Going up the mast of a bilge-keeled Westerly Falcon, whilst she's ashore?

[Rappey]

Let's take a hypothetical boat of 8m and 3000kg , bilge keel.
One keel weighs 750 kg . The force used at the mast top to tip the boat would need to lift at least the keel and half of the boat weight ?
How on earth would a 90 kg guy very close to the centre line ever get close to tipping the boat ?
I do realise it's a lot more complex with mast length, keel angles ,distance apart etc.
Many of the mainstream boatyards use cradles that can accommodate very heavy boats. The yard workers are very experienced having probably moved thousands of boats using all sorts of machinery. I would say these guys are the ones to ask if you think your boat might fall over.

 

[Moodysailor]

I am afraid it is a bit elf'n'safety. The yards here mostly do not prohibit going up the mast when ashore, either by the local professional riggers or by owners. However there is a creeping elf'n'safety lunacy coming in: it is easier for boatyards to prohibit EVERYTHING than risk being sued.

One local yard published a set of terms'n'conditions that effectively said that in order to get on deck or in the cockpit of your own boat once they had lifted it out of the water and put it ashore on their own hired steel cradle, you would have to have scaffolding erected giving a walkway and 1 metre high guardrail all around the deck and cockpit. Of course the boats were packed together far too closely for that to be done, even if any owner had paid for the hire of the scaffolding for months. Funnily enough they have never tried to enforce that rule. But if you fall of and break your leg or die they can point to your failure to comply with the terms'n'conditions that you were deemed to have accepted when you asked them, for a tiny payment of a couple of thousand, to store your boat ashore that winter.....

It is far safer to go up a mast on a boat securely and stably ashore than on a mooring with wash from passing boats or even worse at sea. In he past have done all three.

Having working as an engineer for a company that had a boatyard, I can see why they put this. The no.1 injury after haulout season were the falls from ladders (and sometimes decks) of private individuals. We only ever had one or two slip/fall injury with our own guys but they were only allowed to use ladders for access and would use fall arest harnesses if working on the otside of the boat whist ashore if their feet were above ground - if we needed kit on board either a platform was erected or a line was used to haul the kit on the boat.

You can say what you like about "H&S gone mad" but I have been around long enough to see an entirely preventably high number of people fall from ladders because they were doing something dumb, or the ladder simply wasn't up to the task. One poor owner who I really got on well with had to sell his boat and give up sailing because the injuries he sustained were so great - I always think of that when i'm reaching that little bit too far up a ladder.....

 

[Blueboatman]

Notwithstanding what been cited as life altering mistakes by individuals , and our litigious implications to third parties , I do love these threads
The mast is climbed , the job is done , and still the committee says no no nooooo!

Just for Neals amusement : When I bought a junk rigged bilge keeler, ahore, I eyed the tapered spindly little mast and said to myself “ I am not climbing that!” ?
So I tied off a double aluminium ladder to the masthead to replace the halliard top block and climbed that ( ashore), leaning against the mast with a loop or two of strapping and tied off below ..
That did still feel wobbly , duh. Those bendy masts… bend , who knew ?

Years later before setting off from the canaries I had 3 mates and I standing on the side deck trying to tip the boat over, assessing its stability and vanishing angles, well laden for a big trip.. no problem .
Free entertainment for the watchers though ?

Having survived that I used to free climb the mast , nice sunny Caribbean mornings afloat hauling myself up pulling on the halliard tails and legs wrapped around the spar and STILL the boat wouldn’t tip over .
Handy for looking around though .
I dunno
Remember . It Can’t Be Done
Ever
Unless you use COMMON SENSE

 

[Moodysailor]

Notwithstanding what been cited as life altering mistakes by individuals , and our litigious implications to third parties , I do love these threads
The mast is climbed , the job is done , and still the committee says no no nooooo!

Just for Neals amusement : When I bought a junk rigged bilge keeler, ahore, I eyed the tapered spindly little mast and said to myself “ I am not climbing that!” ?
So I tied off a double aluminium ladder to the masthead to replace the halliard top block and climbed that ( ashore), leaning against the mast with a loop or two of strapping and tied off below ..
That did still feel wobbly , duh. Those bendy masts… bend , who knew ?

Years later before setting off from the canaries I had 3 mates and I standing on the side deck trying to tip the boat over, assessing its stability and vanishing angles, well laden for a big trip.. no problem .
Free entertainment for the watchers though ?

Having survived that I used to free climb the mast , nice sunny Caribbean mornings afloat hauling myself up pulling on the halliard tails and legs wrapped around the spar and STILL the boat wouldn’t tip over .
Handy for looking around though .
I dunno
Remember . It Can’t Be Done
Ever
Unless you use COMMON SENSE

There's no committee here - just a bunch of individuals who are glad a fellow boater has fixed his problem, but have different views on how they would have done it - nothing wrong with that.

Common sense ain't so common, if it was we wouldn't need warning labels on coffee cups!

 

[Blueboatman]

There's no committee here - just a bunch of individuals who are glad a fellow boater has fixed his problem, but have different views on how they would have done it - nothing wrong with that.

Common sense ain't so common, if it was we wouldn't need warning labels on coffee cups!

Aye to all that?
I used to love the candour of YMs confessional . And it’s the survivors who got to write up their (mis)adventure.

 

[dunedin]

Having working as an engineer for a company that had a boatyard, I can see why they put this. The no.1 injury after haulout season were the falls from ladders (and sometimes decks) of private individuals. We only ever had one or two slip/fall injury with our own guys but they were only allowed to use ladders for access and would use fall arest harnesses if working on the otside of the boat whist ashore if their feet were above ground - if we needed kit on board either a platform was erected or a line was used to haul the kit on the boat.

You can say what you like about "H&S gone mad" but I have been around long enough to see an entirely preventably high number of people fall from ladders because they were doing something dumb, or the ladder simply wasn't up to the task. One poor owner who I really got on well with had to sell his boat and give up sailing because the injuries he sustained were so great - I always think of that when i'm reaching that little bit too far up a ladder.....

So ironically, the biggest risk to the OP from his project was very probably him and his helpers climbing up the ladders to board the boat on the hard - not the climbing of the mast once on board. And I suspect hard statistics if available would confirm this.
And if done afloat, might easily have drowned getting out to the boat in the dinghy.
Oh and that drive down to the boat was even more risky!

 

[Moodysailor]

So ironically, the biggest risk to the OP from his project was very probably him and his helpers climbing up the ladders to board the boat on the hard - not the climbing of the mast once on board. And I suspect hard statistics if available would confirm this.
And if done afloat, might easily have drowned getting out to the boat in the dinghy.
Oh and that drive down to the boat was even more risky!

Irony is rich in most areas of life, I think we can all attest to that. Risk is a combination of likelihood and impact though so I do my assesment accordingly.

It's not my place to speculate on the drowning risk, but having rescued someone on my paddleboard who flipped their dinghy and was left holding onto a mooring buoy in fast moving water last year, you may well be close to the mark....

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Just to affirm what has been said about the dangers of falling off ladders, a friend was working on the gutters of a single-story village hall. He was working alone - it was some routine task like clearing leaves from the gutters. He doesn't know exactly what happened; as often happens in these circumstances he has no memory of the accident itself. But when he was found, he had shattered both feet, broken his pelvis and had back injuries. He will never walk without pain, despite amazing efforts to reconstruct his feet by orthopedic surgeons. And he was lucky; he could easily have been killed. The fall can't have been more than a couple of metres. This was a fit and healthy man with a history of working on ships (he was a marine biologist who worked on whalers in the Indian Ocean!)

Many yards insist that all sails are off a boat when it is ashore, even yards that provide solid cradles. A boat ashore is less stable than one afloat; the lever arm from the top of the mast to the bottom of the keel is much greater than the lever arm from the top of the mast to the centre of buoyancy. Further, the yard will probably be concerned about the effect on surrounding boats if yours topples. Finally, a bilge-keeler balanced on its keels may well be stable across the beam, but what about longitudinally? The usual prop under the bow could easily be dislodged by vibration from working up the mast. On my own boat, I am nervous of going onto the foredeck when she is ashore, even though she is in a cradle and propped under the bow.

 

[NealB]

Just to affirm what has been said about the dangers of falling off ladders, a friend was working on the gutters of a single-story village hall. He was working alone - it was some routine task like clearing leaves from the gutters. He doesn't know exactly what happened; as often happens in these circumstances he has no memory of the accident itself. But when he was found, he had shattered both feet, broken his pelvis and had back injuries. He will never walk without pain, despite amazing efforts to reconstruct his feet by orthopedic surgeons. And he was lucky; he could easily have been killed. The fall can't have been more than a couple of metres. This was a fit and healthy man with a history of working on ships (he was a marine biologist who worked on whalers in the Indian Ocean!)

Many yards insist that all sails are off a boat when it is ashore, even yards that provide solid cradles. A boat ashore is less stable than one afloat; the lever arm from the top of the mast to the bottom of the keel is much greater than the lever arm from the top of the mast to the centre of buoyancy. Further, the yard will probably be concerned about the effect on surrounding boats if yours topples. Finally, a bilge-keeler balanced on its keels may well be stable across the beam, but what about longitudinally? The usual prop under the bow could easily be dislodged by vibration from working up the mast. On my own boat, I am nervous of going onto the foredeck when she is ashore, even though she is in a cradle and propped under the bow.

Thanks for your thoughts, AntartcticPilot, and the sad, but salutary, story of your friend's ladder mishap. I hope he manages to regain at least some of his former good health.

You also raise an interesting question about longitudinal stability.

On my Westerly Falcon, the pivot point would obviously be the lower forward corner of the bilge keels.

Now, let's consider the main debits and credits on each side of that fulcrum.

Tilting her forwards, I've got a Fortress anchor, and it's chain, right in the bow. The only other really weighty item is the alloy mast, but that's just a few inches ahead of the fulcrum, so very litte turning moment.

Behind the fulcrum, we've got: two big, seriously heavy keels, a 3 cylinder engine with associated gear, two big stainless tanks (both brim full of water, both right at the stern), another big stainless tank (full of diesel), 3 x 120 AH lead acid batteries, 2 gas cylinders and a deep cockpit locker containing a kedge anchor with chain and warp, a 4 man liferaft, and various tool boxes.

I think those are the main items, other than the structure of the hull/ deck.

I can walk very confidently to the bows, without any sense that the bows will plunge downwards. I haven't done the maths, but my weight forward of the fulcrum is surely very siginificantly offset (by several comforting multiples) by all of the items situated behind the fulcrum.

Finally, the length of the mast, in this longitudinal context, is not relevant, is it? If I can stand on deck, beside the mast, without the bows going down, my weight at the masthead does not affect the longitudinal balance in any way does it? My weight would still be acting downwards, just inches in front of the fulcrum.

 

[Blueboatman]

Not wishing to take seriousness away from ladder and other horrid accidents.

I suppose if there were a rocking bilge keeler it would be renamed the Westerly Fulcrum??

( Coat, ladder, me gone )

 

[jwilson]

I used to own a 19ft plywood Caprice - on that boat unless I put a couple of full water cans on the stern deck it would slowly tip forward if I went right onto the very tip of the bow. Anything bigger, of a size where you might contemplate climbing the mast, should have bags of longitudinal stability. Certainly two people can stand on the bow of a 26 ft Centaur, and you could probably have a substantial party on the bow of the OP's 34 ft Falcon without it tipping.

 

[Praxinoscope]

We don’t have any Westerly Falcons in our harbour, but we do have several Fulmars, and all of these have at some time had someone go up the mast whilst the boat is ashore, as we have a drying harbour there has been the odd occasion when a mast has been climbed whilst the tide is out. No problem on a bilge keel, would only think it a viable option on a single keel if in a really substantial cradle.
Personally no longer happy to go up the mast, (age orientated decision) so arrange to drop the mast if I need access, but of course on a Sadler 25 not such a big job to drop the mast, I have an ‘A’ frame that makes lowering the mast relatively easy, but we also have a great local boat transport specialist who will use his Hi-Ab gear to lower a mast at a very reasonable cost which means I usually get him to lower and raise the mast rather than using the ‘A’ frame.

 

[ghostlymoron]

When we had a Leisure 17 on a drying mooring, one of the adjacent boats was a Hurley 20. At every low water it would nose dive so was very unstable. I'd have shifted some ballast so we could have enjoyed nights aboard.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Thanks for your thoughts, AntartcticPilot, and the sad, but salutary, story of your friend's ladder mishap. I hope he manages to regain at least some of his former good health.

You also raise an interesting question about longitudinal stability.

On my Westerly Falcon, the pivot point would obviously be the lower forward corner of the bilge keels.

Now, let's consider the main debits and credits on each side of that fulcrum.

Tilting her forwards, I've got a Fortress anchor, and it's chain, right in the bow. The only other really weighty item is the alloy mast, but that's just a few inches ahead of the fulcrum, so very litte turning moment.

Behind the fulcrum, we've got: two big, seriously heavy keels, a 3 cylinder engine with associated gear, two big stainless tanks (both brim full of water, both right at the stern), another big stainless tank (full of diesel), 3 x 120 AH lead acid batteries, 2 gas cylinders and a deep cockpit locker containing a kedge anchor with chain and warp, a 4 man liferaft, and various tool boxes.

I think those are the main items, other than the structure of the hull/ deck.

I can walk very confidently to the bows, without any sense that the bows will plunge downwards. I haven't done the maths, but my weight forward of the fulcrum is surely very siginificantly offset (by several comforting multiples) by all of the items situated behind the fulcrum.

Finally, the length of the mast, in this longitudinal context, is not relevant, is it? If I can stand on deck, beside the mast, without the bows going down, my weight at the masthead does not affect the longitudinal balance in any way does it? My weight would still be acting downwards, just inches in front of the fulcrum.

Obviously, this is an issue where different boats will have different characteristics. I merely note that many boats are not stable longitudinally when balanced on their keels, and others have given examples. Movable weight on a yacht is likely to be of the same magnitude as the weight of a person, and of course, the lever arm of a person at the top of the mast greatly exceeds the lever arm of weight in either the stern or bow of the boat. At the top of the mast you are approximately 10 or more metres from the pivot points; more if that is the bottom of the keel rather than the propping points of a cradle. Weight at bow or stern is of the order of 5 metres from the pivot points - the exact numbers don't matter, because all will scale proportionately. Of course, a person at the top of the mast can't readily shift their mass forward or aft, but any movement fore and aft will result in a potential feedback situation; the greater the offset, the greater the force. So if there is slight instability, it will result in an unstable equilibrium.

Of course, yards have to have a one-size-fits -all solution; they can't say "OK, it's OK to climb the mast of your Westerly, but not OK to climb the mast of your Hurley".

 

[NealB]

Obviously, this is an issue where different boats will have different characteristics. I merely note that many boats are not stable longitudinally when balanced on their keels, and others have given examples. Movable weight on a yacht is likely to be of the same magnitude as the weight of a person, and of course, the lever arm of a person at the top of the mast greatly exceeds the lever arm of weight in either the stern or bow of the boat. At the top of the mast you are approximately 10 or more metres from the pivot points; more if that is the bottom of the keel rather than the propping points of a cradle. Weight at bow or stern is of the order of 5 metres from the pivot points - the exact numbers don't matter, because all will scale proportionately. Of course, a person at the top of the mast can't readily shift their mass forward or aft, but any movement fore and aft will result in a potential feedback situation; the greater the offset, the greater the force. So if there is slight instability, it will result in an unstable equilibrium.

Of course, yards have to have a one-size-fits -all solution; they can't say "OK, it's OK to climb the mast of your Westerly, but not OK to climb the mast of your Hurley".

Yes ...... different boats will have different characteristics ...... I can't imagine anyone disagreeing on that!

Edit: I still don't understand how my weight has any different impact on longitudinal stability depending on whether I'm standing on deck by the side of the mast, or at the masthead. Yes, I understand something about levers (I can still recall some things from A levels in maths and physics back in 1973!), but weight will be acting vertically downwards, in either case. Now ...... if my weight somehow acted horizontally when at the masthead ...... well, yes, even I can see that fore/aft stability would need very careful thought before heading aloft.

Personally, I'm really glad that I know of several yards where the very experienced, and very knowledgeable, owners do not have a "one size fits all solution": long may it last.

 

[MoodySabre]

is It essential to do this work whilst on the hard?

 

[NealB]

is It essential to do this work whilst on the hard?

No it wasn't.

Some have suggested that ashore is, in some ways, safer than afloat: I think there is some merit in that argument (eg no risk of being buffeted by wash).

I am not at all convinced by the "water is softer to hit" type of logic, for reasons already discussed.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Yes ...... different boats will have different characteristics ...... I can't imagine anyone disagreeing on that!

Edit: I still don't understand how my weight has any different impact on longitudinal stability depending on whether I'm standing on deck by the side of the mast, or at the masthead. Yes, I understand something about levers (I can still recall some things from A levels in maths and physics back in 1973!), but weight will be acting vertically downwards, in either case. Now ...... if my weight somehow acted horizontally when at the masthead ...... well, yes, even I can see that fore/aft stability would need very careful thought before heading aloft.

Personally, I'm really glad that I know of several yards where the very experienced, and very knowledgeable, owners do not have a "one size fits all solution": long may it last.

Because it's not a static load, and a sudden jerk - caused, for example, by a momentary loss of balance - could in some circumstances push the situation from stable to unstable. As I noted, in that situation you'd get feedback, so a slight shift could be magnified. It's fine if the centre of gravity of the boat is well within the footprint of the keels, but if it's at the front or rear of the keels, then a small force could upset the equilibrium.

 

[geem]

Because it's not a static load, and a sudden jerk - caused, for example, by a momentary loss of balance - could in some circumstances push the situation from stable to unstable. As I noted, in that situation you'd get feedback, so a slight shift could be magnified. It's fine if the centre of gravity of the boat is well within the footprint of the keels, but if it's at the front or rear of the keels, then a small force could upset the equilibrium.

How? Loss of balance on the end of a rope?

 

[NealB]

Because it's not a static load, and a sudden jerk - caused, for example, by a momentary loss of balance - could in some circumstances push the situation from stable to unstable

Thank you!

I was sitting in a bosun's chair, hanging from a halyard right at the masthead, just below the block in the mast, with my legs firmly wrapped round the mast .

I find it difficult to imagine how I could possibly build up enough of a sudden' jerk' to tip my boat forwards.

If I were swinging in my chair, hanging from a crane, I can see a (very small) possible risk (please take note, refueller and your crane operator!!).

If I were hanging from the mast on a modern racing hull, with a high aspect ratio fin keel, I can see the risk would be different.

(Thread drift: this reminds of the lighting of our Jubilee beacon, at Burnham last week. This vitally symbollic event (hey, that's irony) was delayed because the safety advisor would not allow people to stand on the concrete quay. She insisted that there was a risk that, as the flames took hold, people would look upwards, and could therefore topple backwards and hit their head on the quay.)