Talk:Helmsman

Request input

Does anyone have ideas for further content? I was wondering about a subhead: "Special challenges" with a few listings featuring several-sentence descriptions of selected steering challenges: rivers, canals, unrep, ice leads, etc.

Meanwhile, it sure would be nice to find a pic of a woman at the helm to add more variety to our content and to help illustrate that, despite the article title, women are helmsmen too. The pic I really would like is a view over the shoulder of the helmsman showing ship traffic ahead! Fishdecoy (talk)

Calling all submariners and windjammers

Anyone care to contribute to the helmsman article from the submarine or sailboat perspective? Fishdecoy (talk)

Broken links

The link "15 standard commands" at the bottom of the page is broken.

Helm orders

The helm orders in the article are those commonly used by the USN and USCG. However, merchant navies around the world often use a different system (e.g. "port 20" instead of "left 20 degrees rudder", "hard-a-port" instead of "left full rudder", etc.). I also believe that the RN and some other Commonwealth navies are closer to the system used by many merchant navies rather than that described in this article. As far as I'm aware, this is because the other system is the traditional one and the USN / USCG (and maybe one or two other navies or shipping companies) use a modified system.

I have modified the article to state the helm orders indicated are those in use by the USN / USCG so as to make it clear that not everyone (or even a majority uses that system).

For some further (though incomplete) information, see: http://www.navis.gr/vocabula/voca27.htm (note: there are further minor variations on this system dependent on the country of the vessel and even company).

A full example might be:

OOW: Helm port 10.
Helmsman: Helm port 10, aye, aye, sir.
Helmsman: Port 10 a-wheel on, sir.

OOW: Helm midships.
Helmsman: Midships, aye, aye, sir.
Helmsman: Helm amidships, sir.

OOW: Steer course 250.
Helmsman: Steer course 250, aye, aye, sir.
Helmsman: Steady on course 250, sir.

Gonefishing (talk) 20:08, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Spacecraft?

Doubt this term applies to spacecraft. Not Star Trek. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.237.95.14 (talk) 17:19, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

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