Quote:
Originally Posted by Lodesman
So it looks like there are two helm stations (?) and an awful lot of voice-pipes. Is there a separate bridge and this is the wheelhouse? I don't see a chart table. If the navigation was done here, I would accept the 2 as a gyro error, but to me it seems like a wheelhouse, and because of the windows, a secondary pilotage position. The course board is obviously a "helmsman's helper" so my thinking is anything on it has to do with steering, not navigating. MHO.
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Given that 99% of the time she was in hand steering it would have been in pilotage waters it is reasonable to assume that it is gyro error and gyro course to steer... for the benefit of the watchkeeping h'officers..
I asked the question over on a site inhabited by boring old pharts like myself and that was the consensus...
That is the navigation bridge or wheelhouse, terms are interchangeable... the chart room on the QM and 99% of ships up into the 1960s was just that .. a chart 'room' at the back of the wheelhouse...
The 'bling' upsets me.... in
service the telegraphs and pretty much every thing else was painted... normally in either 'eau de nil' or grey.... my sources tell me QM's were green.
Photo shows this... also shows a very early post war
radar the like of which I have never seen before....
I did manage to winkle out a chap who had sailed as 'bridge boy' on her in the 60's... what he had to say..
'In my mind's eye I see the flag-locker, the Kent Clear-view
screen (do ships still have, them?), a voice-pipe directly to the Master's bunk, a movement book, several brass telegraphs, a wooden
wheel inlaid with brass, a lanyard for the steam whistle, a Willett-Bruce compressed air whistle control, spotlessly scrubbed gratings, a pilot's chair, etc,etc, and many other things missing from this list - almost all now gone but not forgotten.
As I
recall, the flag locker was port side of the wheelhouse, on the after bulkhead, inboard of them were the
docking telephones. Port side, just for'd of the door was the
radio telephone booth. Telegraphs,
engine &
docking were both doubled up on both sides of the wheelhouse, as were the brass wheels. The chart room as usual was in the after part of the wheelhouse, and the 1
radar, heads up only in my day, was to the starboard side of the chart table. The helm indicator was on the for'd bulkhead, no digital display on that, or anything else, and it had to be covered with a highly polished perforated plate at night. Wheels were alternated, one used out from
Southampton, and the other outward from
New York. We boys were allowed to sit on the flag locker when not grafting.'
The more observant will realise this is a 'posed'
photo... as the ER telegraphs are at FWE.
2nd photo is as built... taken as she was about to
head out on acceptance trails.... that would be a dockyard matey on the
wheel and the builder's rep in the fedora...
Final note... she had totally independent steering systems... all the way from the seering flat to the duplicated wheels.
Final final note re bridge manning... typically on British liners manning would be senior and junior
deck officer, quartermaster, bridge lookout, focsle or crows nest lookout, and at least one bridge boy... whose job it was to make the cucumber sandwiches and brewed coffee for the officers and , when it was on the menu, fetch scampi from the 1st class
galley for the evening 8 to 12 ..