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One of my favourite questions is "when did you last drive a car with wooden seats?" A 3hour car ride is a long trip, but only one short watch when sailing. So helm comfort should really be a priority.

Check out this first photo, ignore the fact that there doesn't appear to be anything stopping the helm falling overboard backwards. Just imagine standing like that, even for an hour, possibly for a full night watch in bad weather.

To be honest, having said that, we hadn't given helm position enough thought until we started developing our 30ft Sagitta catamaran in the late 1980s. We went to a boat show and studied all the powerboats, reasoning that they would emphasise comfort and convenience more than sail boats. And we were right, we gathered a lot of ideas that we were able to incorporate into our newer designs.

Other designers don't seem to have followed the powerboat lead. For example the Leopard 44 that I sailed to the Bahamas had a very uncomfortable helm seat. The Lagoon 380 that I sailed across the Atlantic was better, but I couldn't see the compass from the helm, never mind have a good view of all four corners of the boat. Puzzling, as it's simple enough to design a comfortable chair - after all, everyone has one at home.

One complication with a sailing boat, especially one that is tiller steered, is that you really need two comfortable seating positions. One when actually steering and the other when under autopilot, or when socialising in the cockpit apres sail.

You can see a short video clip shows Sagitta's original helm seating area when in autopilot mode here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwnJUyGnZAo

When actually steering the helm sat on the top of the foam backrest. That worked well for a while, but the round tubing quickly cut through the foam cushion and it became uncomfortable.

So later designs kept the same concept, except that the back rest and top was padded plywood, as seen on Eclipse in the this photo. And note the parasol instead of a bimini. This worked extremely well, even in the tropics. It allowed a good view of the sails, made it easy to reef the mainsail and could be "tacked" from side to side as needed.

Bringing the helm seat design right up to date, when I refitted the same Sagitta, now 34 years old, I designed what I think is the best solution - a sliding seat back. All very simple, made in plywood.

The original lower seating position was slatted wood and shaped like a park bench. That worked well but was unnecessarily long. So it's now shorter with a useful shallow locker under. The seat swivels so that when steering you sit high with a good view over the cabin top and with full control. Then, with a flick of the wrist, the seat becomes a back rest for use when under autopilot.

The photos  show the two states and the video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_z6jz_-cqM shows how quick it is to go from one position to the other. A further refinement is to have a waterproof tablet chart plotter on a bracket (normally used on a bike) so the chart is literally in one's face when steering. The final refinement is of course cockpit cushions, not shown in these photos.