How often do you need your lower helm?

[albinalaska]

... I should also add that flybridges at least in the Pacific Northwest are notorious for failure due to weather erosion. It’s a matter of when- not if.

 

[Bissy]

Hi Tim

i like having both . i drive from the bottom in rough seas and when it's cold or rainy . i brought my boat home in late December the year we bought it . i could not imagine doing it from the fly-bridge. but like others said the fly bridge is the place to be on nice calm days

Tim do you live aboard in Oriental?

 

[Codger2]

We only have the one up top on our sport fish type boat...... I do appreciate all the room we have below due to not having a helm down there..

Same for us! In SoCal, we really don't have weather so cold that you have to drive from the salon or a raised pilot house.
My last boat had no flybridge which I really missed. It also was too slow for my type A personality. Having twins again and a decent turn of speed is welcomed!

 

[Glaukos]

Lower Helm or Fly-bridge

I like having both. I don't want my fly-bridge enclosed so that I can get all the available air when it is hot and stuffy. So I like having the lower helm when the weather is unpleasant.
Richard Allen
42 Bristol LRC

 

[markpierce]

Our deck-level pilot house is separate from the saloon/galley and master bedroom. Happy to avoid seven-foot stairs/ladders to move around the boat. Plenty of air circulation in the pilot house, but rarely is needed more than one or one-half of a pilothouse door.

 

[Gaylord Ballard]

I like them both for all the reasons already posted. I have a Mainship 36. I use both. Trawlers move very slow but near the docks I find the lower helm best so that I can run out and hook a dock or line without going down a set of stairs.

 

[seighlor]

Except when in the very nastiest of nasty weather, I'm always on the flybridge.

 

[psneeld]

Just a friendly reminder...occasionally the air conditioner or genset might fail and people do boat in places where not only the air gets to 90 degrees but the water also.

A flying bridge may be the only tolerable place aboard.....

Sure ......not everyone has to worry about it....but some do.

 

[CaptGary]

When I bought my Eagle 40, I was expecting to drive almost entirely from the Flybridge. After a few rough, rainy days I became more and more comfortable driving from the pilothouse. As I have great visibility from the Pilothouse, I find I start and end the day from there and only go up to the Flybridge in really nice weather, or at anchor. As others have said, the Pilothouse is closer to the galley and head, and it offers a lot of sitting area for the Admiral to spread out and enjoy her tea and navigate while underway. It really does depend on the boat, but I really like having the option of driving from either, depending on conditions.

 

[rcsomany]

As usual, it depends...

... on specific layouts and personal preferences.
Our first two boats had lower helms from which visibility was relatively poor (to my mind, anyway). I drove from the lower helms only once in each and only for a few minutes to see how it was. I did did all my driving from the bridge. The bridge of our first boat had only a bimini but the second boat had a full enclosure from which we removed the side panels during the best-weather months.
Our current (and last) boat has a bridge with only a bimini and a wheelhouse with much better visibility. We're only just going into our second season but, so far, I have been doing all the driving from the wheelhouse. Opening all or half of the dutch doors on either side gives plenty of "open air" feeling. I drove from the bridge once (in berthing) to see how that was. Much better situational awareness when manoeuvring in close quarters, so that will probably be my habit going forward.
An unforeseen (but now obvious) benefit from doing most of the driving from the wheelhouse is that we don't need to haul a bunch of stuff (paper charts, binos, handheld VHF, reference material, etc. not to mention snacks and beverages) up and down to and from the bridge.

 

[menzies]

If you can afford both with full gear, go for it.

If you can't, pick one.

Just enjoy your boat, life is far to short.

Just be glad we aren't dogs.

 

[Simi 60]

Just a friendly reminder...occasionally the air conditioner or genset might fail and people do boat in places where not only the air gets to 90 degrees but the water also.

A flying bridge may be the only tolerable place aboard.....

Sure ......not everyone has to worry about it....but some do.

Pfft, 90f is only 32c
We have had 100f/38c days and we aren't even in the hot parts of Australia.

No ac on board and an enclosed upper helm.
Harden up

 

[MYNantucket]

I have both and for visibility I use the flybridge exclusively, No one I know has ever piloted their boat from the lower helm unless your in a nasty environment! To me it is a waste of space. Just my take on it

 

[psneeld]

Pfft, 90f is only 32c
We have had 100f/38c days and we aren't even in the hot parts of Australia.

No ac on board and an enclosed upper helm.
Harden up

Is your interior helm right on top of the engine?

I never said it was my problem....

Maybe less fires less heat?

 

[ecruise]

I've never used the lower helm in our Monk 36 trawler. Our flybridge is enclosed, so it's fine on rainy days. We don't travel on rough, windy days, so that's not a factor either. I keep the lower helm ready and fully functional just in case...but thats it.

 

[psneeld]

I have both and for visibility I use the flybridge exclusively, No one I know has ever piloted their boat from the lower helm unless your in a nasty environment! To me it is a waste of space. Just my take on it

I use the lower helm about 99% of the time, Florida even more so because of UV.

Many boaters and pros I know that have spent a lifetime of driving boats from outside prefer inside as long as the steering station is worth a hoot.

 

[Cartouche]

I haven't bought a trawler yet, so I'm doing my research now. Some of the boats I'm looking at have a flybridge helm and a helm in the salon too.

My question is, how often do you use the helm in the salon? If your flybridge is your only helm, do you ever wish you had a second helm in the salon?

Thanks,

Remember "he who hates to be late" you really only need the lower helm in bad weather or beam seas, if you have the lower helm it is well worth the money if you only have the flybridge you will wish you had the lower helm. we also use it to pick up moorings and in the locks.

 

[Codger2]

I have both and for visibility I use the flybridge exclusively, No one I know has ever piloted their boat from the lower helm unless your in a nasty environment! To me it is a waste of space. Just my take on it

WOW! My kind of guy!

 

[Wayne]

I haven't bought a trawler yet, so I'm doing my research now. Some of the boats I'm looking at have a flybridge helm and a helm in the salon too.

My question is, how often do you use the helm in the salon? If your flybridge is your only helm, do you ever wish you had a second helm in the salon?

Thanks,

Hi, The Celestial had only a fully functional upper/flybridge helm when we bought her. The lower helm had no navigational instruments other than a compass, not even a VHF radio. Over the years I added piecemeal components until it had everything needed - thanks to eBay. Then the boat took a lightning strike that killed all the DC equipment on the boat plus the inverter-charger. I was informed by BoatUS to get it fixed. The technician that replaced everything was a Garmin dealer, so we had him install a fully integrated Garmin electronics suite at both helms. WOW! What an improvement! We found that we normally ran the boat from the lower helm, except on beautiful, cool, days with low humidity - not too often in the Florida panhandle. The air conditioner got a good workout on most forays. If I ever get another boat with dual helms, I would want both to be fully functional and identical so that I only had to learn one system, not all disparate individual components as I had to with the original configuration.

 

[Steve91T]

We have both. We like the flybridge a lot. Engines are damn near silent from up there and the visibility is really good. It’s really nice up there. The area is big enough for the kids to play which is really important.

There are times when it sucks. When it’s super hot and you’re going with breeze....basically there’s no air movement. Also obviously when it’s raining.

The other thing for us is when the kids hall are getting bored or are hungry. I’d be stuck upstairs driving while my wife dealt with the kids. Now I’ll run downstairs with them, drive from the lower helm while the kids eat and watch movies. Plus being in the ac or heat is nice. I have a door on my starboard that I like to leave open if I can. The only thing that stinks is I have zero rear visibility.

I really like having the option and enjoy driving from both. It did take me a while to get brave enough to try driving from the lower helm. It was surprising how different the boat felt.

 

[Steve91T]

Wide angle and normal pic from the lower helm

 

[ranger58sb]

Those pics -- lower right in post 110 and right in post 111 -- sorta illustrate what I've said a few times about visibility from various helm station... especially visibility immediate in front of the boat. Where all the logs and crab pots live...

-Chris

 

[BrianSmith]

Flybridge 99.9% of the time. We didn't want a pilothouse, as we felt it would be wasted space, knowing we would use the flybridge almost always. So our lower helm is just an instrument panel and steering wheel at the forward end of the galley. We've never had, nor do we ever plan to have, the boat farther north than Florida.

 

[bayview]

I have both and for visibility I use the flybridge exclusively, No one I know has ever piloted their boat from the lower helm unless your in a nasty environment! To me it is a waste of space. Just my take on it

Everyone i know in Florida uses the upper helm. If visibility is poor you see better especially in narrow twisty channels and looking aft. If visibility is good it is more enjoyable. Some boats dont have comfortable seating at the lower helm and visibility near the bow is limited. Provided you dont have ladders. ladders discourage going up.

Some of the newer style boats have low sloping windows at the lower helm making for a green house that must be terrible in hot weather even with AC

If you are a single hander then probably only the lower would be used along with a side door for docking.

If you go to a pilot house of 55' or more the story changes/

 

[CruisingTheICW]

My little Mainship 34T has upper and lower. I prefer the upper, but as someone wrote in an earlier post, the lower is great in wet or cold weather -- and I would add, in HOT weather when no breeze is blowing. A couple of years ago I -- not by choice -- discovered the lower helm seemed calmer when crossing the Albemarle Sound on a day that I should have stayed on the dock!

 

[Rich wilmer]

Im in the PNW not that many fly bridge due to the weather but when the weather is nice i run from upabove Ocean 50 mock 1

 

[FoxtrotCharlie]

I think where you cruise is very key to othis question- if I was in the PNW probably lower helm a lot. So far for us (125 hrs) it has been 100% FB. We are totally inclosed so can be very comfortable. And i do like the visability from up there. We have seating for 8-10 on the FB with easy access 3 steps up from the sundeck. A/C up there would be a nice addition - another day.

 

[4Fun]

Really great information thank u so much for enlightening me

 

[Spickman]

I use the pilothouse (lower helm) all the time. The Command Bridge (Flybridge is great fun), but I like to have a place where I can pilot regardless of the weather.

 

[4Fun]

Thank you. Salesmen are telling me the lower helm is almost never used. I had my doubts, but wanted to hear from a boater. Again thank you