Replace wheel with tiller?

[hamburking]

Originally Posted by roverhi

Pulled the wheel on my boat and replaced with a tiller. Way better control of the boat and a lot less wear and tear on me to steer. Wheels are a yuppie status symbol on boats under 35' and even 40'. Yard

I had a Pearson 30 (now sold) and am seriously considering the P35 as my "go south" boat. Loving the shallow draft, strength and simplicity of the boat. Just have to find a good one locally when the time comes. Having a tiller is another major feature to me. Thanks for posting about your P35.

[Deltasailor]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Unless you are planning to keep the boat forever and have a Viking funeral, hang on to the parts you remove. The next owner may not be interested in buying a tiller boat.

But while it is yours? "Whatever floats your boat."

Proper sailors like tillers. Better "feel".

[TrentePieds]

Wheels are an abomination in all small cruising boats, say under 45 or 50 feet. Once you are into those kinds of sizes and displacements the mechanical advantage offered by a wheel becomes worth the loss of "feel" and "handiness" that it costs.

Wheels became de rigueur in the late '60s and early '70 when every Tom, Dick and Harry - who had no experience of boats whatever - suddenly had to go to sea and fondly believed that buying a sailboat and handling it is just like buying a Toyota Corolla, hoping on the dealers lot and driving home to your driveway. Builders, to make a profit had to cater to that "mass market", and sailorman's common sense be damned!

In consequence of conspicuous consumption and the consequential mass production of boats during the profligate '60s and '70s, and of the marketing guff purveyed by the glossy magazines, wheels became what you got, unless you had the nous to reject them and shop around for a tiller steered boat.

TrentePieds is wheel-steered because she was originally "owner fitted" (during that era) by a man who was a competent cabinet maker but a naive sailor. The wheel will go, but for the time being I put up with it because there are priorities higher than the planned conversion to tiller.

In addition to being wheel-steered, TP's type suffers from having a spade rudder (instead of a skeg-hung rudder) that is both undersized and "overbalanced". Many other boats of her type have had their rudder areas augmented by something like 30%, all this new area added BEHIND the stock. That modification will happen at the next haul-out. As she is, she gets downright "squirrelly" at about half rudder deflection when under power, because the prop wash grabs hold of the "balance-area" forward of the stock, and tends to force the rudder to full deflection. HAD she been tiller steered that malaise would have been obvious from the beginning. As it is, the wheel brake tends to mask what is a fundamental design flaws.

Not complaining. I knew what I was buying at a price that was "right". My comments are merely meant to give others - novices particularly - some meat to chew on.

If you are confident in your ability to handle whatever kinda boat you may be asked to handle you will adapt to the "problems" any particular boat has. Whatever boat you buy there will be things about her you like, and things you don't like. There may even be things you loathe - in my case steering wheels in small boats. But the important thing is to get on the water and do some sailing, not to go in fruitless and unnecessarily expensive search for perfection.

For 20% of the maximum effort and money you could possibly put into any boat, you get 80% of your desired results. So just get an "adequate" boat and go sailing :-)

All the best :-)

TP

[zippy]

I have had sailboats with tillers and my present sailboat has a wheel. I prefer the wheel. Apparently I am not a proper sailor and my boat is an abomination..[emoji15]

[maxingout]

I have had both tillers and wheel steering.

It was useful to have a tiller on my earlier sailboats because it taught me how to balance my sail area so that I had a neutral helm or one with just a little weather helm so the boat would round up if i released the tiller, rather than go into a jibe.

My Westsail 32 had a barn door rudder, and when my sails were out of balance, and there was lots of weather helm, sailing was like a work out at the gym. Again sail balance is critical.

I had balanced rudders on my catamaran, and so the wheel steering had a fairly easy time of it even when sails were somewhat out of balance.

I had four ways to steer my catamaran which made me happy offshore. Most of the time I used the autopilot. If that failed I had the port steering wheel. If that failed I had the starboard steering wheel. If that failed I had the emergency tiller.

Redundancy works well for me when sailing offshore, and I will stick with my wheel steering.

[Rorzech]

I got a 31ft C&C with a tiller, I love the tiller. What's with these sailers saying that its hard to hang on to. I've always trimmed my sails so I didn't need to hang on to the tiller. I spend five minutes at a time riding the pulpit at the other end of the boat while single handed. I thought that's how everyone was supposed to sail. I was taught 40 years ago by an old sailor how to do that. A wheel in a cockpit to me is nothing but a royal pain always in the way of moving around and something to fall against. Always taking up that valuable real estate in the cockpit. If I had a 40 footer I'd still have a tiller plus a wind vane and an auto pilot. It seems to me that everyone wants to be standing in front of a wheel for some need for their ego. You can have it. If you trim your sails properly, it will steer by itself (most of the time) and your boat will go faster. Who's with me on this ?

[Delancey]

I converted my forty footer to a tiller. Boat has a balanced spade rudder. Driving the boat under sail is a dream. Love it.

Throw in a tiller extension and you can sit anywhere, no more being trapped behind a wheel. Driving the boat in skinny water in the Bahamas I especially liked being able to stand up on the side deck outside the cockpit combing and enjoy a great view of the water ahead of me. Didn't need to have someone standing on the bow watching, could see for myself. Impossible with a wheel.

When at anchor and the tiller gets raised up out of the way is when the party really gets started. The way the cockpit gets larger, it makes my forty footer feel like a forty eight footer. I think most full time cruisers spend more time hanging out in their cockpit at anchor than they do sailing. If you have a smaller boat you won't regret making the change.

My only complaint is that all that added sensitivity gained by having a tiller means that you can feel every shake and shudder from the propwash vibrating the rudder while under power.

Makes you want to sail more and power less so maybe not such a bad thing...

[Doug4bass]

Hmmmmm.........a tiller on a 50ft boat....

[foojin]

We switched our Tayana 37 from wheel to tiller. Makes more sense for us. I can't imagine a 29-footer with a wheel and pedestal in the cockpit. It would be the first thing I would change.

[Delancey]

Originally Posted by Doug4bass

Hmmmmm.........a tiller on a 50ft boat....

Perhaps you have a not uncommon misconception. "Oh, my boat is far to BIG to have a wheel. Tillers are for little dinghies!"

Next time you haul out your Catalina 385 have a look at your rudder. Like pretty much all modern sailboats with a detached spade rudder, your rudder is what's called a "balanced" rudder. This means it has a portion of it's area forward of the rotational axis which reduces the amount of effort required to turn it.

In fact, amongst racing sailors who value the mechanical simplicity as well as the greater sensitivity of a tiller, wheels are looked down on. Tillers are predominate in the TP 52 class and wheels are basically unheard of in the Open 60 class.

[Benz]

The most modern boat I've ever sailed on--63' one-off trimaran with canting, rotating mast--has tillers. Three rudders, two tillers, everything outside and visible.
The only sort of wheel arrangement I approve of is a worm gear, which also does not take up the middle of everywhere, since it mounts facing aft.

[Delancey]

72 foot long Ran.

[leefromcanada]

you have all given very helpful, and hilarious I might add; responses to my original question. thanks!

[leefromcanada]

further to taking out a wheel on my Mirage 29... there are engine controls on the pedestal. I don't know the boat well yet. I can't remember if there are secondary engine controls in the cockpit by the engine key and start panel. important to figure out...

[Delancey]

One of the things that I really don't like about typical pedestals is that they almost always have dual lever engine controls.

I installed the Spinlock single lever throttle control which is great. The lever is removable to clear up space and prevent you from kicking it. Alternately, it can be used with a standard winch handle which is handy.

It's really just a cover plate, special socket, and removable lever which requires the purchase and installation of a separate throttle control such as one by Teleflex but can be used with controls by several different manufacturers.

Mine is mounted on the side of the cockpit foot well but can go anywhere you have room. I find it easy to stretch down with my foot to adjust it while I am driving around standing up with the tiller extension looking for a place to anchor.