Combined Steering??

[allanyed]

In browsing through a few drawings this morning on the RMG site, I found the below as-built drawing of Gibraltar 1754 (20)  It is low resolution so hard to see when blown up, but the rudder and steering configuration looks rather odd to me.  It extends into the lower counter as usual, then the lines are drawn in red from this point and extend up through the quarter deck.    My quandry is that the tiller, if it is indeed the tiller, has a crook rising up as if for the helmsman to hold.  If that is the case, why have a steering wheel?   I question if this is in fact part of a tiller rather than the cap rail as there is a section missing for about 2 feet starting  5 feet 4 inches aft of the lower crook.    The deck plans show the wheel and where the rudder head looks to be coming up through the QD.  If these are both tiller and wheel, I can see them rigged similarly to the larger ships pre-Pollard style but with the blocks and lines on the QD rather than at a lower deck level although this would be a huge inconvenience.  I have looked through Lavery and Goodwin but neither show examples like this set up.   If anyone has any more details or examples of this that they can share, that would be great. 

Allan

 

Edited May 15, 2022 by allanyed

[Keith Black]

 

[Roger Pellett]

A tiller that could be inserted into a mortise in the rudder post if the steering wheel became disabled?

[allanyed]

Thanks Keith, much appreciated and this is what I had been leaning to.  The contemporary drawing that I could find of the Duchess of Kingston is similar to the pics that I posted, but again, there is no rigging to the tiller shown.   I would really like to find a source based on contemporary information showing how this was rigged.  Perhaps Vanguard does have such a source.  

 

Roger, that requires another tiller below the QD to which the wheel rope is attached which USUALLY means the emergency tiller is not shown.   This may very well be correct or possibly there was a mortise below for an emergency tiller.   

 

Lots of choices

 

Allan

 

 

[mtaylor]

Was it common to show the blocks and assorted rigging for this configuration?  I've seen it on other models but then, I haven't looked at any plans.

[allanyed]

Mark 

I just looked at a slew of photos of contemporary models, including fully rigged 20 and 24 gun ships.  Some showed a tiller, others a wheel, none showed both,  so there was rigging for the wheel plus tiller configuration on the QD.  I then looked for an 18 gun and found one model, a brig of 1810,  showing the rigging.  Photo below,      It seems to be close to the rigging in the Duchess of Kingston kit.

Allan