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4 Ship Handling Tricks To Handle Ships in

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Written by Capt Rajeev Jassal on September 6, 2016

About Capt Rajeev Jassal

Capt. Rajeev Jassal has sailed for over 19
The mark of a great ship handler is never getting into situations that require great years mainly on crude oil, product and
ship handling.  chemical tankers. He holds MBA in shipping &
Logistics degree from London. He has done
extensive research on quantitatively
I am so much in love with this quote by Ernest King.
measuring Safety culture onboard and safety
climate ashore which he believes is the most
Ship handling is both a science and an art. Science because it requires important element for safer shipping.
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.

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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 Custom Search
good practices, each one of it is correct.
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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.

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9 Comments

Bipul Roy Sep 8, 2016

Hello sir.... Plz help me sir

Reply

LALATENDU MAHARANA Sep 17, 2016

how to study in offline

Reply

Nikolai Oct 7, 2017

Rajeev, good afternoon. Thanks for the tricks, to start with. Otherwise, a couple of
considerations to share. The ship is, normally, a "she", and not an "it". She is a living
creature and the animated one. Another thing to share is the following expression: "A
superior seaman uses his superior judgement to keep out of situations requiring his
superior skills". Tks again & brgds. Nikolai.
Reply

pammodels Jan 10, 2018

Great information, Thanks for the different tricks I want to try these tricks.
http://pammodels.com/
Reply

Tkachenko Roman Mar 20, 2018

I will write here an extract from the article "Or we can also increase or decrease the
resistance force by varying the rudder order (say between 5 deg-15 Deg)". Did you mean
force or direction as when we change speed ? Thank you for the article and your reply in
advance
Reply

Master-B May 17, 2018

The information is well presented however, some ilustrations do not coincide with the
explanation when refering to vessel berthing port side.
Reply

Vili Jun 21, 2018

Fantastic
Reply

Prabhu Muthu May 10, 2019

Really it's excellent for those who are taking command it's simple none of the book
explained like this.Thank you so much.
Reply

alo Aug 17, 2019

Nice article. I really like your post also see Doubledown codes
Reply

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