Hi there,

While recently browsing some catamaran add's we noticed one that looked like it had no steering wheel or tiller and on further reading of the add found out that it had "fulcrum tiller steering".

I have been involved in sailing for five over decades and have never heard this term until now.

I fully understand what a fulcrum is and how it works and can even imagine how it could be used to steer a boat but for the life of me have never seen or heard of it before and can't see how it would have any benefits over tillers or wheel steering.

Common sense tels us that conventional tiller steering is a form of fulcrum steering but in this case it is used in a different way.

I have tried Goggling it with no results and tried looking elsewhere without much luck. Can someone shine some light on this for me or perhaps provide a link or pointer to where I might learn a bit more about this.

Thanks in advance.

www.duckworksmagazine.com/07/columns/rob/index7.htm

Hi HG02,

Yes, I actually saw that article when I was trying to find some information on it. You can see there how it works but in the instance I am looking at you would either need to be nine foot tall or stand on a box to steer the boat.

I will try and get a pic and post it here.

Hi again HG02,

It took me awhile as I haven't added pics here before.

In the pic you can see the whipstaff in the center behind the bulkhead.

It would appear that foward vision would be near impossible without being up on the bench and I imagine that steering would need you to be up there too. The shaft looks pretty long so perhaps it would have the leverage to be able to be steered while standing on the cockpit sole although the overhead cut-out looks to be made for standing up in.

I believe that you would move the staff port to turn port etc, unlike a regular tiller.

Ho Don, that's interesting.

It looks like ETAP uses either gears or hydraulics between the tiller and the rudder. The cat in the picture uses blocks and tackle.

The way ETAP promotes it makes it sound like a good thing.

I haven't heard of it before. All new to me.

interesting .......... but ............... . I cant help but think, NO .

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Donk107 said..
Some of the ETAP range of yachts have this http://www.tollesbury-marina.co.uk/etapfeatures/etap_features.htm

Regards Don

Looks like everything that is old is new again. It appears to be a modern jazzed up version of the old Whipstaff steering they had on boats during the fifteen hundreds before the wheel was implemented on larger boats.

Off the topic a little
Ive always wondered what set up Naima has connecting her wheel


While my tiller is off I may make a pivot so the tiller can be moved up out of the way to give a bit more room while anchored it may also stop the rudder stain
as like other walkers the stain comes down the tiller to the rudder case and stain the rudder case

Thats a very nice looking H28 you have there HG02.

Many hours of work and TLC gone into her by the looks of it.

Always good to see a good boat looking good.

Hi HG

On the wheel steered H28 you could have a shortened tiller and a shaft running back from the wheel and have a wire rope wound around a drum on the wheel shaft running through blocks on either side of the tiller pulling it each way as you turned the wheel (refer to my dodgey drawing below)

Regards Don

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Auscruisers said..
Thats a very nice looking H28 you have there HG02.

Many hours of work and TLC gone into her by the looks of it.

Always good to see a good boat looking good.

My H28 is the last photo when I bought her she gets all my attention and money Auscruiser .
I'm slowly making her more than a weekend cruiser. Much the same as you are doing .Ive a year maybe two before I retire.
9 meters long is not a lot of room for such an endeavor, but I'm working on it. You sort of have to have a Swiss knife approach which I get wrong now and then .
I call it forwards backwards land some projects take a few times to get right .
Shes basically rough out now just have to refine every thing and finish all her projects off.

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Donk107 said..
Hi HG

On the wheel steered H28 you could have a shortened tiller and a shaft running back from the wheel and have a wire rope wound around a drum on the wheel shaft running through blocks on either side of the tiller pulling it each way as you turned the wheel (refer to my dodgey drawing below)

Regards Don

Ive been soaking my S/S rudder bracket for a week in the aluminum cleaning hot tank at work the stain is impossible to remove completely.
A combo of sea stain, Sikens and wood tannin that's come out of the tiller over 37 years running down to the rudder case.
So Ive a bit more to do on it yet as well as the tiller has only 5 coats so far 1/2 way on both I guess






The rudder has had 4 coats of epoxy barrier coat the last one has to go on just before the anti foul so it bonds to the barrier coat. as well as work out the boot stripe on the rudder should be great fun . I seem to get to this stage of things and then I seem to procrastinate for a while it the process becomes clear
( as mud in my case )


So now I keep looking at a multitude of Walker H28 photos to work out a basic boot stripe line for my old boat as before the boot strip was way to high .
Welcome to my forwards backwards Land
Hopefully I'm going forward I wonder some times

Phosphoric acid will rip that off in seconds. Just use the stuff to clean rust in cars. Green scouring cloth will help.