QE2's Steering Gear!

[Twynkle]

Brown Bros 4-ram steering gear in operation on QE2 - thanks to gunner162

[Michael Gallagher]

The Steering Gear

[skilly56]

Full screen should have been available - it was when I uploaded it years ago.

Skilly (aka Gunner 162)

[Willum]

A sidenote about the steering gear from the Tech R/O.
Sitting on top of the rudder was an arm connected to a potentiometer or variable resistor. When the rudder was turned the variable resistor rotor moved and the voltage changed indicating the rudder angle and this was fed back to the bridge for the instruments to use, one of which was the autopilot. The arm was coupled to the shaft of the potentiometer with a small clamp pinched up with a 3mm nut and bolt. Once, on a lumpy N.Atlantic, we went horribly off course and had to go to manual steering, the nut and bolt had worked loose and the arm had jumped off the shaft. Lots of vibration in the steering gear room. It occurred to me just how many other tiny nuts and bolts were critical to safe operation. If this had happened in a confined seaway it might have been one of those occasions that could ruin your whole day.

The method of steering as a last resort was to use 2 push buttons next to the steering pumps and get instructions from the bridge by a dedicated steering gear sound powered telephone.

[Rod]

Regarding the vibration...The SG compartment was also used as a storage area for, amongst other things, spare motors. One more than one occasion a new  motor was brought up on to find that vibrations had killed the bearings.