[Rhodes22-list] Tiller pilot - Am I overthinking this?

[Mike Riter]

Well Whew! Thanks Roger and Peter. In keeping with the notion no 2 Rhodes
are created the same, I found the drop from the bottom of my fiberglass
tiller to be level with the center of the push rod is 4".  And with both
the 5" and 3" extensions in place the rear pivot pin on the tiller pilot
(square from the tiller) just reaches the point where the curve from
vertical to horizontal on the starboard gunwale. Now I'm debating on
whether to return the 3" adapter and get a 4" adapter to add another inch
or take advantage of what I'm betting is thicker fiberglass at the current
location.

In anticipation of the wiring, I pulled out the switch panel and found a
tangle of unlabeled wires with multiple attachments to many of the
switches. So all that gets to be updated. Yaa.

The wiring generates another question, I'm planning to tie this into my
Garmin chartplotter via NMEA 0183 and may add wind data to this one day as
well. Has anyone set up separate buss bars just for the NMEA? Any advice +
or - on that would be appreciated.

Maybe I'm biased because I'm a R22 owner, but of the sailing and cruising
forums I follow, this is the friendliest and most helpful of them all. I
really appreciate everyone here!

Mike Riter

SV Emma B




On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 8:39 PM Peter Nyberg <peter at sunnybeeches.com> wrote:

> Mike,
>
> You probably are overthinking this.  :^) You've got the right extension
> pieces, so you should be in good shape.  It isn't necessary for the tiller
> to be dead amidships when the tiller pilot arm is exactly half-way
> extended.  That would be the goal, obviously, but unlikely to be achieved
> with precision.
>
> The tiller position that will keep the boat going in a straight line is
> rarely dead amidships, and is rarely constant for any length of time.  The
> tiller pilot will push if it wants the boat to turn to starboard, and pull
> if wants the boat to turn to port.  It's good if there's roughly equal push
> and pull capacity.  But it doesn't work on the basis of knowing where
> amidships is.
>
> --Peter
>