Issue 22 : Jan/Feb 2002
Crack! Not the sound you want to hear as you reach across the bay in a freshening breeze. Especially when the tiller feels as if it isn’t connected to the boat at the same time.
Sailboats are full of spares: halyards, sails, lines. But what do you do when your tiller breaks — after the spinning, ducking, and yelling stops, that is? Do you install a boathook with a pair of Vise-Grips and a roll of duct tape? That might work in calm water, but what would you do in foul weather?
I was faced with that situation when the tiller on my Newport 27 split at the boltholes. The long piece came off in my hands. The short part fell on the cockpit sole. I was fortunate that my boat has a balanced spade rudder. Tiller forces are light. I stuffed the top half back into the rudderpost and steered home . . . carefully. Later inspection showed that water had penetrated through the bolt holes and caused dry rot in the butt. It looked good on the outside but it was powder on the inside. (For more on this subject, see Good Old Boat, November 2001).
Putting the issue of a permanent replacement aside for the moment, what would I rather have installed in its place if the parts that were left had not been big enough to use on the way home? I found the answer at Home Depot.
I discovered that 1 1⁄2-inch PVC pipe has the same outside diameter as the original tiller. A length of 1 1⁄4-inch closet rod for stiffening and compression at the rudderpost, a can of Good Stuff foam to fill the gaps, a PVC end cap for looks, and I had the parts. A couple of brush loads of polyurethane on the exposed wood on the butt finished the job.
My emergency stick is straight. It is tempting to add a 1⁄8 angle coupler to make the shape more like a regular tiller. But that adds a weak spot in the shaft. This project is about reliability. A straight stick is cheap, simple, and can be stored anywhere.
This is not meant to be a permanent replacement any more than the inflatable spare tire in your minivan is meant to go more than 50 miles. It’s a piece of Schedule 40 water pipe that is better than a boathook and a roll of duct tape. It will back up the repaired original tiller until I build a new one and the new stick after that. It’s nice to have a “spare tire in the trunk” alongside the bottom brush and boathook.
Total cost? $1.98 for 5 feet of PVC pipe, 89 cents for the end cap, $1.25/foot for the closet rod and $3.97 for the can of foam. That comes to $12.93 with tax. A small price to pay for peace of mind.
Is this the only combination that will work? No. PVC pipe fit my rudderpost. Closet rod fit the inside of the pipe. It worked for my boat and sailing conditions. Something else may work for yours. The point is that you can put together a low-cost spare tiller from common materials. It will suit you better than anything you could cobble together on the boat when the tiller comes off in your hand.
Have you looked at what’s connected to your rudderpost lately?
As we’ve printed more articles by Peter in recent months, we’re beginning to understand that he spends an inordinate amount of time prowling the aisles of auto parts stores, Home Depot, and Pep Boys. But he’s doing it as research for the rest of us, so we’re appreciative. His formal bio appears on Page 53.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
