Talk:Ship's wheel

Helm, wheel and tiller

This page has been renamed from "Ship's wheel" to "Helm (Ship's wheel)" with the summary "The technical name for Ships wheel is Helm". This is incorrect. Charles Chapman, Piloting Seamanship & Small Boat handling (1968) writes on page 54: "The helm is neither the boat's steering wheel nor rudder. It more closely refers to the tiller which was the method of steering boats in days gone by.". Since this article does not cover the tiller, I will therefore rename it to "steering wheel (ship)". I will also adjust the disambiguation page helm accordingly. — Sebastian 18:11, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, in common maritime usage it is never called a "steering wheel". It is called a "ship's wheel", or simply a "wheel", or quite often "the wheel". I beleive it's even called "the wheel" on ships with more than one wheel. I will look for references that back this up.RadioTheodric (talk) 14:51, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Image

The bottom wheel is rotating the wrong direction... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.171.27.29 (talk) 10:48, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

• Actually, I don't think it is. The wheels (top and bottom) are synchronized, and first turn one way and then back the other, together. If you didn't realize that they were being turned both ways and happened to glance and one and then at the other just as they were both changing directions, you might think that they were not matched up or were turning against each other. But I have checked and looked carefully, and I am still convinced they are shown moving in synchronicity. If you think I am not seeing this correctly, can you explain more thoroughly? KDS4444^Talk 22:24, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
• The wheel in the overhead view is turning the opposite direction to the front view. The rudder should turn to face the same direction as the wheel is turning, not the opposite as it is in the diagram. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.108.58.73 (talk) 05:49, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
• Why "should"? Because you say so? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.186.7.240 (talk) 18:36, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
• i said should because the moving diagram is wrong, theres no way that im wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.108.34.198 (talk) 06:04, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
• Actually, the wheels are going the same direction in the top and bottom diagrams. However the rudders are going opposite directions as are the tillers. The bottom rudder is going the wrong way.
  • Look, all of this depends on which "side" of the wheel you are looking at: from above or below, and from in front or behind. If, in the top part of the image, you imagine you are standing before the wheel, facing it aft, then as the wheel turns counterclockwise, the tiller directly beneath it moves to your right and the rudder itself (on the other end of the rudder head pivot point) moves left. Clockwise has the reverse effect, of course. For the bottom picture you must imagine that you are observing the wheel from overhead, with wheel at your head-level and the rudder mechanism located towards your feet, the wheel will move in synchrony with the tiller and rudder. Also keep in mind that the tiller is being moved by a rope which is wrapped around a barrel connected to the wheel. As the wheel turns counterclockwise, the rope is winding off the barrel on your left and giving more slack to the tiller on your left side, and winding onto the barrel on your right and tightening the slack on the tiller from the right. I didn't realize this would be so confusing. I suppose I am having as much trouble seeing it incorrectly as others are seeing it correctly. KDS4444^Talk 13:41, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
• The image is definitely wrong. It helps to label port and starboard and starboard on the image to see this: [1]. The tiller heads are moving left-right-left together on your screen, but that is not port-starboard-port on the ship. It's the overhead view rudder that is incorrect. Fired4Groot (talk) 14:54, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
• I uploaded a corrected image. Please do not revert without making a case here. The above comment from KDS444 is incorrect, for example, about which side the rope is being pulled/released from the barrel, in the bottom half diagram. Fired4Groot (talk) 17:55, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:25, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Steering wheel (ship) → Ship's wheel — "Ship's wheel" is the nautical term for this device; a "steering wheel" is part of a road vehicle. Picapica (talk) 13:27, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Any relation to the Dharmacakra?

The two look awfully similar. Might Buddhists have been working for European shipbuilders in olden days? 198.151.130.69 (talk) 14:47, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

• While I will grant you that the similarity is striking, I can find no indication that the dharmachakra has ever had any association with steering per se, though it does have associations with turning, like a wheel. The ship's wheel is really an alternate use of a regular wagon wheel with the spokes running through the rim, and both the Buddhists and the Europeans were familiar with the concept of the wagon wheel from way back and not necessarily via technological transfer. There is also no indication that any of the Asian ships ever used a wheel for steering, the tiller being sufficient for that purpose. The only reason the Europeans gave up the tiller was that their ships finally became too large to steer with them. Very few Asian ships of any kind came close to matching the European ones that had ship's wheels for steering. But again, the similarity is striking. KDS4444^Talk 22:18, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Follow-up reference

A google books link for more details on felloes, spokes, rims, etc. Very thorough, will require some time for someone to go over in some detail: http://books.google.com/books?id=O7xVK5ej1MkC&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=%22ship%27s+wheel%22+hub+spoke+felloe&source=bl&ots=kljNN_R8LC&sig=YQx3uVml-AvqijnIcrAtPpONIaA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Pol9UOeyB67riQLA54HIDw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22ship%27s%20wheel%22%20hub%20spoke%20felloe&f=false