MYBOAT

Getting Up In The World

I dont know about you, but I have a particular talent for losing halyards. I dont know how it happens, but invariably it happens fast. One minute you have a perfectly good topping lift. The next you have a coil of rope in your hands and an empty sheave, far, far above your head, spinning in the wind.

Longtime readers of this blog will remember that Helena and I have already experimented with home-made bosuns chairs. It was so much fun that Helena insisted on giving it a go.

Home Made Bosun Chair photo jalmberg

This will look dodgy to some people, but actually its quite safe. The seat is a very sturdy plank, and the rope that holds it up is crossed and tied under the seat. Theres some extra rope coiled up and tied under the seat to keep it from catching on things, so it looks a bit messier than it is.

In the impossible case of the seat cracking, the crossed line would hold the thing together long enough to get the victim -- I mean worker -- down safely.

Add a 6x block and tackle, a safety harness attached around the mast, one halyard for the chair and another for the safety harness. Toss in a healthy dose of common sense and you are in business.

The big problem with this approach is the 6X block and tackle you need to hoist a full grown person. Even on my short-masted boat, this means threading 200 feet of line through 2 triple blocks. And you cant just thread the line any old way. Because of friction, the line has to follow a specific route through the sheaves that I cant remember without pulling out the books.

In short, the bosun chair is the best way to get to the masthead, but its an all day project. I wanted something simpler and quicker.

The inspiration for this project came from watching a fellow sailor climb to the top of his very tall mast on an ordinary household aluminum extension ladder. Well, duh! I thought. How simple is that.

That got me thinking of ladders, but I wanted something a little more portable. Something I could stow away down below in case of emergencies far from home and ladders. Then one day, I was thumbing through my "Ashley Book of Knots", and found exactly what I was looking for.

The solution was on the very last page of the book, in fact:

Rope Ladder from Ashley Book of Knots

I could just imagine myself as that happy tar, scampering up into the rigging...

The ingredients for this project are:

• enough 1/2" line to go up and down the mast, with enough left over to tie securely. I started with 100 for my 27 mast, so I had plenty
• enough oak dowel stock to make the rungs. I bought 3 lengths of 1" round stock from Home Depot and cut them in half to make 18" rungs.
• tarred marline for the lashings. I used #18 tarred nylon since I have several miles of it lying around
• a thimble for the top.

Front. Notice how the lashings are crossed

I used a simple cross lashing that I also found in Ashley. I suggest you find a copy in the library and study his instructions which are better than I can provide here.

As a side note, I gave all the rungs several good rubbings with linseed oil before lashing them on. They dont really need much protection, but I like the smell and look of linseed oil.

After youve got a few rungs lashed on, it gets a bit unwieldy. I found it best to keep the part I was working on hanging as straight as possible, with the rest of it out of the way.

Plenty of light and a place to hang things is essential. Note the tape on both lines showing the rung positions

About half-way through the project, I discovered a quick and easy way to make the loose end of the rung fast to the ladder while you lash the other end. I used the famous Constrictor Knot to lash one end in place temporarily (see photo above), then lashed the other side. Its fast and easy to tie and release the constrictor knot so you can use the same bit of marline over and over again. Its impossible to lash the rung unless the other end is held steady.

Left side temporarily held by constrictor knot, while the other side is lashed

As my work companion Port shows, this job gets a bit tedious after awhile, so some music or your favorite podcast will help pass the time. (Starboard never hangs around when work is underway...)

By the time you are done, you will have perfected your lashing skills, and if you are like me, will be raring to try it out.

On a calm summer weekday (to minimize powerboat traffic), with Helena in the chase boat, and 911 programmed into speed dial on her cell phone, I proceeded to hoist my lovely ladder up the Blue Moons mast.

The ladder hoisted and steadied by bridle to bow

Rigging the ladder took a bit of experimentation to get right. I suppose a fit, 20-something could just climb straight up it with no problem, but I wanted it to be a bit more secure than that.

First, I discovered you want the ladder to hang at a bit of angle from the mast. This makes it a lot easier and less scary to climb. Trust me.

Taking the stretch out of the ladder

You also want to tie it down tight, to take the stretch out of it. I tied the ends down tightly in my cockpit, one on either side of the boom.

Then, to put even more tension on the ladder, and to prevent it from twisting, I lashed a kind of bridle to the ladder and tied the bridle off on the Sampson post in the bow.  See the bridle in the two pictures above.

With these precautions in place, the ladder was stiff and easy to climb, even for an old geezer like me.

Getting that halyard back up again

Even with all that tension, the ladder moves in towards the mast as you go up, so you can easily reach it from the ladder.

In the photo above you can see that the halyard has also stretched, so the head of the ladder is too far below the masthead. As you take the stretch out of the system, be sure to re-tighten the halyard so the head of the ladder ends up at the masthead. A lesson for next time...

And that was that! Now that I know how to rig it, the next time, it will take about 10 minutes to hoist and secure. Very salty looking and the envy of my yacht club.



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