Self-Steering

When you’re sailing a steady course for hours at a time, or you’re singlehanding and just need a break...

If you’re navigating a narrow channel or where there’s a lot of traffic, you don’t need it. But what about longer distances and wide open water? Or when you’re sailing a steady course for hours at a time, or you’re single-handing and just need a break. Self-steering sure would be nice. What are the options?

Tiller Combs and Locks

Tiller combs can be as simple as a wooden rack to fix the tiller at several positions or a “flip up” slot and vane rig. A length of bungee cord and a jam cleat on the tiller handle can provide “infinite” adjustment in light winds (see, for example, “Simple Tiller-Tamer” in Small Craft Advisor #98). And Tom Pamperin shared a really slick solution—a “bungee shackle” around the tiller handle—on the Small Boats website. A more sophisticated DIY tiller-lock is the “Huntingford Helm Impeder,” which is credited to England’s Dinghy Cruising Association. Assembled from bungee cord, some cleats and a fairlead, its advantages are infinite adjustment of resistance and direction, and less sensitivity to attachment of the athwartship control line. Here’s a YouTube video showing how it works. Christine Berven solved her Tiller-Tamer’s slack line issue by adding a bungee and block, similar to the impeder (Small Craft Advisor #113). Tiller locks from Davis and Wavefront are effective and fairly low cost solutions. And if they’re not fancy enough, Duckworks BBS now markets a high-tech Swedish “friction wheel clutch” tiller controller (duckworks.com/tiller-lock-kit).

Tiller lock (photo from Wavefront )

While the big advantage of the home-brew and commercial “tiller-tamers” is simplicity, they all seem to work best if the ends of the control line are brought back to the transom corners, as shown above. They’re usually only good for a short break while you keep a weather eye on the sails and traffic because as soon as the wind shifts or you cross a wake, you will probably need to readjust the tiller. But if you stay close to the helm, a tiller-tamer or comb might be all you ever need.

Sheet-Steering

When sailing on a fixed heading for long stretches, bored—and sometimes desperate—sailors have figured out how to use a sail to help steer the boat to the wind. For example, while circumnavigating on GANNET, his Moore 24, solo-sailor Webb Chiles related how he dealt with the dead electronic tiller-pilot in cruisingworld.com/simple-self-steering. Sailing to windward, he successfully balanced the sails and locked the tiller—just as Joshua Slocum, the original single-handed round-the-world sailor, did on SPRAY back in 1895. But while there seems to be universal agreement that sheet-steering must begin with a well-balanced boat—and fair amount of patience, sailing off the wind usually requires more “active control” between sail and rudder—even on Chiles’ highly-tuned boat.