Why is the Tug going backwards... ?

The Marine Landing ship was visiting Greenwich. Three huge Tugs were sent to tow her safely up the river Thames to the sea. The first Tug to arrive does so BACKWARDS.....
Then the second and third Tugs arrive and the second is sailing forwards and the third backwards. When I say backwards of course I mean stern first ! And not bows first as usual. I am also going to assume that there is a good reason for this nautically speaking !! If you know please comment !! Cheers ...

Category:

Comedy

Tags:

• Tug
• Navy
• Boat
• Ship
• Thames
• River
• Sea
• Sail
• Backwards
• Why
• Comedy
• Funny
• Mad-eye

[DrumGold]

While the tugs can go sideways, they generally go ahead or astern because it is much faster and they can pull harder. Its a characteristic of the Voith Schneider Propeller propulsion system. :)

[Anigmalistic]

The answer to the question is "Voith Schneider Propulsion" I am not going to explain it all to you, do your own research, but I will give you a clue, look for "ship manoevring characteristics" with particular reference to "turning pivot points" have fun googling.

[DrumGold]

@Anigmalistic WKD ! Cheers m8. Just looked on Wikipedia.

[Daniel631339]

I am a pilot of one of these lovely machines and the only reasons I could think of for this type of maneuver is her foward propulsion isnt working correctly, or she may have been using her speedometer to measure the speed in witch the current was moving.

[DrumGold]

Ah !!! Thanks !! for the reply Daniel !!

Yeh lets hope we get some more answers !!

I think you may be right as the three tugs had to pull a very large ship up the Thames so they probably needed current speeds to do it all !

[bladesman123]

I like this video, it shows a tug boat going backwards

[miguelaltes]

Just maybe the marine version of "Mater" from Disney`s movie "Cars"....... Maybe....

[winter526]

I think youll find that the underlined reason is simply that those svwitzer boys are just a bit strange!!

[darrenstill]

are you all retards the reason she is going backwards (astern) is to prevent too much wash

[Gpoint177]

I've been aboard tug boat with Voith Shneider propulsion and We've sailed so many times like this. It is nothing special.

[YouAreSpotOnWithThat]

Dear Willy.,

Haven't you heard of the song "Stuck On Repeat" ?

Cheers.

from,

Willy Digaditch.

(Katowice Poland.)

[Anigmalistic]

When the tug goes astern the pivot point moves to about 1/3 to 1/5 of the tug's length from the stern, which means that the turning force from the Voith Schneider is separated from the pivot point and provides a good turning lever and therefore greater manoevrability.

And in case you were wondering how I know all this the question "Under what circumstances would a vessel be more manoevrable going astern and which vessel would this likely apply to?" cropped up in one of my OOW CoC exams :-)

[Anigmalistic]

However you can see the problem if the pivot point AND the turning force are in the same place, there is no turning lever and this makes manoevring difficult.

For this reason the Voith Schneider is normally placed about 1/3 of the tug's length from the bow so that she has a turning lever whilst towing, but this presents the problem that when going ahead without a tow the pivot point and turning force are once again in the same place.

[Anigmalistic]

Glad to be of help :-)

The specific reason for going astern is to do with the movement of the pivot point. On a normal ship the pivot point for turning sits about 1/3 to 1/5 of the ship's length from the bow meaning that when a turning force is applied from the rudders at the stern the ship turns. With a tug engaged in towing the pivot point moves to the point at which the towing wire acts on the tug, and this is normally intentionally at the stern to avoid girting (another google for you) :)