Hello,
I need a new tiller extension, but am not sure what length i need.

Does any one have handy they could measure for me?

Depends on the width of your boat, and personal preference and whether you go for carbon or aluminimum.

Between 1.2 mtrs and 1.4 on a Tales.

I use 1.3 mtr night stick - you will never break one of these, unlike thinner carbo extensions. See link

David how long was the old one, don't you have the bits?

Thanks, i was thinking 1200ish

I dont have any old bits, we have just bought 3633, and it had no tiller extension.

Dave

After breaking 2 carbon ones in succession I reverted to aluminium & finally fell on that one and broke it! but have recently bought an excellent one from Tony Blackmore at Sailsport.  He will sell you exactly the right length by prompt mail order, the stick is grippy right the way down which always was the bugbear with the ally ones.

Sounds like you need a pliable extension Andrew! One that is firm enough to use, but just bends when you sit on it. What's that 'memory' stuff they make specs out of?

As I recall Andrew, you broke two carbon tiller extensions within as many hours ;)

I have found the Rooster carbon tiller ext. to be very good, and strong. I used one on my Contender, and did not manage to break it. I now have one on my Merlin, probably a little long at 1400 mm, but excellent for poking the crew with.

Maybe the ally extension eventually developed Alzeimer's?  I have a pic of me sailing at Salcombe with it bent at a right angle & I must have straightened it out again in the bag before doing the power reaching bit at the top end where even the dedicated percher has to get the bum over the edge.  But you can only do that so often.

Yup Dave that was a very memorable day's sailing at Parkstone.  The sequence went, launch, put on (fixed) rudder to have ally extension fall off as the joint has parted.  Back to shore, Dave lent me his old but prized one for some nostalgic reason I forget but doubt he has, go out, sail a race, toestrap breaks, fall out of boat, right boat, fall on carbon tiller extension, take remaining bits back to shore, blag another one off Hywel who has had something else break on his boat, go out and sail last race with rope replacing toestrap, break that one too falling over in boat coming in to land.

Understandable that I was put off carbon extensions.  I bought 2 ally ones from the chandlers at Parkstone for about £15 each which was the only good bit of the day, except getting Hywel snr to do turns for tacking straight in front of me 10 ft from the windward mark despite a lot of shouting.  I'm not always far enough up the fleet to ram his transom.