Tiller steering

Tiller pilots steer a boat or yacht using the tiller. This is a lever used to steer the boat, also known as a helm stick or rudder stick, and is an important part of the steering gear. There are five different tiller pilots from the companies Simrad and Raymarine, where the installation dimensions are almost identical. For this reason, they can be easily interchanged. Simrad offers the TP 10, TP 22 and TP 32 models and Raymarine the ST 1000 + and ST 2000 + models.

Tiller Pilots - Electric Self-Piloting System with Autopilots

The steering is done directly via autopilots. However, it is still necessary to manually enter the desired course of the boat. It is important to know that this must always be done in the opposite direction. In concrete terms, this means that you have to put the tiller to port if you want to go to starboard. Conversely, place the tiller to starboard if you want to steer to port. Once you have made the settings, the electric autopilot system takes care of everything else. To ensure safe and reliable steering by means of the autopilot, the autopilot system uses various data sources. These can be wind sensors, GPS data, an external NMEA 2000 or an electronic compass, for example.

Tiller pilots - possible applications - advantages and disadvantages

Tiller pilots are very suitable for fishing boats, dinghies or small sailboats. They are cheap to buy and easy to install. Once this is done, an electric push rod takes over the mechanical action on the tiller. The disadvantage of tiller pilots is that the drive is not very strong. For this reason, they are not recommended in strong waves and are used almost exclusively in fine weather. They are also only suitable to a limited extent or not at all for larger boats or yachts.