A tiller is a leaver attached to the rudder stock of a boat that provides leverage in the form of 'torque' (turning force) for the helmsman to turn the rudder. The magnitude of the torque depends on three quantities, the force applied, the length of the lever arm connecting the axis to the point of force and the angle between the force vector and the lever arm. Torque is the force applied at right angles to a lever multiplied by its distance from the levers fulcrum (length of arm)….engineers continuously drool over this stuff since Archimedes and I suppose someone has to, as it’s the stuff that our present civilisation is made up of, still doesn't really float my boat if you are not learning you aint living, so let’s just put it into the backpack for now and move on.
There is a balance to be found between imagination and realisation of a dream, I have quantum amounts of imagination and equal amounts of ambition for to dream. The realisation on the other hand sometimes is like watching a jackdaw beating its way home against the gusts of a storm, frustration at the best of times but in my years of using the retiring flock of jackdaws as a cue to clock out of work and for myself to retire for a welcome cup of tea. I believe those birds are up for any challenge, swooping high and swooping low to offset invisible forces which they can only feel and react to instinctively. Fortunately, if I am to take sustenance and inspiration from a jack daw, I think one of my companions through the years of building the boat, has perhaps been the long sighted vision of the hovering buzzard that is seen daily hovering above the work shop. The only one I have got to know, lands occasionally when he is assured the tea is just about to be poured. Many's a time, over the years, it would have been easier to fob him off with an excuse, but as time passed the old buzzard would turn up with a sandwich wrapped in tinfoil just in time for tea. And as assured that I will hear it calling from afar as I work, the children, some of whom are now adults, will sense his arrival a day or two before me. 'Be careful what you wish for' has always been my mantra, knowing full well I'll talk myself into doing it and only realise what I've done when I hear the tinfoil being crinkled up and the wooden legs of the chair being reversed from the table cringing across the cottage tiles on the floor. That is why the boat happens to have a three legged mast, skids for landing and now a six foot tiller that would do Fred and Barney from the Flintstones proud. Platted and woven leather belts holding extending slat oak prongs to a six foot pole, finished with what looks like prongs of a harpoon. This gigantic tuning fork is lowered over the neck of the rudder stock, and then squeezed tightly with the help of a leather tong wrapped around the protruding carved hooks of the harpoon. Two giant wedges of Elm slip neatly together between the rudder stock and the bound tonging to create an expanded area that becomes the axis for which the helmsman can exert his turning force. ‘He should be down again soon’, my son commented, as we dug clay from yet another project that needs doing before the boat does. I smiled with wonder how they can guess it, as the jackdaws flew low over the shed roof on their way home. Life is like a box of chocolates you never do know what's inside until you open it……
There is a balance to be found between imagination and realisation of a dream, I have quantum amounts of imagination and equal amounts of ambition for to dream. The realisation on the other hand sometimes is like watching a jackdaw beating its way home against the gusts of a storm, frustration at the best of times but in my years of using the retiring flock of jackdaws as a cue to clock out of work and for myself to retire for a welcome cup of tea. I believe those birds are up for any challenge, swooping high and swooping low to offset invisible forces which they can only feel and react to instinctively. Fortunately, if I am to take sustenance and inspiration from a jack daw, I think one of my companions through the years of building the boat, has perhaps been the long sighted vision of the hovering buzzard that is seen daily hovering above the work shop. The only one I have got to know, lands occasionally when he is assured the tea is just about to be poured. Many's a time, over the years, it would have been easier to fob him off with an excuse, but as time passed the old buzzard would turn up with a sandwich wrapped in tinfoil just in time for tea. And as assured that I will hear it calling from afar as I work, the children, some of whom are now adults, will sense his arrival a day or two before me. 'Be careful what you wish for' has always been my mantra, knowing full well I'll talk myself into doing it and only realise what I've done when I hear the tinfoil being crinkled up and the wooden legs of the chair being reversed from the table cringing across the cottage tiles on the floor. That is why the boat happens to have a three legged mast, skids for landing and now a six foot tiller that would do Fred and Barney from the Flintstones proud. Platted and woven leather belts holding extending slat oak prongs to a six foot pole, finished with what looks like prongs of a harpoon. This gigantic tuning fork is lowered over the neck of the rudder stock, and then squeezed tightly with the help of a leather tong wrapped around the protruding carved hooks of the harpoon. Two giant wedges of Elm slip neatly together between the rudder stock and the bound tonging to create an expanded area that becomes the axis for which the helmsman can exert his turning force. ‘He should be down again soon’, my son commented, as we dug clay from yet another project that needs doing before the boat does. I smiled with wonder how they can guess it, as the jackdaws flew low over the shed roof on their way home. Life is like a box of chocolates you never do know what's inside until you open it……
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