More Simple Self Steering

[Captain Smollett]

As you guys may remember, I am a big proponent of sheet-to-tiller gear.  Today, I experimented a bit more with the even simpler self steering technique of a simple tiller lashing.

My little trailer boat does not typically find her own way very well...high freeboard forward and the wind blows the bow off so that she won't lay in irons very well at all.  Keeping her head up to raise or lower a sail, for example, can be difficult without the iron jib.

Today, I chanced upon something that worked far better than I imagined it would on this boat.  I was not even trying to get her to self-steer on a broad reach, but rather was lashing the tiller to see if that would help hold her head up while I dropped the sails.  But we were on a broad reach when I did it, and when I let go of the tiller, I saw her correcting her course.

Yes, she yawed more than a tiller pilot would allow.  But it worked amazingly well considering it was nothing more than a light line on the tiller.

As far as I can tell, the thing that made it work was keeping the line loose enough to allow the tiller (and thus rudder) to swing a bit.  My attempts in the past to lash the tiller tightly have never worked well....she falls off course after a second or two.  Lashing loosely with the idea of letting some dynamic 'balance' between weather helm and where ever the rudder 'happens to be' worked a champ.

The full keeled A-30 has self-steered with no lashing.  But, she's a much better balanced hull than this boat.  Wave Function has never been a steady tracker, on the other hand, and though she's self-steered with sheet-to-tiller gear quite well, the dynamic input helped.  That this simple lashing worked as well as it did simple amazed me. 

(Can you tell I'm stoked over this?)

How well did it work?

Here is a short video I shot of both the course and the 'rig,'  Winds were about 10 knots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv6knl0-GAc

Notice she IS correcting.  Though the video is short, we ran like that for long enough that I'm convinced she would have just kept going.

The lashing is a simple line that runs from a stern rail stanchion, half hitched around the tiller, around the opposite side stern rail stanchion and rolling hitched back to itself.  I adjusted the 'tension' to limit the tiller movement, but not to try to "stop" it from moving.

Also, it worked even in a largish puff...she headed up enough for the main to luff, but fell back off when the puff settled, which I did not expect.

Finally, it also worked extremely well for getting the sails down.   ;D

This may not work on every boat.  It may not ever work on this boat again... :D 

But...the point is to experiment.  I think that's the key to self steering effectively.

[Frank]

Sounds like a fine day!!

[sailor]

John,
I definitely need to give it a try.
So far my attempts have not been successful, neither with sheet-to-tiller nor with homemade bungee tiler-tamer.
I also sail mostly with genoa instead of the small jib, but even with jib the boat has a tendency to round up.

[Captain Smollett]

John,
I definitely need to give it a try.
So far my attempts have not been successful, neither with sheet-to-tiller nor with homemade bungee tiler-tamer.
I also sail mostly with genoa instead of the small jib, but even with jib the boat has a tendency to round up.

Youtube has some excellent demonstrations, and some web sites around that are helpful.

But...I strongly suggest Letcher's book, even if you only borrow it from the library or a friend.  Letcher was an engineer, and he goes into a lot of why what works words, and why what does not does not.

His book will help you find a way to make YOUR boat self-steer, because he devotes some chapters to understanding why it fails to do so.

The key point is "yaw resistance."  Walt Murray also explored this in great depth (I know because he emailed me about ways to make measurements) in coming up with his vane design.

Sheet to tiller works wonderfully once you get it working.  That is, you might NOT be able to simply copy what someone else has done.  Your boat's underwater shape and the engineering details of the sail plan play major roles.

But something can usually be made to work.  Unfortunately, this is why a lot of folks simply buy an electronic autopilot/tillerpilot.  Just let the gadget do the steering and and be done with it.  (I'm talking about sailing self steering, not motoring...motoring, the electronic gizmo is pretty much the only way).

Also, before I get yelled at...I'm most certainly not saying everyone that uses an electronic autopilot is lazy or anything negative like that.  I'm talking about a subset of such users that do so merely to take the path of least resistance.

That said, there is an article where a dude compared a vane to an autopilot, and his findings were quite interesting to me.  In summary, he found the boat yawed more with the vane, but got to the destination quicker.  The electronic autopilot held the course steadier, but was overall slower on passage.

On balance:  you don't have to have her 'perfectly' balanced (she won't sail well anyway), but the weather helm has to manageable, not excessive.  According to Letcher, it's weather helm variations (as the boat yaws with respect to wind) that allows the sheet to tiller to work.

I do encourage everyone to play around with these 'simpler' techniques; cheap back up if nothing else.

Pat Henry, on her solo circumnavigation, went through many electronic auotopilot failures, and ultimately tried the sheet-to-tiller method.  Her comment was that it worked so well, she mentally kicked herself for not trying it sooner.

PS:

but even with jib the boat has a tendency to round up.

Wouldn't the boat rounding up be MORE with the smaller jib?  Headsails generally decrease weather helm, so a larger sail forward would typically lower the tendency to round up.

[Captain Smollett]

Probably the most linked to sheet to tiller site; an excellent resource:

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