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Heaving To query

22K views 77 replies 38 participants last post by  DougC 
#1 ·
One of our Radio Officer's Association members has submitted a short article in which he describes a ship he was on heaving to in a Typhoon. As far as he can remember they lowered both anchors down but did not let them go right out but used them to provide a braking effect. I have looked through several manuals and not seen anything suggesting such a procedure. Hence coming to the professionals for advice! Thank you, Cheers, Roger
 
#35 ·
Cisco;1424290 said:
You walk your anchors right out in deep water and you may have a job getting them back.

I've been on ships with small 'wave oil' tanks in the focsle plumbed into the hawse pipes so that you could spread oil on the water to lessen the sea...
You surely would ! I can only recall being "hove to" on one occasion at 36 South in the Southern Ocean. It was done by turning away from an East going course and bringing the sea about 15/20 degrees on the Port bow with engines at slow ahead.
That was fine until the Master-evidentally worried about wasted coal consumption-came on the bridge at 10pm. and attempted to get the ship back on course. That sobered him up and, with difficulty, he got her back to the hove to position. (the 2nd mate told me at midnight that he had been thrown out of his bunk!).
The storm had blown so much sea water into the air that, when I came off watch and saw my face in a mirror, I thought I was looking at a ghost; my face was caked with salt!
 
#37 ·
When Asiafreighter was broken down in the North Atlantic, we had a Force 12 or better for a couple of days.

We lay beam on to the seas and were actually quite comfortable, rising and falling over the seas, but not rolling too violently.

On the other hand, I recall Euroliner rolling at least 47 degrees when both engines shut down in a gale.

This was a design fault, as the oil in the engine luboil tanks could slosh away from the shutdown switches.

The defect was corrected at guarantee D/D and in the sisters before delivery.

I say at least, because that was as far as the inclinometer would go.
 
#38 ·
I was 3rd mate on an Anglo American tanker just after ww2 - the F J WOLFE - taken from the Germans as reparations after ww1. She would lose about 200 tons of oil on a passage - particularly a rough one where the ship was moving about. On passage once down the Arabian sea in the SW Monsoon I noticed that there were two small tankers following in the smooth water caused by our leaking oil. Made their passage quite smooth !
 
#40 ·
The US Coast Guard creates, writes, publishes and promulgates, investigates infractions and prosecutes offenders of the rules US commercial sailors live by. I have here the stack of USCG publications I used preparing to write my Chief Engineer license in New York the fall of 1974.

80 pages CG-191, May 1, 1968.
Rules and Regulations for Licensing and Certificating of Merchant Marine Personnel Subchapter B. (Title 46, CFR, Parts 10, 12, 14, 15, and 16)

18 pages 1944 pamphlet from US Bureau of Mines.
Construction, Care, and Use of Permissible Flame Safety Lamps

100 pages CG-108, April 1, 1972. Rules and Regulations for Military Explosives and Hazardous Munitions. (Excerpts from Title 46 C.F.R. Part 146)

180 pages CG-115, June 1, 1973. Marine Engineering Regulations Subchapter F. Materials, Construction, Installation, Inspection, and Maintenance of Boilers, Unfired Pressure Vessels, Appurtenances, Piping, Welding and Brazing. (Title 46, C.F.R., Parts 50 to 63 inclusive)

150 pages CG-259, June 1, 1971. Electrical Engineering Regulations Subchapter J (Title 46, C.F.R., Parts 110 to 113, Inclusive)

150 pages CG-257, September 1, 1964. Rules and Regulations for Cargo and Miscellaneous Vessels Subchapter I (Title 46, C.F.R., Parts 90 to 98, Inclusive)

160 pages CG-123, January 1, 1973. Rules and Regulations for Tank Vessels Subchapter D. (Title 46, C.F.R., Parts 30 to 40 inclusive)
(Including Pollution Prevention Regulations, 33 CFR)

40 pages CG-329, July 1, 1968. Fire Fighting Manual for Tank Vessels.

All you had to do was go to a USCG Office of Marine Inspection, show your license and they happily would give us for free the latest versions of any and all USCG regulations we desired.

We all were expected to commit all of this information to memory.

The years I wrote license tests the USCG was phasing in multiple choice questions but my memory tells me that was not for major test areas.

We always said that we 'wrote' a license since that is what we did. Write by hand with a USCG black ink pen on lined, grammar school, learning to write, paper. My writing sucked so I print everything. Writing many, many pages of answers were normal.

My memory tells me I turned in 144 hand written pages in answer to the question: What would you, as Chief Engineer do, before, during and after a shipyard dry-docking and overhaul. Nailed it.

The two examiners, one deck, one engine, were kids who had graduated USCG Academy June 1974 and this their first assignment. I got into it with that kid who knocked me down ten points for my description of how a propeller works.

I went to the OCMI - Officer in Charge of Marine Inspection. He read my answer and the USCG answer and said to me "I can see where you are coming from but prove it in a published text."

Saturday November 2, 1974 at Marine Bookshop "Everything Nautical", One Broadway, New York 4, NY I bought two books. Introduction to Steel Shipbuilding, Elijah Baker III, 1953 and Modern Ships, John H. La Dage, 1965. Both describe as I did that the prop is a water pump impeller and as such it creates a low-pressure area on the forward side of the blade. While pumping -- pushing -- that water with the aft side of the blade.

The USCG answer said the blade just pushes the ship through the water.

It was not a big thing but it was my last question and I was looking at a perfect score. I would have had a 90, 70 is passing, but I wanted that perfect 100.

Greg Hayden
Vista - San Diego area - California
 
#41 ·
Bad luck and commiserations on finding yourself in front of such inept examiners Greg. (Maybe if you’d included the effect of a Kort nozzle in your answer they’d have understood better).

Over this side of the pond, I was more fortunate with examiners. For my Second’s ticket (not sure of Stateside equivalent), the examiner was a guy of considerable experience and made me work very hard. Had to resist kissing him when he told me I’d passed, (think a quick reverse of decision might have resulted otherwise).

By the time I bothered to go up for Chief’s, it was about 10 years later. The examiner was, of course, also a very knowledgeable man. Difference this time being that he was about the same age as me. Felt more like a comparison of experience than an exam. (Still could have kissed him on getting the result though).
 
#43 ·
KS. Can also recall the North Sea cunning plan "walk out the cables" from Master's. Can also recall the examiner, Capt. Dyston.(sp?) in Hull advising me during Master's Orals that he was asking what I would do not what I'd read in a book or what a lecturer had told me. Rgds.
 
#45 ·
After reading all the posts on this subject I can't for the life of me see how lowering the anchors out to their full extent when in deep water can help a vessel in a hove-to condition; any possible drag factor would be minimal at best. The only time I would have walked out both anchors would be where my 'dead' ship was heading for the beach with some chance of the anchors preventing the grounding or minimising its impact.

Tongue in cheek comment -I dread to think of what size of sea anchor one would need to assist a large cargo ship in a hove-to condition!!!

By the way I discovered recently that what I always knew as Colza Oil (wave oil in a lifeboat) was, and presumably still is, Rape Seed Oil. No doubt some folk knew this anyway but it's taken me many years to learn that. I'll bet even Dog F**k (of lifeboat ticket fame) knew that. I mention this as the only sea anchors I ever came across were the ones in lifeboats. Probably not part of today's lifeboat kit.
 
#48 ·
Lifejackets are one thing, but crash helmets are quite another.

When it comes to the point that hard hats might be appropriate for any form of seafaring, something is surely lost?

Nobody admires the work of the rescue services/RNLI more than I do and, for sure, I appreciate their needs. But as a matter of nostalgia? Have we gone past our stop, Mother?
 
#58 ·
janmike

I agree with you if you are on a lee shore, but if you were like me and sailing across the south china sea and pacific ocean, it is very difficult to reach the bottom in 300 to 1000 metres even close in to the shore line.

Regards

PS when you are also carrying 150 k cubic metres of liguid methane.
It becomes very interesting.
 
#64 · (Edited)
The only time I can remember heaving to was on 16/1/1974 on the Sugar Importer at the entrance to the Channel with wind rising rapidly.We stopped with an engine problem at about 1100 and did she roll. Started up again and weather wise all hell broke loose. We hove to and just concentrated on staying afloat until 0200 next day.

I never saw a ship handle like it. I went onto the wing of the bridge and the wind was forcing itself through the nose into the lungs! When she pushed her bow into the sea we slowed her down to prevent damage to No.1 hatch. The beams under the forecastle were split by the water pressure and had to be rewelded.
After 0200 next day the worst had passed and we went steaming up to London in almost spring like weather.

They were pleased to see us in London. The Chairman's greenhouse was destroyed by the storm and they feared bad things!
 
#65 · (Edited)
Have only just stumbled on this long running and interesting thread.
I write as an Engineer rather than a Seaman, so I stand to be corrected by the more knowledgeable, although I do sometimes resort to heaving to aboard my Lugger 'Alaric' when the weather gets rough on Rutland Water. It makes enjoying a cup of tea much easier.
My understanding is that 'Heaving to' is a sailing ship term, meaning heaving in the fore sail lee side sheets and slacking off the main and mizzen so that the ship is balanced with the bow just off the wind. In really bad weather a square rigged ship would heave to with just a reefed jib and mizzen on.
The same phrase has been carried over to powered ships to mean slowly steaming ahead with the bow just off the wind.
By definition a ship without power, mechanical or wind can't be Hove to.
 
#66 ·
I write as an Engineer rather than a Seaman, so I stand to be corrected by the more knowledgeable,
The same phrase has been carried over to powered ships to mean slowly steaming ahead with the bow just off the wind.
By definition a ship without power, mechanical or wind can't be Hove to.
No need to stand corrected, if a vessel loses power it would not be able to heave-to, it would lose headway and would certainly eventually (or even quickly depending whether loaded or in ballast) 'broach-to' a very undesirable situation beam onto seas and may well founder. Basically the only vessels designed to be beam end onto sea were side-winder trawlers where-in the rolling helped us get the nets on board and even side-winders have been known to founder in heavy seas when hauling in the nets in icy conditions, where the ice forms quicker than you can chop it off, especially on the masts and rigging, then there is always that rogue-wave which mathematical modelling scientists told us was a figment of our imagination and couldn't possibly happen. Had to change their methods of mathematical modelling after the advent of the satellites which showed numerous rogue waves around the world at any one time. Every naval architect should be made to sail on the ships they designed, sailed on one bulker that used to bury the first three hatches under water, never were the words 'com 'on girl you can do it' so oft used.(Smoke)
 
#69 ·
#68

Thank you for that explanation S38. I have no experience of drift-net fishing but you explain clearly the difference between heaving-to, drifting, and driftnet-fishing, the last mentioned being neither drifting nor being hove-to.

Perhaps heaving-to might be better described as seeking to hold one's position against the wind - and not attempting to make headway - but trying not to make sternway or losing ground to leeward.

Drifting, surely, is what any floating object does when it lacks power and is at the mercy of wind and current, as a piece of flotsam.

Drift-net fishing (as you clearly explain it) is neither of these things. It is doubtful that the simple setting of a mizzen sail could drive anything to windward; but it certainly would help to keep any vessel head-to-wind. Now that you explain that a drifter (fishing vessel) would keep her propeller turning ahead, all becomes clear; and it all becomes bleedin' obvious that whilst the two drifter-vessels are kept head-to wind by the combined action of both the mizzen-sail and the propeller at dead-slow-ahead, the thing which drifts is the net, rather than the vessel. The same principle would apply to a drifter working on her own, with the only difference being that the dift-net would lie directly astern of the single vessel, effectively in a straight line. In either case (whether fishing singly or in a pair) the vessel/vessels would need to keep the propeller/propellers turning ahead in order to avoid being shoved stern-first over the fishing net and getting the propeller/propellers fouled by drifting backwards and over the fishing gear.

In neither case is a drift-net fishing vessel either hove-to or drifting as such.
 
#71 ·
I have been on the helm numerous times when hove to especially supply ships when waiting to work cargo or typhoons in the china Sea to hurricanes in the Atlantic, Recently I experienced it off Greenland on a cruise ship when invited to the bridge. I will leave the technical details to others. Regards C
 
#72 ·
I was in a hurricane off Cape Hatteras. We were bound for Baltimore. It was the only one that I have experienced during my sea career. I was a 3rd year apprentice.

There was no way that we could have done anything with the anchors, The top of the waves were uo there, over 45 degrees above the crows nest.

We could hear the propeller picking up revs as the bow rode over the crest. Then, the governor cut in and slowed it down as we dipped into the trough.

I don't know how the Old Man got us out of that, but here I am, writing this!

I think that we can forget about all that, except in the oral exam for Master's. Forts had a spare propeller on the foredeck, The examiner had a great time getting us to build a raft out of hatchboards and floating it, with the propeller on top, down to the stern, when we lost the other one.
 
#73 ·
If the ship was a trooper superstructure would provide a lot of windage. I can't imagine suspended anchors would serve as an efficient 'sea anchor' to pull the bow round into the wind. 'Heaving to' implies use of engines to prevent vessel falling off. It would only seem to make sense if there was a risk of the ship being driven down wind into shallow water.
 
#74 ·
As mate I’d sailed with a great teacher originally from Killybegs in Donegal, he had been an ex. fisherman, ex. foreign-going Master, ex. Dublin pilot and then back to the North Atlantic as Master. A man of few words, never a lecture, such as when watching the mate shift ship in Toronto harbour – “Mr. Mate why not try her on dead slow astern?” – and you found she behaved better than when going slow astern. Same with handling in heavy weather. One good piece of advice from him was about “dodging” as practiced in his day fishing to the west of Ireland. If it’s too dangerous to heave too, or you leave it to late, put her stern too the weather, stop the engines, a good man on the wheel and let him work up a sweat to keep her steady running before it. On my first command I had left it too late to heave too (on a little lady grossly underpowered) and can still to this day remember passing just over a half mile to the south of Inishtrahull Light, NNW 10/11, and not able to see the top (at nearly 190 feet). Since then with confidence in Captain Greene’s advice I used this method on various ships, when caught up on a lee shore, or in moderate to severe weather conditions to assist the engineering dept., to do work on the main engines. I.e. stop the engines for several hours. Once the wheelmen get the feel it’s “wee buns”. That first ship was 2,500 tons and the largest I tried successfully was 42,000tons. In a hurricane just make sure you’re in the correct quadrant and you’ve got plenty of sea room to weather it. With steam turbines you can get the lady settled down when hove too, to ride it out better than diesel powered ships as they have a critical speed, and need a bit more nursing. Better to make sure both anchors are well secured and housed properly - at all times when underway.
 
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