Out with the Old, In With the New Tiller Handle

I have found that the design of the existing tiller has too many weak/under-engineered points along its construction. There are some noticeable cracks along certain plains of current tiller where forces have started to expose the weakest links. Below you can see the old tiller and the "fork" where the tiller wrapped around the shape of the rudder. The 2 weakest point of the old design are the forks that wrap around each side of the rudder, and where they connect into the thicker stock of the tiller. There are noticable cracks at this location and the previous owner has reinforced this area with through-bolts, as show in the top view. This tiller weighs about 7 1/2 lbs

I wanted to make a permanent replacement, essentially a new, beefier design. Copying the existing tiller would only introduce the same weaknesses so it was time to evolve the tiller, only slightly. Here is what I came up with:

The handle is square, and not tapered. It's made of wood, Meranti Mahogany. Instead of using wood forks, I went with 1/4" x 1 1/2" x 18" flat bar Stainless. One advantage of the stainless bars is that its tough and shouldn't ever bend.

The old tiller handle had a lot of play between the forks and the rudder. I had previously created some plastic blocking to fix this problem on the old rudder. The stainless forks are closer together than the old wood forks and will shape to the contours of rudder when bolted on, thereby reducing the need for the plastic blocking.