A large ship’s ‘Sunday’ tiller carved with Queen Victoria’s likeness

A large ship’s ‘Sunday’ tiller carved with Queen Victoria’s likeness. This long yacht tiller is made from a single, solid piece of mahogany and has a typical shallow S-curve. The terminal is carved with the head of the young Queen Victoria. Below this is a brass-mounted grip and a long section carved to simulate multiple strands of twisted rope. The square section end, which has a socket for the rudder, is decorated with panels of acanthus leaf scrolls. English, circa 1840.

The scale and quality of this impressive tiller indicate that it would have been created for a major yacht of its era, one that would have been about 100 feet in length. The ‘Sunday’ tiller of America (see pages 104-107), which is in the lobby of the New York Yacht Club, is 96 inches long and the tiller from the 1895 America’s Cup Challenger Valkyrie III tiller is 148 inches and hangs in the Royal Ulster Yacht Club, Ireland. A ‘Sunday’ tiller is a finely crafted decorative, but also functional, tiller used on high days and holidays. There would have been a different tiller for racing and transatlantic crossings.