The Tiller
Page published 25 May 2006
On Reedcraft boats the jib cleats were mounted on small blocks of wood either side of the cabin door. Whilst this works well enough when there is crew on board to operate the jib, when single-handed you either need arms the length of a gorilla's to reach both the tiller and jib sheets at once, or a different arrangement.
Moores solved the jib cleat problem by fitting winches on the cabin side extensions. This may be useful on craft regularly using a fully-extended genoa, but another solution is a tiller extension. Greg Chapman decided against a dinghy-style extension, feeling something more solid was appropriate to a yacht, so he had an additional tiller made.
By the way, if you ever wondered about the function of the wooden block on the Reedcraft design, it's to allow the cleat to be used with one hand. With the cleat set out from the cabin it is easy to pull the sheet across the open doorway and get the rope into the cleat. Without the block it's a case of constantly scuffed knuckles or doing it two-handed, one to pull the rope taught, the other to push it between the cleat's jaws.
As can be seen in the picture, his new tiller is angled in the same way as the standard tiller where it fits into the rudder. The first angle needed to be retained so the tiller did not foul the cockpit benches, but with the extra length it needed an opposite bend if it was not to rise too far to be at an uncomfortable working height. The second bend was made where the scuff marks appear on the underside of the standard tiller, those found where the standard tiller hits the cockpit benches.
The angle for the second bend was determined by measuring the height of the forward end of the standard tiller when it was propped up so that the underside of the short end was flat on the floor. The new tiller was not to rise higher than this.
In use, Greg reports that his calculation for the second bend didn't allow for the fact that the shorter lower face is not completely horizontal when fitted into the rudder socket, so it is perhaps a couple of inches higher than he intended. However, he is entirely happy with it in use. While in light winds he does still use it when there's one crew on board, once it reaches the stage where both crew need to be on the same side, its length becomes intrusive and he swaps to the standard tiller. When solo he says, "I mainly sail single handed. Allowing me to sit further forward not only enables me to manipulate the jib sheets with ease, it also helps to lift the transom out of the water, so reduces drag, and places me at a wider part of the boat so my weight is more effective in keeping the boat upright in a good breeze."
