4 Ship Handling Tricks To Handle

Ships in Better Way

Written by Capt Rajeev Jassal on September 6, 2016

The mark of a great ship handler is never getting into situations that
require great ship handling. 
I am so much in love with this quote by Ernest King.
Ship handling is both a science and an art. Science because it requires
knowledge of various forces acting on the ship. Art because it requires
the skills of an experienced navigator to use these forces in his favour.

We may learn the science part from the various ship handling courses.
But the art can only be learned from experience.

Art has many forms. Art of ship handling also has many forms. Each
navigator handles the ship in his own way and so far it does not go
against the general good practices, each one of it is correct.
 So how can someone become a good ship handler. Or if I may say so,
how can someone not be in a situation that would require great ship
handling ?

It can only be achieved by knowledge. It can only be achieved by

learning both, the science and art of ship handling.

I value the importance of all the terms related to ship handling. But
when it comes to understanding these terms, I always prefer it to be
in layman’s words.

Today, let us talk ship handling in layman’s language.

Talking in the same breath, let me ask a question. Why exactly one
need to learn ship handling ? What are the things one would wish to
use the ship handling for ?

I always asked these questions to myself while learning ship handling.

I found that after learning ship handling, I would like to be able to

 move the ship in any direction I want (Like moving the ship
sideways without changing the heading)

 Stop the ship wherever and whenever I want (something like applying
a brake)

 Reduce the speed in an instant (Like what I can do with my car)

 Turn the ship at its position (like how an experienced bikers do)

In this post, I will share few of the tricks (art and science) of ship
handling so that you are able to do all of this.

Let us dive in.

1. How to move a ship in the direction you want

Whenever I studied ship handling, I always asked this question to

myself.

Can I move a ship in any direction while keeping the same heading ? If
I can, what else do I need to know about ship handling ?

After all Ship handling means making the ship move in the direction we
want and when we want.

So do you want to know how we can move the ship in any of these
direction.

Before we proceed, I assume you know how the resultant of two or

more forces acting in different direction works.
If you want to know more on it, you can read it here or here.
Or else you can watch this video.
In short you should know about parallelogram of forces. It states that

If two forces whose lines of action meet at a point are

represented in magnitude and direction by the sides of a
parallelogram drawn from one of its angular points, their
resultant is represented in magnitude and direction by the
diagonal drawn from that angular point.

So what all forces a ship can experience while she is at sea ?

Current and Wind are two of the most common forces. We should take
these to our advantage. But there is one force that we can use to our
advantage. That is the force of resistance from the water itself.
Say the ship is moving at dead slow ahead. And I turn the rudder on
the port side. Will the ship start turning right away ? No it won’t.
Because depending upon the under water area of the hull, there is
huge resistance offered from the water.

The water acts as something like a wall to the underwater hull.

The hull need to over power this resistance for it to start turning. This
is also the reason why loaded ship start turning late when we give
rudder order.

But how can we use this resistance to our advantage ? Using this water
resistance, we can actually move the vessel in any direction we want.

Let us see it with an example.

Let us say we want to move the ship towards the berth while keeping
the heading of the vessel parallel to the berth.

For berthing in this situation, one school of thought teaches us to berth

in this way.

For berthing to port side alongside, head to the berth with an angle of
around 20 deg with the berth. Few meters from the berth, go astern.
For right hand, fixed pitch propeller, this will turn the ship slightly to
starboard because of transverse thrust. This will make the ship parallel
to the berth.
This method have some dangers associated with it. For example
transverse thrust may not be as much as you expected.
What if We use the forward headway vector and resistance force of
water to have a resultant vector that will take the ship towards the
berth. This is how it is done.
Maintain a low forward speed (say around 3 knots). Now put the
rudder on 10 Deg port. While the rudder is on 10 Deg port, vessel
would experience the resistance on the underwater hull area.

This resistance will try to push the vessel on the other side. Keep an
eye on the rate of turn indicator as we will not allow the ship to turn.

Before vessel starts to turn, put the rudder to midship. The resultant of
vessel’s headway and the resistance we created will make the ship
move towards the berth.

We can adjust these two vectors to move the ship in a direction we

want. For example we can reduce the speed if we want to have the
resultant more toward abeam. Or we can increase the speed a bit to
have the resultant vector more forward of beam.
Or we can also increase or decrease the resistance force by varying the
rudder order (say between 5 deg-15 Deg).

Still do not believe that the we can use the water resistance to our
advantage ? Then see this image taken during actual berthing of the
vessel.

By varying the strength of these two forces, we can move the ship in
any direction we want.

Apart from this, there are number of ways we can use this resistance
in our favour.

For example, let us say we are waiting for the pilot to board in a busy
traffic area with engine stopped. If the vessel is drifting towards fishing
vessels or other anchored vessels, what can we do to reduce this drift.
Again we can use the engine to dead slow ahead and put the rudder on
hard to starboard. Before the vessel start to turn, stop the engine and
rudder amidship. The Direction of vessel’s drift will change towards the
vessel’s heading.

We can use this resistance in many ways, only limitation being your
imagination.

2. Using anchor to stop the ship in emergency

Do you think we should keep anchor party standby forward when the
vessel is moving at full manoeuvring ahead in a river ?

I mean, what if they are stand by in the accommodation area with

walkie talkie ? In emergency, by the time we reduce the speed to the
 level where we can drop anchor, the crew would definitely reach
forward.

This thought is based upon the assumption that even in emergency we

cannot drop anchor when the ship moving at full ahead. Do you
agree ?

If you agree, you would be wrong. We can drop the anchor in

emergency even when ship is moving at full ahead. Only thing is we
need to follow the right steps in doing so.

Want to know how we can achieve that ?

Imagine that vessel is moving at 12 knots in a river with engine full

ahead. For some reason we need to stop the vessel immediately.

Here is how we can do it.

 Put the rudder hard over to the side you can turn the ship.

 Drop the anchor to the side of the turn. So if you are turning to
starboard, drop starboard anchor. Before we drop anchor we must
ensure that we are dropping the anchor in an area of
suitable anchoring depths.

Turning would reduce the vessel’s speed. As the speed of the ship
reduces, keep on going down on the engine movement too.

For example, let us say half ahead speed is 10 Knots and slow ahead
speed is 7 knots.

 When we have dropped the anchor and start turning, bring the engine
to half ahead.

 When the speed is just over 10 knots (say 11 knots), bring the engine
to slow ahead.
 When the speed is just over 7 knots (say 8 knots), bring the engine to
dead slow ahead.

 Whenever you can, stop the engine.

We need to be careful with stopping the engine as when we stop the

engine, vessel’s rate of turn would reduce and anchor chain might get
stressed.

While we have initiated this procedure, the instructions to the anchor

party would be to keep pay out the cable as the weight comes. Their
goal would be to not to stress the cable too much and hold the anchor
until weight comes on the cable.

This procedure allows the vessel to stop with the help of three things

 Turning reduces the speed

 Gradual reduction of Engine movement from full ahead to stopping the

engine reduces the speed

 Controlled weight on the anchor reduces the vessel’s speed

But the question is, won’t the anchor damage in this case ? The answer
would be No.

When the vessel starts to turn, it will cover distance equal to head
reach in forward direction and side reach in athwartship direction.
In fact because of controlled load on the anchor, its maximum head
reach and side reach will reduce.

The length of the anchor chain would be sufficient to stretch to this

distance. In fact you may not need to pay the entire length of the
anchor chain.

If you get a chance, try this exercise on the simulator to believe it.

3. Rudder Cycling to reduce the ship speed

Imagine we are moving at some speed to approach a port and

suddenly we are asked to wait for the pilot. This is a common situation
Masters are subjected to at many ports.
 We wish we had some kind of brakes on the ship, which we could just
press to stop the ship or reduce the speed. But we do not have brakes
on ship, right ?

But wait, who said ship does not have brakes to stop the ship ? Rudder
cycling is most effective way to stop a ship without changing the
heading.

It uses the resistance of water on underwater hull area to reduce the

speed of the ship.

Want to know how it is done ? Considering port side is safer than

starboard side

 Put the rudder on hard to port side

 When the ship has turned to 20 deg from the original course, put the
telegraph to half ahead

 When the ship’s heading is 40 degrees from the original course, put
the rudder on hard to starboard

 When the ship’s heading just starts to turn to starboard side, make the
engines on slow ahead

 When the ship’s heading has returned to original course, put the
rudder to hard to port

 When the ship just starts to turn to port, put the engine to dead slow
ahead

 When the ship’s heading returned to original course, put the rudder on
hard to starboard to check some of the port swing.

 When the ship still has some rate of turn to port, put the rudder
midship and go full astern on the engines to stop the ship
This will stop the ship at considerable lesser distance. But we do not
need to use rudder cycling only to stop the ship. We can also use the
rudder cycling when we need to reduce the speed of the ship.

4. Turning the ship at its position

 Can you think of a situation when we need to turn the ship at its
position ?

We may need to turn the ship near to the berth when we arrive at the
berth from down river direction and we need to berth facing upriver
direction.

But turning in this situation may not be that tricky as we can use the
tugs to turn the vessel.

Now consider a situation where you have anchored in a very congested

anchorage and you need to pick up the anchor and turn the vessel.

In this situation if you have bow thruster fitted, it is easier to turn the
vessel. But how to turn the vessel at its position if you do not have
bow thruster.

For right hand fixed pitch propellers, it is always easier to turn the ship
on starboard side.

So to turn the ship

 Wheel hard to starboard and give a quick burst ahead on the engines.
Ship will start to turn to starboard. Do not gather too much ahead
speed. Just about when speed is around 0.5 Knots, stop the engine.

 Wheel amidship, give a quick burst astern on the engine. As the engine
goes to stern, the bow will start to move to starboard. This will help
the starboard turn as well as reduce the forward speed of the ship.

 As the ship gains some sternway (around 0.5 knots), stop the engine.

 Repeat the above steps and keep the vessel turning to starboard.
Conclusion

Ship handling cannot be learned in few days or few months. Apart from
learning the theory of Ship handling, we also need to practice it on
board to be master of it.

Ship handling need to be learned right from the time on junior ranks.
We need to observe how Masters and pilots handles the ship.

If they ordered the rudder to port 10 deg, why did they do so ? If they
used the engine in astern direction, why did they do it now ?

Asking these question and then finding the answers right from the
junior ranks can make us a better ship handler.