Know your Nautical terminology
In maneuvering the ship, the connning officer issues helm commands in a prescribed form. It is the duty of the helmsman to repeat back the order and then carry out the command EXACTLY as ordered. It is essential that there can be NO misunderstanding of orders to the helm or lee-helm.
Helm commands
Helm commands are generally given in three parts
Direction: Either left, right or “Rudder amidships”
Amount: Expressed as a number of degrees of rudder (10, 15, etc.), or one of the following: (nominal values given)
Standard: 15°
Full: 30°
Hard: 35°(maximum rudder angle)
Course: >10 degree change
Example: "Right standard rudder come to new course 150"
When deciding how much rudder to use the conning officer must consider the speed of the ship. The general rule is that speed + rudder angle should NOT exceed 25 unless necessary.
Consider this clip from the movie Greyhound. It demonstrates proper orders to the helm and the effects of those orders.
WWG1WGA
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
OK, LP, you do such a good job of teaching us nautical language. I would like to amend some of your definitions:
“Prepare to Come About” (my favorite) means: Blu, put down the beer can and duck, the boom is gonna hit you as it passes over you and then the boom AND the sail will sweep you overboard and make you look like a fool in front of hot guy with red hair and you, blu, will beat your brother up as you both walk home from the marina (carefully avoiding Dad’s cabin cruiser and his fishing customers and his eyes that see EVERYTHING) because he was doing the sailing while you and Red were sparkin! Thankfully, by that time you will be sober, as Lake Michigan is never really warm enough to drunkenly fall into!
“The general rule is that speed + rudder angle should NOT exceed 25 unless necessary.”
The higher the freeboard the smaller the allowed combination. Thus instead of the rule of 25 on the Independence we had a bubble indicator for which we were not allowed to exceed 10* when planes were chained and 5* when planes were rolling.
Whatever happened to "pot" and "stab-ud"?