While building this model by Artesania Latina a few things struck me as odd.
1) Where was the ship's wheel I knew and loved from all the old pirate films?
2) The tiller supplied with the model was only 2m long in real life. Surely too short for such a big rudder?
3) What was that daft low 'companion' near the stern with a little slot cut out of the front? It isn't for access to the lower decks, so it must serve some other purpose?
1) After a bit of research, I discovered the 'whipstaff' steering method, invented at the time ships were getting bigger and heavier, ie, right in time for this ship to have one.
2) A few caculations here indicated the helmsman would need to exert at least 75 kg of force on the rudder at 15 degrees*. On a slippy deck... nigh on impossible. With a whipstaff, the layout would mean the helmsman needed very little force operating the tiller, because of the greatly increased leverage he would have. He mainly had to overcome friction of the tiller rubbing on the 'tiller sweep' beam that supported it. Cool.
3) A bit of trigonometry work and I had a design for the tiller and whipstaff. Nicely, it placed the helmsman just forward of the great cabin, looking out through the slot in my 'daft companion' and with the steering neutral, his whipstaff would be nicely above his head but below the roof of the companion.
I'm now thinking of adapting the model to construct the necessary below decks, tiller and whipstaff, since it can be seen if you look in through that slot.
P.S. My enjoyment of period dramas that show sailors wrestling with a ship's wheel for dramatic effect is now in tatters.
* I only calculated the water pressure on the rudder, not drag. I based it on 10 mph top sailing speed and neglected the velocity of the waves themselves. This could be a serious under-estimation.
Edit: the force needed for a hard tack would increase because of the angle that the whipstaff was moved away from the vertical, but it would still be only around a third of that needed with a 2m tiller operated directly at the stern, so 25 to 30 kg. Also, I've seen a reference to 'relieving tackle', for use in heavy weather. I saw no more than that but imagine it to be ropes and blocks attached to the tiller from either side of the hull to allow the tiller to be winched.
1) Where was the ship's wheel I knew and loved from all the old pirate films?
2) The tiller supplied with the model was only 2m long in real life. Surely too short for such a big rudder?
3) What was that daft low 'companion' near the stern with a little slot cut out of the front? It isn't for access to the lower decks, so it must serve some other purpose?
1) After a bit of research, I discovered the 'whipstaff' steering method, invented at the time ships were getting bigger and heavier, ie, right in time for this ship to have one.
2) A few caculations here indicated the helmsman would need to exert at least 75 kg of force on the rudder at 15 degrees*. On a slippy deck... nigh on impossible. With a whipstaff, the layout would mean the helmsman needed very little force operating the tiller, because of the greatly increased leverage he would have. He mainly had to overcome friction of the tiller rubbing on the 'tiller sweep' beam that supported it. Cool.
3) A bit of trigonometry work and I had a design for the tiller and whipstaff. Nicely, it placed the helmsman just forward of the great cabin, looking out through the slot in my 'daft companion' and with the steering neutral, his whipstaff would be nicely above his head but below the roof of the companion.
I'm now thinking of adapting the model to construct the necessary below decks, tiller and whipstaff, since it can be seen if you look in through that slot.
P.S. My enjoyment of period dramas that show sailors wrestling with a ship's wheel for dramatic effect is now in tatters.
* I only calculated the water pressure on the rudder, not drag. I based it on 10 mph top sailing speed and neglected the velocity of the waves themselves. This could be a serious under-estimation.
Edit: the force needed for a hard tack would increase because of the angle that the whipstaff was moved away from the vertical, but it would still be only around a third of that needed with a 2m tiller operated directly at the stern, so 25 to 30 kg. Also, I've seen a reference to 'relieving tackle', for use in heavy weather. I saw no more than that but imagine it to be ropes and blocks attached to the tiller from either side of the hull to allow the tiller to be winched.
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