:: Steve -
Moxie had an aluminum tiller that we had powder coated black. This may be the one you think was carbon. In the last regatta it snapped (hence the DNS), luckily before the start. I started to notice the weakness during the 2004 coastal cup when there was a lot of helm. It looked cool but there were several drawbacks. Moving the tiller up and down during the tack caused the nut/bolt that goes through the head of the rudder to become loose. It needed to be tighted up just about every time we went sailing. The design was such that we could not use the set screw that keeps the tiller from rubbing in the deck at the back of the cockpit. So the only thing holding it up was friction.

We are now going back to the standard wood tiller which I think is stonger allows us to use the set screw to keep the tiller off the deck. It is also pretty light. The heavy parts are the stainless plates that connect the tiller to the head of the rudder. One nice thing about wood; you will probably get some warning before it totally fails (which seems be the case with you now). We suspected the aluminum tiller was going to go at some point bit it went quickly and it would have been tough to make it back to the dock without a motor that we could steer. A carbon tilller probably just snap instantly without much warning, if it did fail. Rudderless sailing in the ocean would not be fun.

I am pretty sure a carbon tiller would NOT be legal. But I'm not an expert on the rules. Hope to see you out racing soon.

Josh

::
::
:: the tiller on DIANNE is starting to crack around the 3
:: bolts that hold the bracket to the rudder post. Did I
:: see a carbon fiber tiller on another Express 27? Anyone
:: know availiability/price or where to buy such a carbon
:: fiber tiller? Any thoughts if they are an expensive or
:: prohibited item. Thanks Steve Katzman