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| View of the Wheelhouse looking towards starboard. The three major controls in the Wheelhouse are the helm and the port and starboard engine room telegraphs. The port side telegraph is clearly seen in the lower left hand corner. |
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| View of the Wheelhouse looking towards port. Click on image enlarge. |
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| Principal parts of the Wheelhouse are:
1 – Helm position 2 – Steering by sonar dial 3 – Rudder position 4 – Pressure gauges showing the hydraulic line pressure going to the telemotors in tiller flats 5 – Gyro repeater ; film strip type. 6 - Binnacle with magnet compass , correction balls and degaussing coils under the balls. Below the compass is the roll indicator dial. 7 - The bell in the upper right corner corner is a gyro failure alarm. There were more bells and buzzers on the upper bulkhead behind the helmsman. It is believed the frames are a little different so each one produces a different sound. A guess has it that the two outer alarms were for the engine telegraphs and the centre one would be the RPM wheel. |
Two important operations took place in the Wheelhouse. The ship was steered by the Helmsman and engine orders were relayed from the Bridge down to the Wheelhouse for action and acknowledgment by the Engine Room. A total of three men occupied this area - one Helmsman and two engine telegraphists. Except for two scuttles, the entire Wheel House was enclosed and the Helmsman could not see outside. It didn't really matter because it was the Bridge who was steering or 'conning' the ship. In the event that the Wheelhouse was destroyed or put of action, the ship could still be conned from an open, emergency steering position on the upper, after end of the ship. To reduce errors in the magnetic compass, the entire Wheelhouse was fabricated from brass plate.In the binnacle, there are lots of magnets that help to correct the readings plus a variation chart for each compass . A chart would be kept on the bridge in case they had to steer by magnetic compass alone. The binnacle compass would be calibrated on a range in Bedford Basin in a process called "swingimg the compass". The ship would be positioned on known headings and then the magnets were adjusted so the wet compass produced a true reading.
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| This top view illustrates the emergency steering position aboard HAIDA which is located between the aft 40mm A/A guns. It would definitely be an unfriendly location during inclement weather. |
Sept 30/21