http://www.wavefrontmarine.com/

Yes similar to the above; "poor man's autopilot". It's real nice, made of solid feeling metal. Simple to set up and use. Makes it easy for me to tack, without making my wife put her wine down..

Always preferred tillers. Think that it’s unfortunate that other than the Dystra designed boats they’re not commonly seen on boats in the 45-55’ range.
An interesting wrinkle is to have the tiller pilot control the windvane. I bought my Hydrovane off another Outbound. It came with a tiller pilot and the fittings to attach it to the vane. We also had a RM below deck AP from the get go. So never rigged the tiller pilot. Still an interesting concept. Suspect the tiller pilot would use less wattage than the below deck unit. Wonder if anyone has experience using a tiller pilot on a windvane?

Agree many cruising boats will be continuing to be actively sailed in force 7. (We would and have). However was trying to define the term “heavy weather” for general usage.

Now returning to the scheduled program.

Dude! That's wicked old school awesome.

That is a "Rich man's 'poor man's autopilot'" . A real poor man's autopilot is simply made of a heavy length of shock chord (or an old bicycle inner tube if you are really poor) stretched tightly across the cockpit. To engage the 'autopilot', take 2 or 3 wraps around the end of the tiller. To fine tune adjust the 'autopilot' rotate the turns around the tiller slightly one way or the other until the boat balances with the sail plan. On old boats with lots of weather helm the 'autopilot' can be set so that it pulls the tiller to windward and takes some of the load off the helmsman.

Jeff

Didn’t slocum tie the sheet to the tiller to achieve the same thing. There wasn’t an AP on Spray.

Sure, fair enough. But in the sailboat world $70 is basically zero..

Sort of. Sheet to tiller steering is a bit different from what I understand. More of a poor man's wind vane? Too complicated for me to bother figuring out

Sheet to tiller steering has a long tradition, yes. Webb Chiles (self-portrait in the present sea journal) used it extensively in his most recent solo circumnavigation. There's a good explanation on https://www.blueanarchy.org/selfsteering/ (ignore the SSL error).

The Tiller Tamer was the best $35 gadget I ever bought. With the sails balanced, I could go quite some time without having to tend to the helm. A great boon while I was single handing; I could set the helm and go forward to raise or lower the main, go below to hit the head or get a drink or something to eat. Or just hang out.

And even though I've only recently swapped my tiller-steered Oday 23 for a wheel-steered Catalina 28, I do miss some things about the tiller. As someone here mentioned, there's that immediate feedback from the rudder. No wheel gives you that. I also miss being able to raise the tiller completely out of the way while just hanging out in the cockpit. There's a lot of room to be had that you will never get with a steering pedestal and wheel in the way.

On the other hand, I no longer impale or goose my passengers while steering....

I have found our C22 heaves to best with no jib, just a main. Believe it or not. I discovered this by accident one day when the wife was changing headsails while we were hove to in 17-ish knots.

The boat presents her bow quarter to the seas rather than her stern quarter, creates a better slick, and moves much slower. Makes no difference in benign conditions of course, but definitely better in a blow.

Sorry if you already knew this.