Hi John, FWIW, I have a Forespar tiller holder on my M15, with the box installed in the cockpit sidewall on the Stbd side, which holds the knob end of the tiller holder.
I find it makes a great autopilot. You hook it up and by twisting the tubes, and extending or shortening them, you can fine tune the course. I haven't used it for any great distances, but I find it very handy, singlehanding, for keeping the bow in the wind while I lower the main and furl it. The M15, as you now know is very trim sensitive, so the tiller holder will only hold course as long as you don't change the weight distribution from your initially set condition. Move down below to get a beer, and the course changes. But it still works well enough so that you can call it the poor man's autopilot. It provides a hand on the tiller when you have to do something else for a few minutes. With the Admirable snoozing on one side of the cockpit, and I sitting on the other, the tiller holder has held a reasonably good course, hard on the wind, all the way across Lake Champlain in the Essex, NY area (3 NM). A line - with adjustment toggle - around the tiller, fastened to one cockpit coaming, with a bungee cord from the tiller to the opposite cockpit coaming, is also a very good solution. I have used this approach in the MICRO, the ComPac16 and in the M15. It works as well as the Forespar unit at almost zero cost. The advantage of the Forespar unit for me is that when I leave the boat at the marina dock for the week, the tiller (and rudder) are firmly constrained against waves caused by water skiing outboards and PWCs. The line / bungee approach only holds the tiller firmly in one direction of travel. My Bolger MICRO was a blast to sail. The only reason I had to give it up was because of growing problems (aging is terrible - the mind is young but the body says hey wait a minute....) stepping the mast. I could carry it, no problem; but trying to hold it at a 70 degree angle to get the heel in the forward compartment mast step became too much of a chore. That's how I finally landed with the M15, and have been totally happy sailor since then. Connie M15 #400 LEPPO ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/. _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats
