Tiller or wheel

When sailing I'm a tiller guy. I've come to terms with a wheel, I just think of it as a vertical rotary tiller. I quit thinking about the rotary steering wheel aspect and just move the wheel up and down, gripping it where ever and in my mind it is just like a tiller.

I used to use the yoke idea on my small 26' sailboat when motoring long distances. Summer vacation travel is mostly motoring on Puget Sound ( a lousy place to sail in the summer, no wind.) I would run a line through 2 snatch blocks at the tiller and string it around the outside of the boat through a block lashed onto the forestay. You could then wander all around the deck getting away from that noisy and obnoxious infernal little outboard
running it's guts out at the *** end of the boat.

As for space I actually find a wheel more cumbersome in boats to 35' or so. A tiller folds up or can be pushed to the side when moored but a big wheel is always in the way and has to be squeezes around in a modest sized boats cockpit. My .02.

 

Tillers are "fun" and have feel that one just cannot get with a wheel BUT, for long range sailing...gimme a wheel!

That said, my 41' Dickerson has a tiller that I am presently "jury rigging" to a wheel and will be looking at combining the best of both worlds with a pedestal AND a tiller...some combination of either a ram type assembly with/or cables through the lazzarette...should be interesting!

 

Tiller, by all means

The tiller will always win in my book for a number of reasons:

1) Simple - a LOT less to go wrong, and in both racing and cruising if it can go wrong it is already going wrong, you just don't know it yet.

2) Faster - you can't turn a wheel fast enough, unless the gear ratio and diameter of the wheel is extreme, and few boats have the space for a giant wheel. There are numerous conditions in which a boat can be better sailed simply because the helmsperson can turn more quickly.

3) Feel - you always feel the water flowing across the rudder; which lets you know when the rudder is about to stall and the boat is on the edge of control. Thus, increased safety.

4) Less Space - it takes vastly less space in the cockpit, even though many don't believe this, when a cruising boat is out sailing it is primarily driven by autopilot and my tiller is pointed straight up above the rudder head when the autopilot is driving, making tiny circles in the air and taking no space at all. When in port, the tiller is always straight up out of the way. There is simply no way to get rid of the wheel and its idiotic companion the massive electronics laden binnacle.

5) More Comfortable - I remain baffled when people tell me a wheel is more comfortable. I suppose if you sat in the center of the boat looking at a compass it might be (if there was a seat there). But no one I know of steers from the middle of the boat, they want to be on the rail. The tiller with a tiller extension solves this problem beautifully; far better than either two wheels (an explosion in complexity and unreliability) or one giant wheel. If you're sitting on the rail pulling on the edge of a giant wheel is it really more comfortable than a tiller? I think not. Finally, if you're cruising the autopilot is steering anyway, so the entire comfort argument is specious. If you're steering from within a wheel house cruising, why aren't you just using the joy stick on the autopilot? If it's good enough for giant ship captains, why not a cruising sailor?

I obviously have an opinion and would retrofit a boat immediately with a tiller if it didn't have one.

BV

 

A tiller is my choice as with a tiller the boat will have to be set up properly and balanced.

Using a wheel that is the equiveliant of a 20ft tiller on a small boat invites sailing with an unbalanced sail plan and created Huge drag.

Second the tiller auto pilot is perhaps 1/5 the price and complexity of hydraulic or ropes/ belts to drive the wheel.

Offshore boats with a trim tab on the rudder can either set the tab up for "power streering " or have the AP simply steer with the tab tiller.

Pushed up in port a tiller requires zero room from the cockpit.

Boats (even power boats) with house structures can use a VERTICAL tiller (as seen in yacht club launches) .

The advantage of rapid rudder reversal, and cheap/simple autopilot remain.

FF

 

Totally agree

 

I prefer tiller.
Wingover use a repeated one with 2 Quadrant and a vertical cockpit tiller (like a plane...must be a safe choice ?)
The rear tiller is direct, only used as a safety device. Pilot is on rudder quadrant or /and cockpit quadrant or on the cockpit tiller when using a light autonomous pilot
No space lost.

Mechanism is spectra and basic pulley.
Sector (quadrant) are 316L
Very reliable (survived 10 years of racing RORC), kept like new condition, with most original parts. Only one pulley was cut where a 316L cable had replaced spectra.
Home made and designed by Bill Bullimore in 1993

Real great job.