Stiller Tiller
My motivation to acquire a tiller pilot was primarily to afford myself a steady hand at the tiller while I'm occupied elsewhere while sailing solo. After a few (3 or 4) voyages ranging from 30 minutes to four hours or so, I like it a lot. I expect I'll use it even for puttering around Lake Union and Lake Washington. Call me lazy, but to my surprise, it (so far) makes me more heading-conscious. I'm thinking of reciprocal bearings and wanting a compass close at hand as well. My dirty little secret is that I rarely (ok, never) have used one for the boating I typically do. Thinking about an extended cruise to the North, I'll be largely in waters unfamiliar to me, and having paper charts, a chart plotter, radio heading info, tiller-pilot heading info, and compass bearings will help me always to be connecting the dots, triangulating and cross checking position. This seems like an excellent thing. Today I spent time calibrating my eyesight, finding sighting mark