Buying a boat in lockdown

[MrsM]

We are both quite short and have a wooden step that we can move around at the rear of our cruiser stern so I can see over the top properly when steering. Doesn't help that we have a roof box but the extra few inches makes all the difference (as the actress said ....)!

[Alan de Enfield]

Just now, MrsM said:

We are both quite short

Most of us find that after buying a boat, you just have to "cut your cloth accordingly"

[LadyG]

18 hours ago, LadyG said:

There are two boxes or steps, but neither are high enough, and look a bit unstable one on top of t'other. I have removed the tiller end thingy so I can manoevre myself within the tiller arc,  workd fine in summer. I jiggle from one side to t'other, so I can see ahead.

The tiller is quite short but it's not the first time I've had to use two hands to keep the tiller in the right place, I've considered a hinged tiller, but it's safer to have something which does not need me to ' do something'. The prime consideration is safety, particularly when I am locking, I don't want the tiller to jam on the sides of the lock. I think it is quite low with respect to hatch height, need to check, anyway, I think the answer is to make a taller box step for inside, and use the small one to see over the top, if standing on the deck, I still need to look along the sides for bridges and locks, so a long tiller is going to be a nusciance at the very time I need to be free of obstructions.

I think having had the Morse lever so stiff I often had to use two hands on a cold wet day did not help, that's sorted now, so I can keep one hand on the tiller at all times. 

I don't mean I am constantly moving from one side to the other, but on some stretches there are locks, bridges and swing bridges to be negotiated. I even met a boat coming in the opposite direction once! 

Edited January 18, 2021 by LadyG

[Alan de Enfield]

2 hours ago, LadyG said:

The tiller is quite short but it's not the first time I've had to use two hands to keep the tiller in the right place,

The shorter the tiller, the more effort is needed to hold it, reducing it by a further 12" (?) by removing the handle is going to make the forces even higher,

 

If the rudder is not trimmed properly you are going to be fighting 'prop-walk' all the time, you should be able to get it so that at the 'centre point' there is no load on the tiller - maybe you need a small trim-tab welding onto the rudder.

 

 

 

Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary—the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there's a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trim tab.

It's a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim tab. Society thinks it's going right by you, that it's left you altogether. But if you're doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go.

So I said, call me Trim Tab.

— Buckminster Fuller

[cuthound]

On 18/01/2021 at 06:46, LadyG said:

The tiller is quite short but it's not the first time I've had to use two hands to keep the tiller in the right place, I've considered a hinged tiller, but it's safer to have something which does not need me to ' do something'. The prime consideration is safety, particularly when I am locking, I don't want the tiller to jam on the sides of the lock. I think it is quite low with respect to hatch height, need to check, anyway, I think the answer is to make a taller box step for inside, and use the small one to see over the top, if standing on the deck, I still need to look along the sides for bridges and locks, so a long tiller is going to be a nusciance at the very time I need to be free of obstructions.

I think having had the Morse lever so stiff I often had to use two hands on a cold wet day did not help, that's sorted now, so I can keep one hand on the tiller at all times. 

I don't mean I am constantly moving from one side to the other, but on some stretches there are locks, bridges and swing bridges to be negotiated. I even met a boat coming in the opposite direction once! 

 

If the swan neck angles bring the tiller too close to the top of the stern doors and hatch so that you risk trapping your fingers, you can get any competent boatyard to raise the tiller height for not much money. 

 

They do this by heating each bend and easing the angles so that the tiller height is increased. Note that you will probably need to repaint the swan neck after the work has been completed.

 

Bodgers do it by only easing one angle, which results in the tiller bar being at an angle to, rather than parallel to the stern deck.