pathfinderstu
Well-Known Member
you mean by that if the user falls and croaks it that is his lifetime ..lol
Can a bosuns chair fail?
- Thread starter Oscarpop
- Start date
you mean by that if the user falls and croaks it that is his lifetime ..lol
Graham_Wright
Well-Known Member
Anyone do that? I don't.
prv
Well-Known Member
Most of us don't climb masts in a commercial capacity.
But equally, I suspect that adventure-training firms taking paying punters climbing don't follow rules intended for industrial access equipment (though they will certainly have some degree of kit and training paperwork) so the situation isn't as clear as "RopeWork" suggests.
Pete
Last edited:
ropeworkuk
Member
As a trainer you should be doing this.
If a serious accident were to happen while you are training people then you would be up on a corporate manslaughter charge for not complying with UK LAW.
Boat owners going up a mast are not classed as a commercial activity and do not fall under the stated regulations.
PaulMcRae
New Member
Additional precautions
Speaking from personal experience of coming down to the deck under the influence of gravity (albeit not from the top!), unscathed (apart from bruising to bits we can't talk about!). Anything can fail, especially if something gets caught and is subject to unreasonable stress that we could never anticipate and of course we have no way of measuring the integrity of anything on a yacht apart from experience and commonsense! My advise:
Sit in the chair 2 feet up and bounce up to check for integrity. Make sure that you can reach all your shackles that attaches you. Have a bag attached to you containing the tools you will be needing, one of them must be a pair of pliers to undo shackles!
Wear an additional safety harness, however, think about how and who controls this and what happens next if it saves you and you are left dangling with a high pitched voice! If its you and you wife with your wife at the bottom on a winch, you will need a climbing jammer hooked around a spinnaker halyard that you made tight on the base on the mast with a shackle so it is one vertical taught line, that way if you are left dangling, your wife can winch you down.
Don't attach the chair to a quick release shackle that is used for spinnakers! Treat yourself to a lovely, big, stainless jobby dedicated to the bosuns chair! Don't tie it on, the size of the loop makes you stop too far short from the top of the mast and you might need to release the chair to re-route the line so you can work around the other side of the mast etc. Make sure, your set-up can't scratch the paintwork, you will find it easier to go up the back of the mast but most of the work you will probably be doing will be at the front of the mast associated with lights, top swivels and furling jibs!
If you use the topping lift for the bosuns chair and the spinnaker line for safety, no matter how much staring up the mast you do, you will get it wrong when you get to the mid spreaders and something will be the wrong side of something! Have a plan!, you wife will only have the strength and patience to do this the once!
I am scared of heights and I hate this job, however, mast monkey at least once a year is part of sailing! Making it safe in you own mind, overcomes a lot of fears! If anybody wants I can explain how to get above the mast head for those really horrible times when you have to look down and work on it! I think I have it perfected now!
Speaking from personal experience of coming down to the deck under the influence of gravity (albeit not from the top!), unscathed (apart from bruising to bits we can't talk about!). Anything can fail, especially if something gets caught and is subject to unreasonable stress that we could never anticipate and of course we have no way of measuring the integrity of anything on a yacht apart from experience and commonsense! My advise:
Sit in the chair 2 feet up and bounce up to check for integrity. Make sure that you can reach all your shackles that attaches you. Have a bag attached to you containing the tools you will be needing, one of them must be a pair of pliers to undo shackles!
Wear an additional safety harness, however, think about how and who controls this and what happens next if it saves you and you are left dangling with a high pitched voice! If its you and you wife with your wife at the bottom on a winch, you will need a climbing jammer hooked around a spinnaker halyard that you made tight on the base on the mast with a shackle so it is one vertical taught line, that way if you are left dangling, your wife can winch you down.
Don't attach the chair to a quick release shackle that is used for spinnakers! Treat yourself to a lovely, big, stainless jobby dedicated to the bosuns chair! Don't tie it on, the size of the loop makes you stop too far short from the top of the mast and you might need to release the chair to re-route the line so you can work around the other side of the mast etc. Make sure, your set-up can't scratch the paintwork, you will find it easier to go up the back of the mast but most of the work you will probably be doing will be at the front of the mast associated with lights, top swivels and furling jibs!
If you use the topping lift for the bosuns chair and the spinnaker line for safety, no matter how much staring up the mast you do, you will get it wrong when you get to the mid spreaders and something will be the wrong side of something! Have a plan!, you wife will only have the strength and patience to do this the once!
I am scared of heights and I hate this job, however, mast monkey at least once a year is part of sailing! Making it safe in you own mind, overcomes a lot of fears! If anybody wants I can explain how to get above the mast head for those really horrible times when you have to look down and work on it! I think I have it perfected now!