How do you 'clip on'?

[lockwood]

How do you \'clip on\'?

I am going shopping tommorow for a safety harness. I sail mainly single handed in my Jaguar 22 and (rather stupidly) have yet to use a harness.

I have large eyelets on either side of the fore-deck and either side of the cockpit. I do not have a roller reefing headsail so I regularly clamber to the foredeck to hank on.

My question is this:

Should I run jackstays between these eyelets and use a single harness with a long line to clip on, allowing me to always be attached. The only problem i see with this is the line getting caught in rigging.

Or

No jackstays and a 2 line harness (one long & one short) that way I can always have the long line clipped onto the cockpit eyelet and when I venture forward I can clip the shorter line onto the foredeck eyelets. That way I am never unclipped.

Any thoughts?

<sorry for the length.. ooo er>

 

[Colvic Watson]

Re: How do you \'clip on\'?

I'm not aware of any harness line that will reach from cockpit to foredeck on a 22 footer.

Check the eye bolts - how are they attached to the boat? They must be bolted through the GRP and then have a backing plate to distribute the load.

I found 3 hook lines inconvenient, I use eye bolts and the mast but I shall be fitting jackstays. The wisdom seems to be to ensure that they are as far inboard as possible - perhaps just fit one down the centre line??? The object of a harness is to stop you falling overboard, not just to keep you attached to the boat. So your line length must be short enough to pull you up short of the side should you fall down. That's why a jackstay is so good, it keeps your lifeline short.

Finally I used to have a harness and never used it, it was too much hassle and I never seemed to be out in winds strong enough to justify it. Now we both sail with integrated harness and lifejacket and we always wear a lifejacket outside of the cabin. It is frightening to think how often we now 'clip on' when before it would have been too much bother to go and get the harnesses and struggle to get it on just for one little trip up to the foredeck in a force 4 or 5.

 

[kingfisher]

Re: How do you \'clip on\'?

Best to attach a webbing strap on deck from the fore eye to the cockpit eyelet and attach your personal line to that.

Long safety lines are a risk. If you do fall overboard, they wont stop you falling, and you will end up being towed (under) by the boat. Keep your personal line as short as possible, so that in worse case you fall off the boat, but can still out of the water.
Make sure that the webbing strap on deck is tight enough, check the eyes for backing and preferably, run the webbing strap on the inside of the shrouds.

 

[roger]

Re: How do you \'clip on\'?

My wife and I sail together with noone else. We have adopted the simple and now automatic practice of clipping on whenever we leave the cabin. We too use the lifejacket/harness combination. Its so simple.

 

[Colvic Watson]

Re: How do you \'clip on\'?

[ QUOTE ]
Make sure that the webbing strap on deck is tight enough

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure that you are right about this. Ive heard that a loose Jackstay creates a better angle for the load to be taken when a snatch load is applied. I guess not too loose otherwise it could flap about. I agree that the most important thing is keeping the lifeline length short.

 

[William_H]

Re: How do you \'clip on\'?

It seems to me it is all a matter of choice of the level of safety you need. If you are not single handed then you can consider it acceptable to fall in the water (on a long tether) and rely on someone stoping the boat and providing you have a useable boarding ladder no problems. In that case one long rope from an attachment in the ciockpit. i have done some tests on my 21 fter recently and the shock loadings are not great and while a front harness attachment does give you a facefull of water it is not hard to roll over to be dragged on your back but you can do nothing until the boat stops.
The alternative better for single handing is to be tethered such that you can never go over the side. This will restrict movement you have to crawl or stoop and sit so that you are near the deck but it would also give you added security helping you to wedge yourself on the foredeck. The trick here is to try all the jobs you need top do and determine the length of tether and location of strong points. I don't imagine however that jackstays would work very well as attachments need to be in the middl3e of the deck. just think about it and try every possibility. olewill

 

[gjeffery]

Re: How do you \'clip on\'?

Generally, a midships jackstay seems sensible, but this is less easy to arrange on a smallish boat.

Thinking aloud on this one - and inviting being knocked down. If single handed, the boat will be steered by autopilot, or the tiller lashed.

Is it possible to rig a jackstay perhaps with the slack taken in aft in a bight, by a fairly resilient shock cord? When the jackstay is loaded, the bight would be taken up, pulling a pin from the tiller which is set free allowing the boat to luff.

Certainly a better prospect than a last chance grab line trailed over the stern!