lupi wrote:

I know, dumbest question you ever heard but I've always had a proper
tiller. I'm pretty sure the steering system is called a radial drive
but it's disassembled and lying in the bilge.
So,.. if you are standing at the mighty wheel stroking your binnacle
fondly, a corn cob pipe clenched in your teeth, humming the words to a
ribald shanty and you want the bow to swing gently to port (a left
turn, so to speak) you would then:
a) turn the wheel counter clockwise (like a car)
b) turn the wheel clockwise (umm,.. like a boat?)
It's a European built boat and it's in the northern hemisphere at
present if that makes a difference.
Again, I apologize.

Well, it's up to you, really.

By "A proper tiller" you of course mean that you stand behind the
rudder post and move the tiller, which normally points aft directly
at you, towards the direction you want the bow of the boat to follow?

It sort of depends on local custom and driver training. Where are
you commissioning the vessel?

To maintain that intuitive, though increasingly more obscure
convention, you would of course want to move the king's head knot on
the wheel towards the direction you would want the boat to take.

You may, of course, place the knotted stringwork king's head knot
wherever you wish on the wheel, so long as the wheel may be rotated
to position it for your convenience.

Naturally, as part of the shellback transsubstantiation ceremony
practiced every time you cross the equator, as master you must untie
the knot and retie it in the opposite sense, that is, a left handed
knot in the soutern hemisphere, and the opposite when otherwise,
lest it not be as effective, nor feel as natural as you would
desire. This duty may be seconded to a mate or cabin boy.

Who knows what fate awaits those who defy King Neptune and his customs?

When the boat is to be moved in reverse, or "aft", as we more
experienced sailors like to say, you can merely stand in front, or
before the binnacle, with respect to the normal direction of travel,
face the intended new direction, aback, and steer normally, as you
would with any ordinary wheel. The compass card would then seem to
react in an opposite sense. Time may seem to change direction, or
speed, or both.

A more succinct, definitive and terse list of answers for your list
of questions would be: "Yes!" and of course, "No!"

That is, *if* the king's head knot is fastened to the bottom centre
of the wheel whilst the boat is proceeding straight ahead, and you
imagine it to be the ordinary, or non-conventional tiller grip.

Conventional or not, it is consensual in some places.

I prefer a gunnel line, tied to the tiller grip, and led to the
forepeak through a block in one thwart gronicle, through another
block at the forepeak and back to the tiller through yet another
block on the opposite side of the thwart. The line is pulled fore
or aft depending on where you are when you pull it, to control the
rudder deflection from anywhere on deck near the gunnel.

This system is akin to the truly conventional steerboard method, but
is more like a remote control for the single handed sailor.

The boat will naturally continue on wherever the wind and current
send it. Almost everyone knows that sailing, like curling, is
almost entirely a question of luck.

You could master either system insofar as either may be mastered
with sufficient time for training.

Terry K