Jerry,
I have had some of the same experiences as Connie, as to the tiller length
being too short and the Forespar tiller extension not being a good solution.
A longer tiller seems to be the solution, but one that is 55"-60" will get
in the way if there's more than one person on the boat. So Connie's idea of
a wooden tiller extension sounds good to me.
My plan is to use stainless canoe paddle ferrules, like the ones found here;
http://www.newfound.com/kayakacc.htm
to attach extensions onto the tiller to get the desired length. I will use
two sets of ferrules, one "female" end mounted to the tiller, the two "male"
ferrule ends will be mounted to two extensions, one short and one long and
the other "female" ferrule end will be mounted somewhere in the boat to hold
the tiller extension which is not in use.
If you redesign the M15 tiller to be longer there will be times when it wil
be too long so, for me, the systems approach seems to be a much better
solution. I plan to mount the ferrule around the point where one would hold
the tiller, but if it were mounted further aft and had the appropriate
extensions to make a short and a long tiller, you could satisfy Norm's
request to remove the tiller from the rudder. As I think about it, that's
probably a better place for the ferrule than where I was planning to put it.
One last point, the ferrules lock into two positions so one can have paddle
blades symmetrical or feathered. Depending on the shape of the extensions
one could change the height of the business end of the tiller by spinning it
in the ferrule. Drilling a couple of more holes in the ferrule could give a
multitude of tiller heights.
Rick Langer
M15 #337
Hudson River
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