Tiller
lever used to steer a vehicle, typically on boats
A tiller or till is a lever used to steer a vehicle. The mechanism is primarily used in watercraft, where it is attached to an outboard motor, rudder post or stock to provide leverage in the form of torque for the helmsman to turn the rudder. A tiller may also be used in vehicles outside of water, and was seen in early automobiles. On vessels, a tiller can be used by the helmsman directly pulling or pushing it, but it may also be moved remotely using tiller lines or a ship's wheel. Rapid or excessive movement of the tiller results in an increase in drag and will result in braking or slowing the boat.
Description
A tiller is a lever used to steer a vehicle. It provides leverage in the form of torque to turn the device that changes the direction of the vehicle, such as a rudder on a watercraft or the surface wheels on a wheeled vehicle. A tiller can be used by directly pulling or pushing it, but it may also be moved remotely using a whipstaff, tiller lines, or a ship's wheel, among other variations. (For example, some kayaks have foot pedals that turn a tiller.) Tillers on outboard motors often employ an additional control mechanism where twisting of the shaft is used to vary speed.
Watercraft
Rudder control
In watercraft, the tiller may be attached to a rudder post (American terminology) or rudder stock (English terminology) that provides leverage in the form of torque to turn the rudder.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Tiller” as lever used to steer a vehicle, typically on boats. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1932076. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tiller” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.