Poor man's autohelm

[Deadline]

Can I jury rig a tiller autohelm to a wheel?
I only need it on long runs, so it's not permanent.
Or is there some other way to rig, beside a brake?

 

[Rick D]

About a hundred years ago, I used a Tillermaster with a wheel conversion. It clamped on to the wheel about a third of the way down as I recall, and it attached to a stem that was gimballed so that it would stay on when the wheel swung. So, you basically got about a third of a wheel rotation with that rig, but it did work well enough in mild conditions or motoring. It also wasn't cheap.

 

[Benny17441]

Perhaps you could hook one up to the emergency tiller.

 

[Ed Schenck]

My boat originally had a tiller pilot. I never used it but like Rick I think a little over one-third turn is the best you could expect. There just isn't enough piston travel. With a well-balanced helm and in mild conditions that would be enough. I know that because my wheelpilot seldom moves the wheel more than that for corrections. The one that I had mounted on the coaming. The rod had two pins that straddled the bottom spoke on the wheel.

 

[Steve Walsh]

A friend used a tiller pilot on the wheel on a 30' Catalina and it worked fine in mild conditions. He said he had to experiment with the location of the mount on the wheel to get the best results. Seems like he had it mounted about 1/2 the distance from the hub to the outside diameter.