Boat fixations

[mjcoon]

Thanks, I'm going to start using that phrase .... so many people are bound to their paradigm anchors, and not necessarily conciously. It's the reason why older people in general find it hard to use new technology as when a paradigm shift comes along, they can't use the knowledge they already have to extrapolate and understand the new tech.

Yes, and the phrase "mind set" should often be read as "set" = "congealed"...

 

[mrangry]

Having sailed both single and twin wheeled boats I cant say I see the attraction for two personally

 

[B27]

Depends on the type of sailing you do, but generally, I don't like single small steering wheels.
You can only sit or stand behind it like you are driving a bus.

A big wheel is nice is some circumstances, you can sit behind it or alongside it to windward or leeward.
I guess for a cruising boat, a 7ft wheel that intrudes in the aft cabin might not be ideal, so a twin wheel set up is more practical.
Tiller is nice, but going astern in a big boat with a tiller can be amusing.

Wheel, twin wheels or tiller is only only factor in whether a boat is easy to sail. Can you sit somewhere comfortable, helm ther boat and see what you need to? Can you trim the jib from the helm? Can you reach any instruments you want? Can you steer with your foot if you want both hands free for a moment?

If a boat is designed to be raced with 10 people, it's OK for the helm not to be able to reach some controls.
Not so much on a cruising boat.

 

[Baggywrinkle]

Having sailed both single and twin wheeled boats I cant say I see the attraction for two personally

A fat a$$ed modern boat with a wide aft cockpit and a normal sized wheel on the centreline would be unusable.... it would be impossible to sit outboard of the cockpit and steer unless fortunate enough to have arms like an orangutan.

 

[Skellum]

A fat a$$ed modern boat with a wide aft cockpit and a normal sized wheel on the centreline would be unusable.... it would be impossible to sit outboard of the cockpit and steer unless fortunate enough to have arms like an orangutan.

And twin wheels make it easier to access the bathing platform, and for going ashore from the cockpit when moored stern to.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

The money spent on 2 wheels would produce more speed if spent on a tiller, an extension and some top class sails.

 

[trapper guy]

having sailed a boat that had a wheel, its my personal opinion that you can keep it.
it reminded me of the kids programmes like sesame street, where the car used to travel around the country side and the steering wheel was shifted left to right constantly.
give me a tiller anyday!

 

[Tranona]

The money spent on 2 wheels would produce more speed if spent on a tiller, an extension and some top class sails.

Having twin wheels is absolutely nothing to do with "speed" but ergonomics as you will discover if you ever get a chance to sail a boat so equipped.

 

[Concerto]

The older the boat, the more substandard things you can expect to find. Which are a problem depends on your expectaions.

My own choice of boat had nothing ruled out as a deal breaker. In the bank I had sufficient money to buy a new 32ft yacht with everything I wanted on it. My problem was I disliked the very high volume hull with wide transom that tends to float on the water rathar than in the water. Most of this is due to vast experience of boats going back to the mid 1960's. I am no luddite as I had one of the first production extreme 22ft race boat laid up with kevlar to minimise the hull weight. Yes that boat was quite easy to plane, but that was something I first did in a Nich 30 in 1971, again in 1972 and 1973.

My second problem was I could not justify spending so much money to give value for money to me. So I set a budget of £40,000 and looked at boats from 31ft to 36ft. Top of my list was a Trapper 700, which is quite a rare boat. Having come from a racing background, twin keels did not appeal (experience with an early twin keel yacht also did not help). Eventually my brother suggested the Westerly Fulmar. A Westerly - you must be joking! No he was not. They are known as well built and a joy to sail. They have been raced offshore, round the cans, cruised and used by sailing schools. Not many boats can claim to be so appealing to such a wide range of sailors. I even remember the first Fulmar on the Medway in 1980 having raced against her. For singlehanding the vice free handling under sail and power was a big plus point, yes I have raced a lot on a long keel boat and experienced the "fun" reversing out of a marina berth. Having a ¾ rig rather than a masthead means the very large mainsail is far more controlable and the headsail and spinnaker were smaller than similar sized boats. My preference for a tiller was satisfied, but I have also used wheels on a lot of larger boats.

Finding a Fulmar then became a problem as in the autumn 2013 virtually every broker or private seller sold them very quickly. The first one I found available had just been reduced as it was over priced. Condition was good but it still had the original Bukh engine. I offered very close to the asking price, only to find another buyer, who had made a very low offer, then offered the full asking price. It took several months to find another Fulmar. It was not in such good condition but had a replacement engine, an almost new mast and sails and it was on the Medway -my local river rather than in the Solent. All of the condition issues were fixable with some money and effort. Well the budget I set was far too low and have now spent over what she cost me. Do I regret all the monay or work involved, not a bit. I have a boat that is close to the condition when she was originally built in 1980. Everything is in the right place to ensure she is easy to handle singlehanded, as safe to work on and comfortable to live on. What more could any owner require?

 

[john_morris_uk]

having sailed a boat that had a wheel, its my personal opinion that you can keep it.
it reminded me of the kids programmes like sesame street, where the car used to travel around the country side and the steering wheel was shifted left to right constantly.
give me a tiller anyday!

All depends on the size of boat. As the size of the boat increases, wheel steering isn’t a choice or a fad but a simple necessity. There’s a point (perhaps 40’?) where you can have a tiller but it’s becoming so long to give you the leverage to actually steer the boat that it sweeps the entire cockpit and is more and more impractical. Either that of you end up with relieving tackles on it.

(Conversely wheels on small boats often look ridiculous & are an affectation IMHO)

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Having twin wheels is absolutely nothing to do with "speed" but ergonomics as you will discover if you ever get a chance to sail a boat so equipped.

I've steered boats with twin wheels. I’ve also steered boats with twin tillers, both monos and cats. Wheels are mostly about fashion and ego til the thing is 50ft plus.

 

[Baggywrinkle]

...... Wheels are mostly about fashion and ego til the thing is 50ft plus.

I'm calling bollox on this .... wheels are primarily practical. They are more compact in use than a tiller, taking up far less longitudinal space in the cockpit. Wheels also lend themselves far better to control by an auto-pilot on a cruising boat as a wheels movement is always constrained within its already occupied space, only being able to rotate, whereas a tiller will sweep the cockpit spilling drinks and knocking over small children. .... and tillerpilots are pants compared to a below-deck autopilot. So IMO wheels are simply a practical solution to the many drawbacks of tillers.

If a particular boater prefers tillers then "fill yer boots", I don't care, my sailing dinghy has a tiller and it is simple and easy to use, some big race boats have tillers so there must be a market for them.

I've got a tiller for my AWB, but it lives in a locker and only comes out in emergencies should the wheels break - which in the last 25 years I have yet to experience.

EDIT: Are you upset because the newer Dragonfly 32 has a wheel and the Dragonfly 40 has two? Wonder why they did that?

 

[Tranona]

Wheels are mostly about fashion and ego til the thing is 50ft plus.

Form and function comes to mind - basic tenets of good design as it ignores bigotry

 

[Baggywrinkle]

Form and function comes to mind - basic tenets of good design as it ignores bigotry

Dragonfly seem to agree with you ...

 

[flaming]

Wheels over tillers is nothing like as simple as either "side" here is trying to make out. Rather than boat size, displacement is far more important, as is the speed potential.

When the boat is quite a heavy displacement type, the loads on the helm downwind are such that a tiller would be exhausting to steer with. Certainly, in all my years driving an Elan 37, I never wanted a tiller. However, plenty of larger, faster boats use tillers. E.g the JPK 1180. And with their ability to get up and plane downwind the loads are significantly reduced. The key thing there is that "max helm input" when going downwind is so much lower on something going faster. With the move to the JPK, the days of going "lock to lock" on the helm downwind are in the past.

 

[Stemar]

For the sailing I do, having had both, I prefer a wheel because, if I let go of Jissel's tiller, she'd immediately go off in an unwanted direction, while Jazzcat will wander off, but gives me several seconds to do something. I'm quite prepared to believe that it's more to do with the particular boat (Snapdragon v Catalac), but...

As for must haves and dealbreakers, at my end of the budget range, very few things are absolute dealbreakers or makers, though a teak deck would be an almost absolute no-no, and I'm not rich enough to own a wooden boat. It's all about the balance of advantages and disadvantages of the particular boat I'm looking at

 

[trapper guy]

For the sailing I do, having had both, I prefer a wheel because, if I let go of Jissel's tiller, she'd immediately go off in an unwanted direction, while Jazzcat will wander off, but gives me several seconds to do something. I'm quite prepared to believe that it's more to do with the particular boat (Snapdragon v Catalac), but...

As for must haves and dealbreakers, at my end of the budget range, very few things are absolute dealbreakers or makers, though a teak deck would be an almost absolute no-no, and I'm not rich enough to own a wooden boat. It's all about the balance of advantages and disadvantages of the particular boat I'm looking at

i think the only real dealbreaker for me would be self tailing winches.
my boat doesnt have them, and i really wish it did.
i experienced self tailing winches on my instruction boat, but my own doesnt have them, they are sooo much easier to use than my own.

 

[dunedin]

.....
My own choice of boat had nothing ruled out as a deal breaker. In the bank I had sufficient money to buy a new 32ft yacht with everything I wanted on it. My problem was I disliked the very high volume hull with wide transom that tends to float on the water rathar than in the water. Most of this is due to vast experience of boats going back to the mid 1960's......

Ironically the Fulmar that you bought (which is a brilliant boat) was very much a very high volume, high freeboard, fat stern boat for its era, compared to earlier boats like Co 32 etc. Even compared to boats of the 2000s.

 

[Poignard]

I would never consider buying a boat with freeboard so high that my wife could not easily step on and off it without the aid of a ladder, box, etc.

On the other hand, had I already been the owner of one of those wall-sided boats so common nowadays, I might have responded to this thread by saying I would never marry a woman less than six feet tall!

 

[E39mad]

Autopilots are much stronger on wheel steered boats than tillers. Easy to set press AUTO with a wheel without having to set up if you have a tiller. You don't have to put it away either. A major consideration when cruising and a deal breaker for many single handers or couples.

For example in unforeseen situations you can just press AUTO and attend to whatever is required, chart, sheet, reefing etc etc.