How do you get aboard your boat

I go alongside the cockpit in my fairly stable 8'6" stem round bilge tender, unclip both guardwires via the pelican hooks, then holding the upright of the pushpit step across ( or on a bad day plonk bum on coaming and swivel across ); as soon as I'm halfway in I grab the mainsheet.

I have it easy as my boat has quite low freeboard aft - at least it seemed low until I managed to capsize the dinghy, mainly because I'd loaned my sleeping bag to someone and had a cold sleepless night so was moving like a zombie...

If I have a lot of junk to load or unload or something awkward like an engine to handle I tie the dinghy at its stern as well.

Also speaking of lugging engines around I fitted a strong stainless handle to the top casing of my Mariner 2 dinghy engine, which has proven jolly handy.
 
IMG_20140101_000828.jpg


From bathing platform and ladder (not fitted here), or dropping guardrail aft of U shaped stanchion from pontoon, or same place from dinghy with fender step.

Easy access for old bones key requirement in boat choice.
 
Freeboard too high without a step midships by shrouds.

Dinghy tied athwartships across stern. We then use the boarding ladder (still folded up usually) and in through the gate in the pushpit. (Gate meaning removable wire on pelican hook.). Dinghy is then ready to hoist on its davits.

As we're on a trot mooring there's a bit of a faff with the stern mooring bridle that I haven't mentioned.
 
Smartarse! It had just been launched. picture chosen because it shows the features that answer your question (for my boat).
 
By shrouds, not pulling out on stanchions ( a recipe for deck cracking/leaks ), with the dinghy secured fore and aft using adjustable lines/rolling hitches with small snaplinks. On my own, these days I wear an LSJ and use a personal tether left clipped to the cabintop handrail OVER the lifelines and onto my LSJ.

I step up onto the toerail using the shrouds, then step over onto the sidedeck.
 
I was just thinking about this very problem.

On my previous boat there were no guardrails and less freeboard, so stepping up from the rigid dinghy on to the cabin seat was fairly easy.

My new boat is a bit more effort as it has guard rails and a foot more freeboard, so I've been lunging up on to the coaming and grabbing what ever comes to hand to steady myself- usually the boom.

I was looking around for some alternative. I was thinking of a solid gate in the guardrail that would be hinged at the bottom, so that when up it looked like a normal part of the rail (although with solid horizontal sections, not wire) and then when hinged down it would hang over the side of the boat and provide two steps for boarding.

Has anyone seen anything like this commercially available, or do I need to fabricate my own?
 
Tranona said:
IMG_20140101_000828.jpg


From bathing platform and ladder (not fitted here), or dropping guardrail aft of U shaped stanchion from pontoon, or same place from dinghy with fender step.

Easy access for old bones key requirement in boat choice.
Click to expand...

As you know same boat as mine very useful, especially in the med where it is mostly stern to mooring. Has the added advantage is that they don't count the drop down stern in overall length in marinas
 
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J
zoidberg said:
By shrouds, not pulling out on stanchions ( a recipe for deck cracking/leaks ), with the dinghy secured fore and aft using adjustable lines/rolling hitches with small snaplinks. On my own, these days I wear an LSJ and use a personal tether left clipped to the cabintop handrail OVER the lifelines and onto my LSJ.

I step up onto the toerail using the shrouds, then step over onto the sidedeck.
Click to expand...
That's what we do, apart from the personal tether.
 
We keep our Sadler 29 on a swinging mooring on a tidal estuary and use a transom ladder to board her. Standard routine is to tie onto a cleat on stbd. quarter and then I hold the tender against the ladder whilst SWMBO climbs up and over the pushpit. I then hand up any baggage before climbing up myself. If there's a strong tide flowing then things get slightly hazardous when trying to hold the tender across the flow. We are 81 and 79 years old but OK so far. The fallback position is to get our harbourmaster to give us a lift out to the boat which eases the baggage situation but still entails climbing- in this case at the shrouds. In a marina we always board at the shrouds.
 
We berth bows to in Spain and my Furia has a dedicated set of steps through the pulpit. From a dinghy, on to the sugar scoop. I use the shrouds when alongside but the freeboard is quite high.
 
I made a single step ladder that was tied level with the midde of the hull amidships. The step was 3 inches thick, 20 inches wide by 10 inches back to front. I drilled one hole in each corner of the wood, fed a length of nylon rope through each hole and put a double knot under the wood. The length of the rope was long enough to be able to tie a knot with the two ropes around the front and back shrouds.
 
I don't see how so many of you can step from your dinghy onto the deck. Mine's a small boat but it's still about 2' step up so I have to use the boarding ladder on the transom. Boarding either side would be better in choppy conditions but generally I don't need to do this.
After reading this, I'm thinking about how I could introduce a hinged section into my pushpit. My previous boat had a break in it with a chained section.
 
On a pontoon, our "official" way is definitely at the shrouds, and at a finger pontoon we'll generally be bows-in so it's the first reachable part of the boat that presents itself anyway. Same applies when moored the normal way round at our alongside home berth. When getting on and off repeatedly (such as unloading a trolley on my own, or doing some kind of work between pontoon and boat) I do take a short-cut by stepping on level with the cockpit, using the grab handle on the sprayhood (which is reachable from the pontoon) just to steady myself. I don't like others doing the same, because inevitably they'll tend to haul themselves up with the sprayhood, which isn't built to take that. Same anywhere other than the shrouds, where ignorant people heave on the guardrails and stanchions in the time-honoured way...

From the dinghy, we originally used to come in to the stern where we have a reasonable swim platform, but unless there is no wind and no tide it gets awkward to hold a boat there. For a while the scheme was to run the bow of the dinghy into the transom and hold it there with engine thrust while passengers clambered on or off, but it all gets a bit "dynamic". After the first year or so, we reverted to what has been the seamanlike way for centuries - lay the dinghy alongside the larger vessel with a line running well forward.

I have a loop spliced into the dinghy painter at the right length so that when it's dropped over a bow cleat the dinghy automatically drops back to the proper position by the shrouds amidships. The dinghy sits there stably for as long as needed while things are passed up and down, and our freeboard is low enough to be able to take a big step, holding the shrouds, up onto the rail. If we had higher topsides, I'd arrange some kind of portable step. This is also where I hoist the dinghy aboard from, using the spinnaker halyard which clips onto a three-legged strop in the boat. While the dinghy's in the water the halyard is left clipped to the rail, so just before climbing out for the last time I can reach it and clip it onto the strop. I launch and retrieve the dinghy with the outboard fitted, it's much easier than passing it up and down over the stern like we used to and no risk of dropping it.

Pete
 
Bavaria 350. On the pontoons, stern to we just step on to the sugar scoop, bows to we use a milk crate as a step to make life easy. In the dinghy sideways across the stern which can be a bit fraught in any sort of a swell. I was thinking about a short boarding ladder to hook over the rail amidships, but i'm going to make a rope one similar to alahol2. Thank you for the idea.
 
If tied alongside a highish harbour wall then we step off through gates (well hooked bits of guard rail) but that's rare.

Freeboards too high to step up to side decks on a finger berth so we step from marina or low wall onto the sugar scoop, and do the same from the dinghy which is most frequent way to board. The swimming ladder will be down but we dont use it but instead usually hold onto one or the other of the twin backstays which come right down to the sugar scoop and step up from the dinghy which is usually tied across the stern when boarding, which is fine for a short time for a tough old rib even in a bit of chop.
 
jordanbasset said:
As you know same boat as mine very useful, especially in the med where it is mostly stern to mooring. Has the added advantage is that they don't count the drop down stern in overall length in marinas
Click to expand...

Actually never had the platform down. Far too cold to go swimming here! Much more important for me is the fixed stanchion forward of the cockpit and drop down guard wires to board from the pontoon, using a small step so the old bones can make it in one go.
 
I have a Caprice - low freeboard, no guard rails but a decent pushpit; my knees are shot but I take my painter via the rowlocks to the side of the cockpit and roll over the coaming and into the cockpit.. My problem is getting in and out of the inflatable.
 
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