steering reg vs hydraulic

[edwardh1]

in the 17 and 18 ft range, dual console, 90 and 115 outboard horsepower
what is the preferred steering?
will No feed back steering be enough? or do I need a simple hydraulic steering system which is I assume the next step up?.
Out last boat , a 1850 bayliner had regular cable steering, and my wife at times complained of torque in the wheel. Is there an online steering 101 simple guide?

 

[dingbat]

Re: steering reg vs hydraulic

The key to not getting a lot of torque at the steering wheel has more to do with the way your motor is setup more so than what type of steering you have. I would work on the setup before even thinking about add hydraulic steering to a boat.

I have plain old rotary helm on my boat. Once on plane, and properly trimmed, I can walk away from the helm.

A properly adjusted trim tab is paramount. I went to a 4-blade prop which helped a lot, but the biggest contributor is the trim. I can tell when I'm at the proper trim when all the torque is gone from the steering wheel. I?ll get some torque when running cross tide but that is easily remedied by a click or two of the down tide trim tab.

 

[metriccrescentwrench]

Re: steering reg vs hydraulic

Ditto what dingbat said. Once the trim tab on the engine is properly adjusted there should be no steering torque at cruising speeds. You'll feel some when getting up on plane, but that shouldn't be a big deal. Plus, the engines you're talking about aren't really big enough to need more than a plain vanilla steering system (despite what the manufacturers' marketing department would lead us to believe). At most I could see getting the NFB system, but spend a little time getting the trim tab adjusted first.