Terry,
Pertaining to "Naturally, as part of the shellback transsubstantiation
ceremony
practiced every time you cross the equator";
I don't think I'd try to get my pollywog buddies to strip down to their
skivvies and crawl around the deck on hands and knees and spank them with a
piece of fire hose.
I'll suffer the fate wrought by King Neptune and avoid the asskicking and
subsequent tossing over the side of this Shellback! : )
MMC

"Terry Spragg" wrote in message
...
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