sheet to tiller 'self steering'

[frank durant]

here is a simple idea to try out. Been around for ever...just a good pic of how easy it can be to hook up .http://www.todspages.net/SSa-SelfSteering.html

[epiphany]

I used that or a similar setup on my Com-Pac 23D, it worked well, and that boat had *way* more weather helm than an Ariel. Haven't yet used the rig on Katie. Sailing last week in Winyah Bay, I found that just a couple bends of the windward sheet onto the tiller would keep Katie on course for a quarter mile or more. Awesome! The Swede sure drew them right!

[Scott Galloway]

After reading the above, I downloaded some inspirational pages from the web, thanks to you guys, and then purchased a used copy of John Letcher’s book “Self Steering for Sailing Craft from Amazon.com for about $12.50 plus shipping.

In the attached photo is my first attempt at a sheet to tiller rig for close-hauled sailing. I have not yet cut any lines or surgical tubing, so I had to tie a few temporary knots and make some adjustments as I went. (Ever tie a bowline or a half hitch in surgical tubing?). Nonetheless this crude system worked great while beating in variable wind and swell in the ocean today with working jib and full main.

I am most interested if anyone else out there has experimented successfully with sheet to tiller arrangements and I am especially interested in photos and specs for sheet to tiller self-steering rigs for all points of sail on an Ariel.

[Scott Galloway]

I am still messing around with sheet-to-tiller steering for my Ariel. I am having considerable sucess (as in sailing close hauled for miles in modest open ocean swell with winds to twenty plus mph)

The photo below is my mainsheet tension-driven gear, which is proving very effective for close-hauled sailing to almost a beam reach. That system has moved from prototype to fully functionally system in final form with its teak tiller-mounted steering control box. This box is also used with the jib sheet-to-tiller gear. The system also features a weather-side vang, and lee side (one, two, or three strand) surgical tubing elastic. Don't use bungee. Use surgical tubing. This tubing is 3/8 inch OD (outside diameter). Note: Medical supply folks sell their surgical tubing by inside diameter, but sailors describe it by outside diameter.

The gear box is sweet...at least until one of those hand-made teak cleats of mine jabs you someplace tender. The cleats like to chew on the inside of thighs. Actually all you need to a pair of cam cleats mounted on the sides of your tiller, but one of my design criteria was not to drill any more holes in my tiller. I used two existing vertical holes that were drilled by a previous owner.

The box quickly attaches with two wing nuts. My reasoning for the design that I used was that one uses these devices because one wants to let the boat steer itself for hours and hours and hours...or at least for quite a while, and during that quite-a-while, one is not in the aft part of the cockpit. And so, although my design is space-intensive when in use, it can be put away below and does not crowd the cockpit or interfere with other functions when not in use. The problem with the cleats on the steering box is that when one is tacking, one has to slide in behind the box and those cleats are more than little intimidating, (I have bruises on my legs to prove it) even if they are useful for coiling control line ends.

[Scott Galloway]

What is somewhat different about my system as it has developed thus far is the detachable tiller-mounted steering control box and the use of the small vang that connects the mainsheet to the turning block that feed the tiller. With this vang, I can sit behind at the weather forward side of the cockpit behind the trunk cabin or in the companionway hatch and fine tune the rig if need be. Actually, if I reverse the vang, I could run the fine-tuning control line from the vang to a cleat at aft end of the trunk cabin or even down into the cabin to a cleat.

Other systems that I have reviewed have used cam cleats on the tiller, but making fine adjustments in heavy wind is rough with just those cleats. The lines that run through them can be under considerable pressure. I have bruises from those teak cleats to prove it. The vang make this system purr. John Lecher's use of blocks, as Ii understand his book, was primarily to tame jib sheet pressure for his jib sheet-to-tiller gear. In my adaptation of his design (and those of others), I use the vang not to reduce the line pressure on the tiller, but instead to allow me to make fine adjustments to the system with "fingertip control."

[Scott Galloway]

The next photo is my prototype jib sheet cam lever designed to transfer a partial load from the jib sheet onto a line run through three blocks to the tiller. It is hard to tell what is going on in this photo because with this prototype the cam lever, when engaged, is too close to horizontal to make the mechanics of the design evident, but the cam lever does seem to work at least to some degree. This is an intentional, if poorly executed, rip-off of the cam lever design on the wonderful sheet-to-tiller steering page:

http://www.jsward.com/steering/index.shtml

The above page is worth reading and following. It provides detailed directions for designing a sheet-to-tiller system system and an innovative approach to using surgical tubing in self sterign systems. I relied on the page heavily. There are a number of other self steering pages on-line, and they all owe a debt of gratitude to John Letcher's book referenced in other posts above. I bought my copy of Letcher's "Self Steering for Sailing Craft" through Amazon.com for $12.50 plus shipping.

What I can't do is relax the jib sheet without the full load of the jib being transferred through the cam to the tiller. The red line in the photo is the tiller steering control line. The line to which the clip is attached is the jib sheet.

The chief issue is that is you don't want to let out the jib before you disengage the cam cleat on the side of the tiller steering control box. So you need to release the steering control line first, or perhaps disengage it completely at the tiller mounted steering control box until the jib has been reset, and then re-engage it afterwards. This jib sheet cam lever should work for broad reaching or a beam reach.

I need to make refinements here. I would prefer a horizontal cam lever on the lee side of the cockpit that would be accessible from the cockpit. On a day like yesterday, (20+ mph winds and lumpy) going forward on the lee side while alone to engage this cam thing is a real hassle. I did not even try to engage the cam lever until an east wind picked up close to shore, banishign the prevaling westerlyt, and then (as shown in the photo) I was able to play with the cam lever in that five knot easterly. Santa Cruz Point is in the background of the photo.

The cam lever is a prototype made of scrap redwood that I had in my shop. If it works, I intend to remanufacture the cam lever in teak.