Small Craft Warning: How I Repaired the Tiller I Broke Sailing in 25 Knots

I, Bernie Harberts, did not use generative AI to write or illustrate this article. Spell check and grammar check, yes. AI, no.

The morning my tiller broke, I woke to a small craft warning on board my Nimble 24 sailboat Grit and decided to go sailing anyway.

I hoisted her tanbark sails, tied in a double reef, poked her nose into the Pamlico Sound and the second I rounded the breakwater, the 25 knot wind heeled her over and I pulled on the laminated mahogany tiller to keep her on course. “Awesome!” I thought and before the excitement faded, the tiller went from stiff to limp like I was pulling on a dog’s paw.

“Damnit,” I thought, Grit rounded up into the wind, sails rattling like tin roofing and I grabbed her massive quadrant, the stainless steel to wrench her back on course. The head of the tiller had cracked at the bolt that held it to the rudder. I shortened sail, and tacked back to Oriental, where I’d woken up that morning.

In this post, I’ll show you how I fixed it in my hay barn with simple tools like a jigsaw, epoxy and block of white oak.

How to Rebuild a Sailboat Tiller With a Jigsaw, a Hand Plane and a Block of White Oak

My wife Julia and I live in western North Carolina, 6 hours away from the coast. Our hay barn serves as my improvised boat shed and wood shop.

When I got Grit home, I took the tiller out of the barn to figure out how to repair it. On closer inspection, it was little wonder it broke. The tiller was over 30 years old and some of the wood surrounding the bolt hole that holds it to the rudder was rotten. Then there was the matter of a design flaw. Grit‘s massive barn door rudder exerts a lot of pressure on the tiller and all of that force is transferred onto one bolt.

The good news was that the rest of the tiller was sound.

Material List

– TotalBoat 5:1 Marine Epoxy Resin and Hardener – TotalBoat microspheres (for thickening epoxy) – Epifanes Spar Varnish – Epifanes thinner – 2″ x 4″ x 12″ seasoned white oak – 1″ brush – 220 grit sandpaper – 1 jigsaw blade (I broke mine, it was old)

Here are the steps I took to fix the tiller.

1. Mark the affected spot around the hole

2. Cut a wedge-shaped piece of wood out of the tiller to remove the affected area

This has to be close but not perfect for two reasons. One: since I’ll be using thickened epoxy to glue in a filler block, the epoxy will fill any gaps. Two: I will face the repair with two pieces of white oak so the repair will be hidden. You always want to be precise repairing such an important piece of equipment. Just don’t confuse perfection (invisible glue lines) with a solid repair (good quality materials applied well).

3. Cut a similarly-shaped piece of white oak to fit the opening
4. Trim the white oak to fit with sander and block plane
5. Epoxy the white oak block into the tiller and clamp while curing

The photo below shows the block of white oak that I am going to glue into the opening. I placed the blank piece of oak under the cut-out part of the tiller and used that as my template. I traced it with my pencil, then cut just outside the lines and trimmed it to good-enough with my hand plane and belt sander.

6. Fit two white oak blocks to the side of the tiller to widen it back out to original specs
7. Apply two coats of varnish
8. Replace any hardware

In the next photo, you’ll see the completed repair. The original, laminated part of the tiller was about 1/4″ too narrow for the slot that held the tiller to the rudder head. The original owner had closed this gap with stainless steel washers. I decided to make the tiller head a bit wider by laminating two pieces of white oak to the tiller head, one on each side.

Final Step: Drink some rum on Grit (even if I have to climb aboard her in the hay barn)

How the New Tiller Survived 6 Weeks Under Sail

A few months after I repaired the tiller, I had a chance to test it out on my wife Julia’s and my 3-week sail to Shackleford Banks to study the wild ponies that lived there. It was a grand adventure, with everything from riding out a 40-knot gale at anchor, and getting rammed by a 250 hp skiff when our engine died, to quieter moments like watching the sun set over the groups of wild ponies as they walked out onto the low tide flats.

The tiller, I am satisfied to report, held up exceptionally well.

Always Have a Back-up Tiller

Back on the day the original tiller cracked, though, I wasn’t done finding out how fragile tillers can be.

Back in Oriental, I dug out Grit‘s spare tiller. It’s a stubby affair, built of mahogany and lacking the main tiller’s elegant curve, but who cares. I bolted it into place and the next morning, Grit and I were back out sailing on the Pamlico. The next few days, we visited Lukens on the South River and spent our days doing everything under sail, from raising the anchor in the morning to lowering it on the dying breeze at sundown.

The last day of my week out sailing, my spare tiller cracked exactly where the first one had broken. Crap! No! Luckily, the winds were calm, around 10 knots, so I sailed Grit back to Oriental, loaded her up onto her trailer and brought her home.

Why did my tillers keep cracking at the rudder head, where they attached to the tiller?

It’s got to do with Grit‘s weather helm. When sailing to weather in more than 10 knots of wind, she puts a lot of strain on the tiller. Reducing sail and falling off help. But it’s one of the Nimble 24’s fundamental design shortcomings. Her huge barn door rudder puts lots of strain on the tiller.

And so, the evening I got Grit tucked back into her hay barn berth for the winter, I started my next to-do list for Grit. Item One: build a tiller reinforcement, a 2″ square stainless steel tube that the tiller slots into, taking the point load off the bolt. Item Two: Build a better-balanced rudder.

Unlike most to-do lists, this one felt joyful, not heavy. Who doesn’t enjoy mixing epoxy, grinding stainless steel and sipping rum in a hay barn? I’ll keep you posted how it goes.

Click here for all the adventures Grit and I have had, from breaking a trailer axle at interstate speed to sinking kayaks under tow.

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