Connie, I am wondering what part of Connecticut you are in. I have to be in New Haven in Sept. (12 - 15) and if you are near, I would love to see your boat. Cherri Cherri's Jubilee ----------

From: Conbert H Benneck <chbenneck@juno.com> To: montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: M_Boats: tiller for the 15 Date: Fri, Aug 23, 2002, 4:36 PM

Hi Rich,

Good points!

1. My crew has long flown the coop, and sailing is done 90 by myself and 10 with my wife when we go off to Lake Champlain or other destination, so tiller length is to suit ME, the Captain, and not the crew.

2. Stowing it below is a very valid point, and I'm playing with the idea of a two length tiller. Think Reese hitch box as one approach. Insert the short tiller when you have more people aboard, and the longer tiller when sailing alone. I haven't worked out the details, but at the moment I am tending towards a "tiller extension" that mounts on the regular tiller, (which is the mock-up I've just tried) and which can be removed very rapidly if you want to go back to the "regular length" tiller. That should solve the stowage below problem since rudder / tiller length hasn't changed.

3. Installation of rudder on boat shouldn't be a bigger problem with the longer tiller.

4. When trying out my long tiller mock-up, I experienced a few very good heavy gusts that layed the M15 over. I found that rudder control with the longer tiller was excellent - particularly with the tiller grip area being about 3 to 4 inches higher than on the original tiller. It's a more natural holding position, and I found, give you better control.

5. Now you are revealing my secret weapon in sailing races. That will keep those that want to crowd you a safe distance away once you have used the perfectly legal tiller weapon on them......!

Connie

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