Tiller pilot on wheel steering?

[Tiki 38']

I am thinking that a tiller pilot could go on a wheel steering. Has anyone done this? Is it a good idea?

[CabezonBD]

Not a good idea in my opinion. Better to sell the tiller pilot and put that money towards a wheel pilot.

[simonmd]

You'd be drastically restricting the range that it would be able to turn the boat. However, if you just want it to hold a course then it would work, just not much use for tacking.

[Tiki 38']

I have a wheel connected to a hydraulic pump which pushes a ram connected to a rudder. It is very easy to turn. I just want to free myself from the wheel. I had not thort of tacking with the pilot, just wanted to hold a course while sailing along. tiller pilots are eveywhere here, at around a thousand NZ dollars. Wheel pilots seem not to exist at all. Or run about five thousand NZ for the real thing. Can the tiller pilot be ajusted for travel of the ram? Thanks for the replies guys.

[boden36]

If you can put a little tiller on for the autopilot to push against, and a freeing valve across your hydraulic lines you could have one or the other in use.
Regards, Richard.

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by boden36

If you can put a little tiller on for the autopilot to push against, and a freeing valve across your hydraulic lines you could have one or the other in use.
Regards, Richard.

Indded, that would make a good redundant system incase the hydraulics fail. Been their on a previous boat. However, youwill be way over size/weight for most tiller pilots so look for good conditions only with balanced sails etc. Also tiller pilots not particularly water proof so a small cover would be good to keep rain and spray out.

Recently discussed here:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...r-51869-2.html

Pete

[simonmd]

Originally Posted by boden36

If you can put a little tiller on for the autopilot to push against, and a freeing valve across your hydraulic lines you could have one or the other in use.
Regards, Richard.

Wouldn't work.

Tiller pilots are designed to work on the end of a tiller. Expecting it to do the same job on a much shorter lever/2nd tiller would result in it failing pretty quick as it would have much less leverage and therefore be expected to cope with vastly increased forces.

This is exactly how proper ram driven autopilots work and it's the reason they're so much more expensive as they have to be pretty heafty to cope with the loads.