I think I will have to make a new tiller to replace the IYE one that sank. With nothing (now) to compare to here, can someone tell me approximately how long tiller & extension usually are?

There was a thread about this a while back. You could try searching but I fear the modern answer is to have the longest extension and shortest tiller you can bear.

Have a look at your boat and see if there are any marks on the sidedecks where the tiller used to bash!

Smart thinking, but I just revarnished,- no bash marks. It isn't really a critical issue, and I can figure something out and more or less remember what the lost tiller was like; I just thought that if I was going to have to make a new tiller anyway, I might as well go by whatever the conventional wisdom is.

I have an IYE tiller on my old MR fixed rudder (now used on my Albacore)but not on my new MR.
I'll have a look and measure it up for you.

Thanks, that will help. Since IYE tillers are thin on the ground, I'm proceeding at the moment with a nice piece of ash, onto the sides of which I will fixe two small Al corner profiles which match the grooves in the section fitted to the tup of my (fixed) rudder. OK, it's not as light as carbon, but if we were tryng to win we'd have given up long ago, and at least the bugger will float!

I have an IYE stock and tiller in my garage and will try to remember to measure it and the extension for you this evening Rod.

Mags, the other point is that in the 'French method' of Merlin sailing,- and given Jo's handicaps,- I hoist the spi, with tiller between legs, so I want it long enough for me to stand well forward to do that, so I guess the answer is that I should ignore the conventional wisdom, and have the tiller as long as I can comfortably find my way around;-  which actually is exactly how we have it on 1620.

Yeah, I know, we do things differently over here...give way to port etc.

Short tiller, long stick is just what we have on our N12, but still difficult to find our way around in the space available, particularly since transom sheeting then means a stick longer than tiller has to go round to the front.

Rod the tiller is 1.1m from end to end i.e. including the bit on the top of the stock.  The extension is 1m but I recall feeling it was a bit short last time I used it and would go for 1.1 - 1.2m

Thanks Andrew, I'm just about to go home & finish my wooden job.