to the pier does not permit the ship to forge ahead. When the stern is well clear of the pier the mate signals “stop” to the engine room, orders the last line thrown off, the helm amidships, that is, neither to the right nor to the left, signals “slow speed astern,” and the ship slowly backs out of the slip. As she slides clear of the end of the pier the helm is put over to port once more, the stern swings gradually upstream, and as the bow swings around parallel to the shore the helm is again brought amidships, the engines are stopped and then signalled for “slow speed ahead” once more, and the voyage is begun.

As the ship loafs slowly down past the foot of Market Street a tug puffs up alongside, our captain steps from its bow to the rail of our ship, for we are deeply laden, and the lowest sections of our decks are hardly more than four feet above water, waves to the skipper of the tug, mounts to the bridge, speaks to the mate, orders “half speed ahead,” and we steam sedately through the ferry lanes and gradually leave the busy section of the river behind.

Usually a pilot is aboard, but sometimes port rules permit captains to take their own ships out, and with an American ship loaded with coal out of Philadelphia that is the case, saving the owners the expense of the pilot. So our captain, sitting on a high office stool, which looks very much out of place on the bridge, takes us down the river, turning here and there as he makes out the buoys, which are red and conical to port and black and cylindrical to starboard as we leave the port.