Sheet to Tiller self steering

[AdriftAtSea]

Yes, but I'd imagine the electronic variety is better at listening to directions and doesn't get bored as easily. ;)

Just remember neither sheet to tiller lines or windvanes work when you're under power.  THat is one advantage of an electronic autopilot.  :D

No doubt.  But I have two little autopilots (they aren't electric, but I do have to feed them) who both like to steer.  I just give one of them the tiller when I need a break while motoring.   :P

[TJim]

I agree with everything you said......however I think any shift of the magnitude you would get in a dead wind situation (usually flat water) could be corrected with body weight shift in the cockpit.  It would be like tieing the tiller down on a well balanced boat/tiller.....and yep you can steer a hydrovane with an autovane without working it hardly at all....use a small one that don't draw a lot of power for windless situations and you get two birds with one stone....Just for info my vane will steer straight down wind
in 5 or 6 knots of wind and that's not much relative wind....

[Captain Smollett]

however I think any shift of the magnitude you would get in a dead wind situation (usually flat water) could be corrected with body weight shift in the cockpit. 

If while motoring the boat yaws for any reason, the apparent wind goes with it.  There is no correction from the vane.  How can there be? The boat is generating the wind.  If you are correcting by shifting ballast, then the vane is not doing the steering, you are.

Right?

my vane will steer straight down wind in 5 or 6 knots of wind and that's not much relative wind....

The difference is that that wind is blowing from a 'steady' direction no matter which direction your boat is pointing.  So, if your boat turns, the angle of the wind on the vane (zero only if the boat is on-course) changes.

It's the angle of the wind relative to the boat (actually the vane, but it's locked) that makes it steer.  If there is no wind direction that is independent of the boat heading, there is no steering by the vane.

It's a frame of reference problem.  The vane has to respond to something "outside" the boat's frame of reference.  The apparent wind you have due to motoring at 5kts is only IN the boat's frame of reference.

Bottom line:  Do the experiment.  You have a vane, try using it while motoring in a calm.  Hypothesis, test, conclusion.  It's what makes sailing FUN.   ;D

[TJim]

You are right.....OK get this, you may never see it again......I AM WRONG.....Darn, getting senile in my old age, that's twice this year...hehehehehe...At least I got my head straight.... I do think I'd have a heck of a wait to try it on SFran bay this summer.....no wind flat water,,,,,rite!!!!!

[newt]

Trip report-Yee Haw!! I don't care what anyone says, these forums are a great place to improve your sailing knowledge!
Got out of the marina yesterday used just oars (my outboard sitting back there high up on my pulpit just has happy as it could be). Using the tiller tamer on a run- Ok but still have to play with it because of light winds. So lets see- I pull out a bunch of assorted bundgy cords, some line and three pulleys and a bunch of  brass snaps.  Oh yeah, a wood block to attach to my tiller with an eyebolt down the middle. Wind isn't doing much, and with the sun setting I better get this thing going. I set it up like the Oar Club website, and also like the Flicka website. Hmm, nothing happening- oh take the tiller tamer off :)
Still nothing, but the boat sure is tracking well... Its getting dark. I get a jackline attached. (solo) Its still staying right on the compass nose. About 2130 the wind fills in- 4.5 knots and the compass acts like its glued there. Will be coming to a little bay soon where I will drop the hook. I watch the depth- 12 feet then 11...8 7 getting shallow pretty fast. I can see the shore with my flashlight....but sense I'm not driving I craw up quickly and drop the hook. It sets with about 50 out. The depth is 5.6 feet...I play a bit more out and cleat it like there is no tomorrow.
Now the wind blows. Even though I am protected by cliffs it whistles trough my shrouds.  I hear the clunk of the dink as it wanders behind me. I get up three times to check the hook and once to put a second line on the dink.
Next morning I dingy to shore, look at an old shipwreck and take in the sunrise.  Now I am on a close reach but the sheet to tiller still works! it makes me much more tolerant of a fitful winds,because I am not up there getting baked when the wind slows. I am in the cabin eating grapes and taking sightings and plotting fixes! What an unbelievable luxury!
The best part, however is yet to come. Coming into the marina I dose the jib, but the wind has changed to a run and I don't want to be running in the slips. With my pilot working I take down the main to just a storm sail, effectively slabing it while sailing! I can control the tiller while doing this by just moving the boom. Kind of working it in reverse.  I jump down into the cockpit just in time to guide it into my slip- 1.2 knots and decreasing. Then I leave my tiller, jump on the dock, grab the shrouds and stop my boat. TA DAW...sailing alone and without the outboard- thank you very much!
And instead of owing the academy- I owe it all to you guys- and the man upstairs. 10 hours of sailing to get to a deserted island used to be a chore, now its nothing but fun! I think next time I will bring either a bunch of good books or a partner for cards.

[maxiSwede]

Sweet isn't it?  ;D

[CharlieJ]

Sounds really great Newt. One point though- surgical tubing makes a much better elastic for S.T.T steering than bungie cords.

Almost magical how the set up just sails her along eh? We've used it for up to 36 hours at a stretch- wonderful.

[newt]

Sorry I kinda waxed poetic...
Its just the best two days of sailing I ever had. All my kids called me afterwards to make sure I was still alive :)
Does anyone in this group live in Utah and have a wheel? Now I want to try wheel to boom self steering- I will set your boat up for free!
Feeling very much like a mad scientist...

[TJim]

I have a couple friend at the south GSL marina I could hook you up with...I have two real good friends that make the trip to Berkeley to sail with me on my Triton that have wheels.  One has a Catalina 30 and the other has a Lancer 30 both with wheels. I can probably hook you up with one or both!!! TJijm

[newt]

I am planning  on sailing there this next weekend T Jim. I would be there sometime Saturday morning if all goes to plan. I would love to meet them and discuss my latest ideas.  Are they into self steering, KISS or anything else we do around here? ;D
I plan on spending the night just north of the spit on Antelope, then riding the winds due south to the marina.  I hope the thermals are active...

[velpanore]

Came across an old story on the site starting, I think, with Capt Smollett, who has an Alberg 30 like me. I am going to give this method a try on my boat before I lash out on a vane and hope the Capt. sees this post.

I hope to stop off at New Bern on my way up as I have talked of in the intro section.

Would be grateful for any advice etc and hope to catch up with you someday.

Owen Zeimer

[CharlieJ]

Here's a link to an excellent online write up on Sheet to tiller. Works great once you figure it out.

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

[Captain Smollett]

Hi Owen,

I've used sheet-to-tiller to great effect on my smaller small boat (an 18 footer), and I've used it on an offshore run on the Alberg.

Definitely worth a try...

[Oldrig]

Hi Allan,

I spent a long time experimenting with sheet-to-tiller steering and found that it worked well sailing upwind, but not downwind. Here are two more websites that discuss how to do it. I posted a longer list here in a similar thread a while ago, but some of those sites seem to have been taken down.

The first site is very good, and a good supplement to the J.S. Ward site posted above.

http://www.solopublications.com/sailariq.htm
$$$

You might also want to look at John Letcher's classic book, Self-Steering for Sailing Craft, which is readily available used through the web.

On my boat, I got better results using the jib sheet than the mainsheet, but I think that's because I have mid-boom sheeting for the main. The key to the system is to get your sails perfectly balanced and practice, practice, practice.

Last year, thanks to Dan ("Adriftatsea") from this board who installed the wiring, I started using a Raymarine ST2000 tiller pilot. It made holding a course so easy that I didn't do much experimenting with sheet-to-tiller. The autopilot is a battery-eater, but I mostly used it when under power.

Maybe this season I'll pursue my experiments.

Good luck.

--Joe

Edit:  Link Removed Because web site contains stolen content

[AdriftAtSea]

Of course, the tiller pilot can also be used as a "dumb" steering device, by powering it off after getting the tiller in position, much like a tiller comb would be used. :)

A lot of how successful rigging sheet-to-tiller steering will be depends on the boat.  An Alberg 30, being a full keel design, should have an easier time of it than does my boat, which steers like a giant sailing dinghy... :)

[mrb]

This subject that been gnawing at me for some time.  Once had a model boat that had sheet to tiller steering.  Hooked it up and across a pond she would go, as long as didn't have a complete wind shift.  Can't remember how it worked but will follow this lead and who knows
Melvin

[Oldrig]

MRB:

Your model boat probably utilized a Braine gear, a device that didn't adapt itself well to larger boats, although I can't remember why. The Braine gear is one of the components of several self-steering systems, mostly wind vanes.

--Joe

[AdriftAtSea]

It may be that it doesn't generate sufficient force to deal with the loads created by a larger boat. That's the main reason for servo-pendulum and trim-tab wind vane designs.

[Amgine]

The size of the vessel is less important than the balance. If a boat, no matter the size, is difficult to balance, it will be difficult to steer with an auto-pilot or a wind vane or sheet-to-tiller/wheel.

As a general rule, if you cannot get the boat to maintain a course with the tiller tied off for short periods using just the sails, you're going to have difficulties getting sheet-to-tiller to work well. I've only just started experimenting on the Cape Dory 25D, and have had several days of enjoyment learning some of the ins and outs. A previous boat - 18' gaff catboat - would sail wonderfully so long as I had just the right amount of sail up - a boat with an 18' boom and a 16' gaff. By comparison, the Cape Dory is remarkably forgiving. Most of the work is getting the boat to balance well, before adding the sheet-to-tiller to actually steer the course.

A comparison boat was my Skipper 21, an 18' sloop, which couldn't keep a course except under motor, and not always then. The only course it could almost maintain under sheet-to-tiller was dead to windward, and only if it was blowing enough to require a bit of a reef (roller reefing, yuck.)

On both boats I used a Ricer Tensioner, which is a simple 3:1/4:1 block and tackle using surgical tubing (from drug store) to give some elasticity to windward, and another length of surgical tubing to tie the tiller off to leeward. The tensioner is attached to the windward coaming, the tiller, and the fall is attached to the sheet (which is turned across the cockpit using a block, or two with a turning block on the windward coaming, to increase the mechanical advantage.) I first saw the description in a column by Bruce Bingham in Cruising World, but it's not in my copy of Cruising Worlds Workbench book. I'll be building a new Ricer tensioner for the CD, just haven't gotten around to it yet...

[Auspicious]

The size of the vessel is less important than the balance. If a boat, no matter the size, is difficult to balance, it will be difficult to steer with an auto-pilot or a wind vane or sheet-to-tiller/wheel.

Grog to Amgine for identifying the most important issue.

My a/p can steer the boat in all kinds of conditions, but some work on sail trim and balance will greatly reduce a/p motion and associated electrical power requirement.