Why no lower Helm on Sportfishers?

A Few Laughs About Fishing Fever

There are quite a few 'fishing' boat jokes here:

NYCAP123 u just seem to be filled with knowledge, so u might know this one . when did the pod come in to play, thats another thing all battlewagons have in common, where the wheel and throttles are located on a pod coming off the console? who ever came up with that needs a medal, it makes reversing a pleasure, even more so with twin screws .

Thanks for the compliment, but I'm continually awed by how little I know. Some things can't help but catch with enough years though. By pod I guess your referring to that box under the wheel in your photo. DK, but I suspect SF captains had something to do with it as with bundling the gears to one side and the throttles to the other. Both situations just make it easier to face aft and operate by feel while backing down. As for timing I'll guess in the late 50's or early 60's. Again though this is just guesswork. You really need someone even older than me.

I think Rybovich was the first to come out with a pod and "palm beach" controls.

Ibelieve you're right and more info can probably be gotten by googling their history.

Had these on my last ride. Although I prefer the feel of manual controls these are excellant. DK where using the wheel with you bum comes in unless you were walking her, butt I don't think I'll ask. When electronic controls first hit the recreational market around here in the 90's the first couple sets I worked with had no stops so you could go from full speed forward to full speed reverse without feeling anything. My first time using them was spinning into a slip with a 46' Dancer in about 50' between bows with a 3kt. current going across. One of those days you never forget.
The MicroCommanders had a great feel and, if you looked, neutral was where it belonged. Best electronic controls I've used.

I like the feel and detents of the cat, electronic controls. The microcommanders are too soft and detents are too slight for me.

failure #1-I've had two different failures with microcommanders. One yesterday where the flybridge control had no stbd foward, it had neutral and reverse took 5 seconds to engage. Had to replace the control head.

failure #2- was approaching 17st bridge in ft. laud in a 70' azimut, a boat was going very slow through the bridge so I put both engines in neutral 100 yards from the bridge, stbd went into fwd at 1200 rpm's and stayed. I put port in reverse at 1400rpm's, spun the boat there in it's space and started heading back into the port and shut stbd down and assessed the situation. Had to run the boat all of the way up the New River on a busy Sunday blowing 20 knots from the lower station.

I also have lost one set of Man rex/roth controls on a yacht pulling out of the yard. Kept losing port, I'd have foward for a second and then neutral and no fwd anymore

I have lost all throttle on a glenndenning control on a 65' Mckinna. Had to have the FB control head replaced. It reverted to slow idle, but did have reverse, neutral, and foward. Bad news was it was in 4-6' seas. Had to get towed into the inlet for safety reasons. I have also had 2 other glenndenning controls where you'd go to neutral and it would go into reverse and vise versa when they had those recalls on them back in 2003 2004.

Cat controls. I have run lots and lots of boats with these and never have had an issue with them to date.

But I miss the days of Cable controls, you knew when they were stiff and going to fail, although they are a pain to use day in and day out. Hynautic controls aren't bad either and pretty reliable.

Guess they all have their problems, and we've all probably faced most of them at one time or another. Like you I'll take manuals anytime. The cable snaps, sticks or comes lose of the linkage. Maybe a set screw in the controll backs out. Not much else. Easy to deal with and easy to fix. I used to run a 56' LCM with direct linkage. The shifters were 3' bars/handles. You'd put your whole body into it to get it into gear then turn it for throttle. Work in close quarters for a day and it was better than going to the gym.

Right on all that Pascal except that the linkage end has popped off more times than I care to remember. It's amazing how few people put a cable tie on there.

The absolute worst most unreliable controls I ever used were Shraeder Bellows air operated electronic controls that were on a 1991 58' Striker I ran for a while. The controls were electronic when then utilized air operated solenoids in the engine room to actually move the linkages. It would go from 500 rpms, straight to 1000 rpms, no in between and then it was linear. It was the only 24 volt system on the boat that had two little (think dirt bike sized) batteries, with it's own battery charger, which then plugged into a 110v GFCI engine room outlet, you needed a generator running to run the 10 gallon air compressor, and I lost control on that boat on a regular basis. The wiring was the size of home inside telephone wire and it had 40 wires going to 4 different stations.

It had backup hynautic controls, but you had to go in the ER and unhook all of the linkages on both gears and engine and install the hynautic linkages. Which if docking or whatever, there was no time to swap it around.

i found a Rybovich... looks around 36'-ish long with the pod and controls to the side. the year... 80s... before my time so u ppl will have a better under standing of the history.
anyway, thought u might enjoy the attachment.... she cuts the water nicely

cheers

far

Very pretty with just enough varnish to keep you real busy . Do you have any info? BTW, "80s... before my time". Had to throw that in eh. Love being told I'm old before my eyes are fully open. Your day will come .

That's either artistry or masochism depending on how good you are. It's also a lot of open time and patience. When I was in Fl. there were some beautiful examples. When I got back to NY it was slapped on with disposo brushes like housepaint.

I seem to recall reading (years ago) about a Rybovich named Little Pete, and that was the first time I'd ever seen a Palm Beach helm console. Having learned to walk (then run, oops!) on the docks surrounded by Bertrams and Norsemans and Merritts and Whiticars and Posts and Matthews and Hatteras...ses (Hatteri?) and all manner of older, even by that point in time, sportfishes and flybridge convertibles, that Rybovich was a stunning revelation and totally memorable. The magazine was either from the late 60s or early 70s, I think the boat was about 50 or 52 feet.

From that point on, just like gauges mounted flat horizontal in a square white box with a perfectly horizontal wheel makes me think Norseman, the PB controls make me think Rybo.