Hey Michel, My harness is hooked to a length of one inch strap that’s put around the mast with a prusic knot. If anything snafus with the climbing gear and I start to fall, that knot cinches up on the mast and stops my eminent demise. I sometimes rappel down to save time (and it’s fun!).
Of course I don’t recommend anyone do it my way. And in fact my new way is to let the elevator (Milwaukee Drill) take me up in a chair.
I re-rigged this 54 foot cutter in the slip. That was a lot of climbing. Now I wish I could sell the entire lot of rigging equipment before we go cruising.
The best mast climbing rig I ever saw was put together by my marina neighbor in Rockport, TX a few years ago.
First, a little background. This guy’s name is Jim LaFleur and he owned a 51’ Aage Nielsen Ketch built in the Paul Luke yards. For those who don’t know, this is a wooden boat. The masts, likewise are wood & require stripping and revarnishing regularly (far TOO regularly for my taste). Jim was in his mid 70’s at the time, as was his wife. Mast climbing (or being hauled up the mast) did not interest him at all… His technique was as follows:
Attach 25 gallon Nauta bag to halyard, insert garden hose & haul empty bag to masthead…attach self to safety harness and clip into other end of halyard and have a seat on bosun’s chair at deck level. Turn on garden hose. When weight of bag + weight of water = weight of Jim + resistance of system, Jim begins to rise slowly from the deck & his wife turns off the hose. Jim (by now perfectly counterbalanced by the weight of the water & the bag) then grips the mast and easily rises to the top of the mast using hand strength alone. When bag contacts deck, Jim is at the top of the mast. His wife then removes the hose, caps off the bag, and retires to the cockpit to make sure (while reading or knitting) that things don’t go awry. Jim then (using a heat gun) strips the mast on his way down, moving up and down easily by gripping either the bag-end of the halyard (for the top half of the mast) or the mast itself (once he’s past the bag on his way down. I witnessed (at intervals) him strip both masts to bare wood and revarnish them with three coats over a four day period.
The man made over 75 trips up and down those masts in the course of that project, and the only time a winch was ever used was to “slip” the halyard to lower the full bag from masthead to deck when he finished with the mast (I’m thinking that he had a bag for each mast).
I’m going to buy myself a Nauta bag before I tackle the drill-out-re-pop-rivet project which is now looming on the horizon
Jim & his wife lived onboard Seaflower for four years (during the 30 something years that he owned her). He made several singlehanded crossings of the Atlantic as well. They donated the boat to a nautical museum in Newport RI a few years ago, and he informed me in our last conversation that over 1100 kids learned about sailing on that boat this year.
The climbing set up you describe is what I use, only I have two ascenders in stead of one ascender and a grigri.
Grigri:
About suspect halyards: It’s the shock impact (dynamic loading) from an 85 kg body falling a few yards down that will test the rope more that statically loading the rope by (without impact) hoisting two tonnes of concrete and iron. As for the rope, dynamic loading of blocks, deadeyes and shackles is dangerous. Sailing stuff is less than mountain stuff designed for dynamic loading. Few manufacturers (I know only Wichard) test and certify their hardware for a certain load. Mountain equipment is individually (per item, not per type or series) tested and certified.
Hi Michel,
Thanks for that explanation. I think I’ll get some climbing line to be on the safe side. What do you think of Katorpus’ method with the water bag. It looks brilliant to me, just the sort of thing a real old salt would come up with. Even a partial ballast on a second halyard would make the climb that much easier.
How is your summer going. Are you getting some sea time in? We are still a couple of months away from sea. We will be slipping soon to scrape off old antifoul buildup and get a new system on.
The beauty of the full ballast is to be able to “just hang” wherever you want to be up/down the mast.
If all you have available is an internally led halyard, you can still do this by attaching a block (of adequate size, please!) to the shackle and running it up to the masthead with another line run through the block (also of adequate size & in good shape). You’d really want a line with minimal stretch for this approach.
The waterbag sounds ideal for doing jobs on the mast. Only in my case there would be over 200 kgs hanging from a block and shackle.
About my seatime, I just had a week trip across and back to England to drink a few pints of Adnams in the Butt & Oyster in Pin Mill on the river Orwell on the east coast. Nice overnight trip with good weather but a little more wind would have been nice. It was my first longer seatrip with this boat and a host of maintenance jobs and malfunctions came up. Zeven days of sailing (actually four) result in seven days of work.
Ah, that it would be, matey…but it’s a static load…unless you fall out of your bosun’s chair and drop to the end of your tether, that is.
I’m not worried about the shackle (mine’s an anodized aluminum screw pin shackle with a 3/8" pin). The splice would be the weak point (one should “know” one’s splicer).
I never use the spliced-in halyard shackle when going aloft; I use a knot which I trust. But the shackle above the block and the block itself I would fear.
The waterbag counterbalance sounds great. I tend to be a belt and suspenders type so I like as much redundancy as possible. I have an ATN climber but I rig a separate camcleat (from sailor solutions at http://www.sailorssolutions.com/index.asp?page=ProductDetails&Item=SB01 but you could make your own from climbing parts) on my spare halyard. So if a splice, block or line or part of the ATN seat failed I’d still be aloft (okay).
One could do this with the waterbag with the waterbag rigged on a spar external halyard and the separate camcleat rigged on the secured main halyard. Then even a sudded rip in the waterbag wouldn’t be unsafe.
Hi guys,
Just a quick update- I couldn’t source a nauta bag locally so I am having a bag made up by a local inflatable dinghy manufacturer. We are using 380mm dia pontoon section about 1000mm long with four webbing straps longitudinally to carry the weight. the four straps will come together at the top with an eyelet for the halyard shackle.On the side near the bottom will be the hose connection. There is quite a bit of interest in it and I reckon I will be able to hire it out a couple of times to offset the cost! It should be ready in the next week or so so I will report on actual operation.
I have another boat, a wooden Rasmus 35 which is for sale. A survey last week detected a “small” area of rot in the transom so I set out to fix it this weekend. Well, about half the transom has to be replaced as it turns out, so thaeditt will keep me busy for a while! I quite enjoy the work but it is keeping me away from my beloved Freedom.
Cheers,
Michel,
the bag will be flat (containing no air) before filling so the only pressure will be from the head. The head is a product of height not volume, so if there is enough pressure to fill the bag from its top then the same pressure will fill it from the bottom. The required head is about 16 metres which I hope we can extract from our local water main. If not we’ll have to lower the bag a little and winch it back up when full enough.
You’ll also have to leave the hose attached until the bag descends to deck level, at which point your (hopefully nimble-fingered crew) can remove it and quickly seal the inlet…before enough water escapes to cause your descent.
Failure to do this could cause you to find yourself lying on the deck with the last of the water from the bag (once again at mast-top) draining onto your broken (or at least bruised) body.
I would suggest having an ascender on your harness and clipping that into the line to which the bag is attached once you are up and it is down. This would avoid the above scenario.
Also, you’re going to have to allow for the weight of the hose and the water in the hose when filling the bag…once you start to rise off the deck, run in a little more water so you’ll have some to bleed out when making your adjustments. You might want to incorporate a small “bleed off” valve in your rig so that you don’t have to fiddle with the main inlet/drain plug to do this.
This all reminds me of the old story of the brick mason who finished a tall wall on a Saturday…with one helper.
He had extra bricks on the top of the scaffold and loaded them into a wooden barrel on a rope & pulley and signalled the helper to lower it down. The helper then untied the rope.
As the mason pushed the barrel free of the edge of the scaffold, he lost his balance and grabbed the rope, falling off. The combination of bricks, barrel & mason outweighed the helper and he shot up to the top of the wall…hitting his head on the barrel on the way up, but managing to hang on.
When the helper got to the top…two knuckles deep into the top sheave but still holding on, the barrel hit the ground and the bottom broke out.
The mason lost HIS grip when he hit the ground …the helper (counterweighted now by nothing more than the empty, bottomless barrel) then plummeted, hit the barrel (on its way up) while he was on the way down, then hit the ground…on top of the mason, at which point the helper finally let go of the rope…and the barrel fell full height and hit both of them.
Thanks Katorpus, I had heard that story on the radio, I believe the chap had to have a couple of days off work!. The idea emptying from above would have the benefit of washing the blood away before it stains the deck but despite this attraction I thought I would fit a valve at the bag to avoid that problem. I will definately be using an ascender as you suggest.
Mike, wouldn’t it be smart to also fit a valve at the deck end of the filling hose? The valve in the bag can only be reached if you and the bag are both halfway up the mast.
– somehow I feel as if you guys are pulling my leg with all this nonsense about water bags to go up the mast… it all sounds too funny, especially after the story of the mason and his mate. I can see all kinds of extremely funny situations happening, all very suitable to become multimillion hit clips on Youtube.
I use a much simpler way to go up the mast; I rig a line to the anchor windlass. But you do need two people that know what they’re doing.
I assure you that I’m not pulling anyone’s leg about the water bag mast ascension.
One more thing you might consider…
Have a tether line attached (and running free) to the bottom of the bag…That way, if the boat gets rolling and rocking while you and the bag are both “out of reach” and you end up doing the “maypole thing” with the lines wrappped around the mast, then someone might still be able to help get you un-wrapped from deck level…once they quit laughing, that is.
I’m sorry. I almost never do this but I’m going to have to say that I think the entire water bag ascending thing has got way too many chances for Murphy to step in. I consider myself a kind of daring do fellow but I wouldn’t do it. Sorry about the buzz kill. I really hope things work out for the best.
Katorpus, I had thought the tether essential to control the bag and swing it clear of any obstructions such as the radome. My partner should be able to manage that.
Michel, the windlass is the method I use to get my son up the mast. Unfortunately there is no one in my crew with enough experience that I would trust them to haul me up there! The tap serves as the valve at the bottom end.
George, thank you for your concern. I am nervous about heights and will be using an ascender and or grigri on a seperate halyard as a belay. I have thought about the loads on the blocks and it is about the same as the windlass method, but more like a static load as opposed to the dynamic loads created by puffing my way up via an ascender. I am also very lazy and therfore interested in this method as it would seem to get me where I don’t want to go with the least amount of effort. As regards friend Murphy, what ever can go wrong will go wrong, we have so far come up with measures to deal with the known “can go wrongs”. I will always be grateful to hear of any other possible problems in advance. Lift off is still a week or two away. Cheers,
There is no more load on the masthead block with the waterbag approach than there is with any other method of “hauling you up”…
Look at it this way…in order to raise a 165 lb load on one “side” of the halyard, you need at least 165 lbs of downward force applied to the other “side”.
The waterbag is actually safer in this regard. If you match your own weight with the weight of bag & water, that’s ALL the force that can be applied to the other side of the halyard (and it’s static, unless the bag gets hung up and suddenly “drops”…or you do).
If you’re on a winch or windlass and get “hung up”, the force applied to both sides of the halyard (and you) will continue to increase (dynamically) until somebody stops cranking, ratcheting, or releases the button that controls the (electric) windlass (or until some body part gives way).
With a little innovation, you could “self tend” the bag by running the tether through a block on a rail or cabin top somewhere and back through another turning block and taking the tail up with you. The tether would limit the movement of the bag to a single plane and prevent it wrapping around the mast. If the radome happens to be at the midpoint of the mast, you & the bag would arrive at the radome simultaneously. You likely wouldn’t need to adjust the tether as you go up and down, since the slack resulting from the descending bag would be taken up by your own ascent & vice versa. Just don’t put the first block TOO far away from the mast base or you’ll be unable to completely ascend to the masthead as the bag is pulled away from the mast.
All that being said, it’ best to have a helper. Minimal skills & attentiveness are required.
