The mishap occurred about twenty minutes before I became aware of it. I pointed into the wind, hoisted the mainsail and the jib. As soon as I fell off the wind a bit and the jib caught air I realized my mistake.. Twenty minutes before, while at the dock, I had rigged my smallest jib due to super windy conditions. I probably could have flown the #2 Genoa, but when I’m going out by myself, I try to be somewhat conservative (read safe).

Due to the smaller jib, I had to move my toerail-mounted blocks forward of the normal positioning. The mishap I’m referring to was when I ran the jibsheets, I accidentally ran the lines between the upper and lower lifelines instead of hanging them over the top of the lifelines.

So when the jib caught that wind, it was very apparent the lines were incorrectly run. I didn’t have my tiller set up with the bungee to keep it centered, so when I went forward to untie, reroute and re-tie the jibsheets, my boat didn’t stay exactly into the wind like it should. I immediately thought about the Tiller Tamer I bought last year (but never installed).

Tiller Tamer

Tiller Tamer

I finally got everything sorted out and had a very enjoyable sail for the remainder of the day. I went further north on the lake than I’d ever been yet and even practiced the heave-to maneuver to have lunch.

So a couple weeks later, I decided to go ahead and install the device. It was actually a fairly straightforward installation. Just needed to measure 18″ out from the tiller pivot point and that’s where to mount it. I decided to mount it on the underside instead of on top. After mounting, the lines that hold it need to come aft at about 45° each so to make a right angle (see photo).

Mark made 18" from tiller pivot point

Mark made 18″ from tiller pivot point

Tiller Tamer installed

Tiller Tamer installed

Lines run at 45° to aft

Lines run at 45° to aft

The day I mounted it, I wanted to take it out and test it, but a friend was taking his Seidelmann 29 out. I’ve never sailed on his boat, so I decided to test this setup next time and enjoy a sail on the Seidelmann.

I’ll update again after I test the Tiller Tamer