bosun's chair

[godspeed]

has anyone had the occasion to use a bosun's chair to access the top of their mast? if so, any advices on the use? my dilemma is that the wind indicator on my 27 has flipped end for end, and now lays upside down. don't know how the mechanism is designed that would allow for this, but somehow i have to get up there and flip it over. also would be useful to know what tools i might need with me to correct for this. i did install two of the davis 'clip-on's' on the stays, but don't like what they tell me. too much interference.

steve tompkins
cd 27
cape may

[Steve Laume]

The best advise I can give you is to make sure that whoever in on the winch, really knows what they are doing.

Use knots, not shackles. Rig some sort of back up safety line. Don't worry too much about what tools you take with you but be sure to have a way to haul more up. It is a very good idea to have lanyards on all of the tools because You don't want to kill the person on deck who knows what they are doing, Steve.

[tjr818]

I am interested in how to do this safely too. Do you use the main halyard winch that is on the mast? That seems like a dangerous place to be standing. I suppose you would want a third person tailing the line as you go up. The only safety line I would have would be the jib halyard. Would a fourth person be required for that? Since i am no longer at my fighting weight I wonder how hard it would be to crank up a 180 pound crew member? I will be doing this dockside so I will have lots of witnesses. Falling 35 feet to my death would be bad enough, but to hear all that laughter as I fall would kill me anyway. I have been advised to take a camera aloft and record everything I see. Any further advice?

[JWSutcliffe]

We do this a couple of times a season. While I won't incur the wrath of my wife and post her weight here, I will say it is close to 50% less than yours. We use the main halyard for lifting and the jib halyard as a safety. The job requires four people - one in the chair, one on the winch, one on the safety line, and one as a spotter. After cranking her up the mast twice in one session last summer, I will admit I was spent. It's not an easy job, but it's not as bad as some say. The best I can offer is have sufficient people, and take everything slowly. And yes, it always attracts a lot of spectators!

[John Ring]

Go up on the main halyard, or the jib halyard only. These lines usually go through (captive) the mast head and ride over solid sheaves.

NEVER go up the mast on a spinnaker halyard. A spinnaker halyard is usually attached at the top by a stamped 1/4" shackle, purchased at Walmart, made in China, attached to a plastic block that should have been replaced a decade ago.

A good self tailing winch on the mast makes the job much easier on the grinder, and safer for those going aloft. Be sure to bring a spray can of McLube for the mast track, and see how much easier the mainsail goes up & down!

Going up the mast is nothing to fear really. With a little practice, and safe techniques, this is actually a fun & fairly safe way to get a great view of the harbor!

John
CD36 Tiara

[Klem]

We take the mizzen mast down each winter which involves unhooking the triatic from the top of the mainmast. I always give my wife the choice of who goes up and she always chooses to go up rather than to crank me up there.

I send her up on the main halyard. With the lines that we use, I find that 2 turns on our halyard winch works best. Getting the number of turns right is one of the keys. Too few and you will be working really hard and too many and there might be an override. For the safety line, we make off the jib halyard really tightly and then put a prussik on it. My wife occassionally slides the knot up or down making sure that things do not bind up. How well this works really depends on the type of lines that you are using so check it with something other than a person first. If your halyard is too slippery, use it to hoist up a climbing rope and then put your prussik on this. We are both comfortable with this safety system.

I have climbed up on my own as well. If you want to do that, look at the ATN Top Climber. I rig up something similar using two ascenders. Again, I use the same safety system and it works fine although it is frustrating when I forget to move it up or down.

[godspeed]

thanks to everyone for their input...my wife is laughing out loud as she reads the various replies, especially those involving your various spouses.
john, the young lady with the tatoo seems very comfortable with her task. what is mclube. and where can it be obtained. will she come to cape may?
anything else that should be serviced while i am up there? my wife already opted for sending me aloft.
still can't figure out how the wind indicator flipped.
steve

[Steve Laume]

You have gotten some great suggestions. I should have added that you send the lightest person aloft while the one who knows what they are doing stays on deck. I sent my very young son up our TY mast once. He loved it.

One thing I will add is that I don't use the halyard winch for hoisting someone aloft. I attach a turning block to a stanchion base and run the halyard back to my primary winch in the cockpit. This is a far better arrangement than using the mast winch for a number of reasons. It is easier to see what is going on when you don't have to look straight up. The winch is much more powerful and generally works better. There is more room there to spread out tools in the cockpit and manage a couple of people. No one is going to get anything sharp dropped on their head.

If you don't trust a snatch block or just want to back it up to be safe, it is easy enough, with a lose loop of line around the halyard and stanchion base.

The one disadvantage of this arrangement is there is far less incentive for the deck person to keep from dropping the climber because they are safely out of harms way, Steve.

[John Stone]

Over the years I have gone aloft a number of ways. All worked. A couple of thoughts, for what it's worth. I would recommend against using a ST winch, or at least relying on the ST mechanism. I would have some one specifically dedicated to tailing. Knots vice snap shackles, though regular shackles are fine I think. Any shackles you use should be domestic made and certified for overhead work. Jamestown Distributors carries Chicago Hardware and Cambell galvanized shackles.

I have come to the conclusion that self-hoisting is the best way, at least for me. 1; I can do it by myself when I am on the boat alone and don't have to go to all the trouble to get a team together. 2; I know what I am doing and I trust myself while if you rely on others, unless you know them very well, they may not know what they are doing. 3; I can control my ascent and descent so I go at the speed I want and stop exactly where I want. 4; I don't have to worry about someone walking off on another chore while I sit up there waiting to come down. 5; If you are used to going aloft by yourself it's no big deal if you find yourself in a situation where you must go without someone there to assist you.

I have read that Brion Toss has a video on going aloft. I have not seen it but you can bet he does it right. In the last couple of months Practical Sailor ran an article on it as well.

I don't think you have to have an expensive harness and a bunch of ascenders and climbing gear. You can put together a simple 4:1 system built around one of the warps you probably already have on your boat (if it's in good shape). Whatever you do, be safe, don't get in a hurry, think about all the tools you need to accomplish the task before you start up the mast, rig a safety line ( a prussik from your chair to the main or jib halyard works well). Have fun. Oh, and remember, it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop.

[Paul D.]

Some good suggestions here. I use my climbing gear for top of the mast work.

I climb myself with a a six mil climbing rope tied in a loop about two feet long. That is tied in a prussik knot around the made fast main halyard. A four foot loop of one inch climbing webbing tied with a water knot girth hitched around the mast works as a foot hold.i use these two as ascenders so I can use my leg muscles to climb. Alternating the load on the line tied to my harness and the foot loop. A safety line could be another prussik tied around the jib halyard.

While this gets me up there slowly, I can use the foot loop to get right up over the top. Still a bit of a work out. But I do this once a year to check the tangs and shroud ends etc. and yes, always take sailkote to spray in the mast track on the way down. I sometimes do the mast track on the way up and try to hit as much of the jib foil on the way down. But now I spray the genoa luff when bending it on at the start of the season.

Used a buddy's top climber once. That was somewhat easier but it is pretty big to stow.

[Jim Walsh]

I agree with John. I'm nearly always alone and I have a 6 part system. This way I can haul myself to the masthead without undue stress. We're I younger (and nearer my fighting weight ) I'd be fine with a 4 part tackle. My bosun chair has a solid seat which is important if you'll be sitting in it for any length of time. Those form fitting seats can be tough on a mature set of bones.

[tjr818]

John and Jim,
I like that idea, but I need more instruction. I guess you hoist one end of the six part system to the main halyard and hoist it to the top. How do you secure the working end? A jamb cleat? I would guess that a six part would pay out slowly anyway. And then how do you work the safety halyard?
This could be fun I think I should bring along a cell phone too, just in case

[Tom Keevil]

We find that a climbing harness is good if you need to swing out and work on the end of the spreaders, but a bosun's chair is more comfortable if you're going to be up there awhile.

We use the main halyard, run through a block on the foredeck and back to the self tailing genoa winch. This winch is much more powerful than the halyard winch on the mast, and as pointed out above, you can better see what's going on, and are out of the line of fire for dropped tools.

We replaced the Prusik knot with an ascender a few years ago, and it was a good investment. The ascender goes onto the belayed jib halyard, and serves two purposes. It is tied to the bosun's chair to provide a safety if the main halyard system should somehow fail. It also has a loop of line attached to it that serves as a foothold. The person in the chair can stand up in the loop while the person at the winch brings in the slack. This way the effort is shared between the climber and the winch person. Winching a dead weight up the mast is a lot of work, even with a good winch, and climbing 40 feet straight up by yourself is not a piece of cake either. We evolved this system as we got older, so if you're young and fit, just file this away for later. Jean has winched me up the mast numerous times with this system, though usually she goes up, since she's considerably lighter.

Bring the end of a light line with you so you can haul up the tools you forgot.

While you're up there, pay close and careful attention to all the bits that hold the shrouds and stays to the mast, looking for broken wires, cracks, missing cotter pins (we actually found one once), etc. You can do fine without a wind indicator, but if a shroud goes, you don't have a mast (well, you do, but it's in the wrong location, and probably in two pieces).

[Steve Laume]

One of the problems with working at the mast head is that the bosun's chair never gets you quite high enough. I don't have mast steps to get me up the mast but I did install two folding steps about four feet below the mast head. This enables me to step onto them and tie myself in tight against the mast with a prussic knot. If I am in a bosun's chair I will still have a climbing harness on. That is what I use for a safety line and to tie in at the top. I put the prussic around the mast, above the steps so it can't slip down past them. This allows you to step right out of the bosun's chair and stand on the steps to work at a comfortable height with both hands free.

Now is a great time to add some steps if your mast is down. You will be glad you did, the next time you need to work at the top of the mast, Steve.

[Neil Gordon]

One of the problems with working at the mast head is that the bosun's chair never gets you quite high enough. I don't have mast steps to get me up the mast but I did install two folding steps about four feet below the mast head. This enables me to step onto them and tie myself in tight against the mast with a prussic knot.

Absent mast steps, you can take rope steps up with you... just need eyes at one end of two pieces of stout enough line and the other ends tied to the halyard with prussic knots. Feet go in the eyes, knots get tied at about chest level (while you're sitting in the chair)... just stand up. It's not as stable as steps and so a bit more tiring... but you can always sit down and take a break.

Note: A chest sling is a really good idea. If you fall over backwards you're in for a really bad afternoon.