A helm (despite its name) is actually a chair...<br/><br/>You sit in the chair and it psychically links you to the ship itself, you see what the ship sees, and have control over most of its attached components (sails, anchor, etc) just not the weapons.<br/><br/>For a magic user (priest, mage) or a psionicist there is a catch, though your ability at the controls so to speak will be very good, you lose all your spells for a number of hours equal to the time you are at the helm.<br/><br/>Also unlike our ships there is no "steering" wheel on the deck, the helm is located somewhere inside the heart of the ship usually ina  defendable room.<br/><br/>In the living ship I recommended, it can fly itself (it is alive after all), it just needs someone to connect to it an hour a day to make course corrections, and so on, also you'd want someone in the helm for a battle.<br/><br/>Anyway I hope that helps :)