PROJECT
BOAT
WORKS
W
hen I bought my 1962 Alberg 35, Magic, in 2001, she was
equipped with a pedestal-mounted wheel connected to the
rudderstock with wire rope running over sheaves and a
quadrant. The steering pedestal looked very yachty and provided a nice
place for a cupholder, but I never really liked the arrangement. A boat
of this size and hull type rarely needs a wheel’s extra leverage to turn its
rudder, and I’ve always liked the responsiveness of a tiller. Also, at 6ft
5in and 230 pounds, I require a bit more maneuvering room than most,
and the 32in destroyer wheel ate up a good chunk of the cockpit and
made the companionway difficult to access.
Several years of ownership did nothing to change my mind, and after
sailing on some much larger boats of similar vintage that were tiller-
steered, I began to long for a tiller of my own. What finally drove me to
the decision that I had to go back to a tiller was fear.
Over the seven years I had sailed Magic, there were several instances
when I felt the wheel bind and freeze up while making a quick maneu-
ver in a tight space. I was always able to solve the problem by turning
the wheel in the opposite direction and then back again, but I was
certain those close calls were a result of the wire rope riding up on one
of the sheaves or quadrant and threatening to “jump.” To say it was not
a good feeling is an understatement.
Of course, this problem was most likely the result of deferred mainte-
nance, but whoever had installed Magic’s steering quadrant and cables
must have had a second career as a contortionist. No matter how hard
I tried, I could not fit myself into the tight spaces under the cockpit to
access the equipment.
I still could have lived with these problems if there had been an
emergency tiller. Unfortunately, one of the previous owners had rebuilt
the cockpit years before. In the process, he’d laid down a beautiful teaksole, but also cut about six inches off the top of the rudderstock and
buried the remains beneath the cockpit with no access. So, knowing
that somewhere, sometime, I could be faced with a situation where I
had no control over the boat, I hatched a plan to install a tiller.
I eventually hauled the boat and spent several years of my spare time
re-coring the decks and rebuilding a number of systems aboard. In the
course of that work, I found that even though the lovely teak sole in
the cockpit still looked great, the underlying deck was a rotten mess.
As much as I liked the look and feel of the teak underfoot, I had to pull
it up to fix the deck and decided this was the right time to convert the
boat back to tiller steering.
After tearing out the steering pedestal and quadrant, I cut out the old
cockpit sole and epoxied in a new end-grain balsa core with a single
layer of 1708 biaxial fabric over all but a 2ft by 2ft area in the aft end of
the cockpit where the tiller would be located. Now it was time to figure
out the best design for the new tiller installation.
I believe that when the boat was converted to wheel steering inA True Convert
Converting a classic Alberg
from wheel to tiller steering
By Matt Bowser
The author with his
tiller (above); an
Alberg 35’s standard
wheel configuration68APRIL 2015 PHOTO BY MATT BOWSER (TOP); THOMAS CURREN (BOTTOM)