Steering Rigging

Michael, as far as I know riverboat pilotwheels turned in the direction the pilot intended to go. In other words, turning the wheel to the right (clockwise) would make the boat go to the right.
One time an officious Coast Guard inspector forced us to paint "Right Rudder" and "Left Rudder" on the window sill of the pilothouse. The pilot growled, "If a man doesn't know that much he shouldn't be steering." When the inspector was transferred the signs were painted out.

Dear Mike, Alan & steamboat colleagues:
Interesting topic on 'steering rigging' etc. I vaguely recall a thread on this as featured on Steamboats.org some time back. Mike is correct that long ago ships/boats did have the 'counter steering' [i.e. left turned right etc.] It was typical of ocean ships then. I don't know when it was altered but I was aboard a vintage sailing ship over thirty years ago built in Great Britain and the pilot wheel was still mounted in the traditional way. At the helm the captain or mate would mount in a little glass box wood cubes painted black with white letters to indicate the indicated course like 89 Degrees N. etc. If the course was changed the blocks were flipped to the new reading so the helmsman, pilot or quartermaster could make the appropriate change of wheel. The pilot was watched carefully and an independent set of eyes checked every ten to fifteen minutes. We've all heard horror stories of what happened when a pilot was left alone even for a few minutes.

I have several old documents and INSPECTOR CERTIFICATES here dating from the late 1860s to early 1870s in which the inspectors checked off "Has iron steering rods, and additional steering apparatus, independent of the steering wheel." Also checks in ink noting the steamers were equippled with "wire tiller ropes, wire bell pulls and other things." No indication of what the "other things" were at the time.

Alan and Doc Hawley some years back gave an excellent tour on the BELLE OF LOUISVILLE in which they related the hard work expended in re-stringing the tiller cables on the BELLE. That was one fine descriptive tour and we all learned plenty to the sound of "Oooos and ahaaas."

Cheers,
R. Dale Flick

How were the steering cables strung between the pilothouse and the tiller? I thought they'd be routed in the most direct manner--straight down to the main deck through the texas and main cabin. But in all those old photos of main cabins, I've never seen any enclosure that might house the cables.

In the 21st century you can still berelaxing on a steamboat and see the tiller lines moving, on the JULIA BELLE SWAIN. Just glance up as you lounge on her main deck, and there they move overhead...

Michael, look carefully at the sides of the forward corners of pilothouses down near the roof on which it rests. On most, NOT ALL, boats you will find a small box with a lean-to "roof" on it. That is where the tiller lines passed over a sheave to go down to the underside of the boiler deck. The tiller lines then turned aft through fair-leaders to the tiller area. There horizontal sheaves led the tiller lines to the tillers. The Western Rivers Engineroom Cyclopoedium, available from the Howard Steamboat Museum, has schematic drawings of two such arrangements.

I know that I don't know the answer to this, but rudders on early ships and the steamboats I've taken notice of have the rudder/s hinged...sometimes with a gudgeon and pintle, and a large tiller bar inboard, which, I assume is the helm on a boat without a wheel. I can see where that the command "port your helm" means to push it to the left (port side) of the boat. The "hinge" being in the middle, the rudder blade has to move to the right...in answer to this, the boat will then turn to the starboard. On the BOL, said tiller bar is carried on an elevated track where it is acted upon by the steering cables from the pilot house. Said cables on the BOL do not go down thru the Texas, but well outboard of there where they clear the dance floor below. Like Judy says, if you look up in the engine room during landings etc, you can see all this apparatus doing its thing. Dunno what verbage is applied to the action, but that seems to be the way it works...

Michael,
Somehow the talk of the helm orders given in reverse on sea-going vessels rang a bell with something I had heard about the TITANIC. During the inquest following the disaster, the helm commands were a hot topic. I found this blurb on the internet:
"Helm orders given on the Titanic still followed the old method of steering, which meant back then, the wheel commands were backwards. A command of 'Hard-a-Starboard' meant the Officer wanted to go to the Port (left). Ships used to be steered with a tiller--(like on a row boat)--pulling the tiller to the left made the boat go to the right. These commands carried over to all ships and it wasn't until around WWI that they (ships) finally changed over to the more conventional commands used today. The helmsman carried out Murdoch's order properly by turning the ship to port on orders of "hard-a-starboard"."
As Alan said, this probably never carried over to the inland rivers, and if it did, it didn't last long.

Hemp Tiller Lines?

Yea, you're right about the helm commands on the TITANIC, if you can believe the blockbuster flick about the demise of that mighty ship. When the order was given to "hard a' stabbard", or the other way, the helmsman went opposite of what modern logic would dictate. My comment to my seat mate was, "No wonder they hit the berg, that guy's steering the wrong way."

Someone mentioned tiller lines. Much to my surprise, the tiller lines on Ead's Civil War gunboats were made of grass line and not of metal wire. Stories abound about the lines being easily shot-away or burned in-two on assaults at Ft. Donelson and later at Vicksburg. Surely wire rope was being manufactured by the Roebling Company by that time, and I am baffled that it was not in use on the ironclads.

http://www.nps.gov/fodo/planyourvisit/thebattleforfortdonelson.htm