Mast climbing

PacketRat

PacketRat

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A while ago in a harbour I watched three lads, one of whom was hoisted about three quarters the way up the mast of a four tonner I would guess. As the boat heeled over to about forty five degrees, the other two lads jumped in the dinghy and rowed off. The boat then slowly came upright, heeled over the other way and so on until eventually settling down upright.

I've been wondering what would happen if I tried to climb my own mast, since quite a few people seem to have found it necessary on a long passage. My boat is 21 foot 10 inches overall, 6 foot 6 inches beam and has a 960 lb cast iron fin keel drawing 39 inches.

Anyone got any relevant experiences?
 
PacketRat said:
A while ago in a harbour I watched three lads, one of whom was hoisted about three quarters the way up the mast of a four tonner I would guess. As the boat heeled over to about forty five degrees, the other two lads jumped in the dinghy and rowed off. The boat then slowly came upright, heeled over the other way and so on until eventually settling down upright.

I've been wondering what would happen if I tried to climb my own mast, since quite a few people seem to have found it necessary on a long passage. My boat is 21 foot 10 inches overall, 6 foot 6 inches beam and has a 960 lb cast iron fin keel drawing 39 inches.

Anyone got any relevant experiences?
Click to expand...

I've climbed my mast many times and hate doing it but quite often find it necessary, particularly in the old days of incandescent bulbs in tricolours. I think the experience that you viewed was for a particularly tender yacht. I had to climb mine once in a F7 gusting F9 in Titchmarsh Marina with lots of people on deck 'helping' when my forestay detached itself. Two problems arose one was my windage in the gusts pushed the mast right over almost enough to hit the mast of the boat next door and the people moving around the deck to get a better view of what I was doing certainly didn't help.

I have also tried to climb my mast in the Atlantic but two things got in the way, the rolling of the waves really scared me as I got further up the mast and as I had broken my stbd inner shroud the mast kept bending alarmingly in the middle without the support of the shroud so I gave up just short of the spreaders and waited until I got back to the calm of Falmouth Harbour. I was very fortunate to have a favourable NW wind for 2,300 miles so that I could do it all on Port tack.

Every other time I have climbed my mast it has been relatively easy although I do hate doing it and while the boat may heel a little with my 14 stone on top of the mast it's certainly not at all unmanageable.

I think you 950 lb of ballast will tend to keep your boat fairly upright if you need to climb the mast.

Get yourself a mast climbing ladder of some kind which means you don't need any help with people dragging you up on halyards. I have aluminium steps about 9" wide with nylon line on either side of the steps. The stretch of the nylon line is a bit off putting at first but I have got used to it. I do always keep a spare halyard to tie myself to in stages as I go up the mast as a safety line so that if the ladder breaks I won't fall quite so far. I also use my harness with the safety line around the mast so that if all else fails and I come down I should at least stop at the spreaders.
 
I remember a discussion with George Jepps prior to JAC08. I asked him:

"How are you going to get up the mast George?"

He replied with something like: "I'm not going up the bloody mast!"

That, I thought, is going to be my solution.

Losing a halyard will only slow me down its mainly the racers who need to shin up there. I have neither the fitness nor courage to combine my fear of heights with my fear of open spaces. Recognising your personal limits is an important part of this solo sailing business.

This strategy was fine during JAC08. Although, at one point, I did manage to get the spinnaker stuck by wrapping it around the forestay. This worried me as I would be in a serious pickle if the weather got up. I was experimenting with tying knives to poles etc when I remembered an article which advised gybing the main to unwrap a spinnaker. It worked (thank God) and I put the silly sail away where it belongs.

Of course it makes sense to have a mast climbing strategy, but I have to confess that it was one of the jobs I didn't get done before departure.

Paul
 
It's simple physics - if your weight x masthead height above the centre of buoyancy exceeds the weight of the keel x depth below centre of buoyancy, it's going to fall over. Best way to find out is try it out before you go sailing. I would suggest on a boat of that length, it will probably be a bit marginal, especially with wind in the sails and wave action.

For climbing I use a gadget called a Top Climber, essentially a couple of jumar clips (or whatever they're called) a bosun's chair and a foot strop. I've never tried it at sea, though, it's never been calm enough or me brave enough. And it's not been necessary (so far). I have been up many times with this trying to conquer my fear of heights and it works well. But still hasn't done anything to cure my vertigo

More to the point, my topping lift doubles as a spare main halyard and I have two spinnaker halyards which will double as headsail halyards, so there's a bit of redundancy built in. As for everything else up there (VHF antenna, tricolour, radar reflector, wind transducer, SeaMe) when it's gone, it's gone. I would rather cope without it than have to climb.
 
Simple physics ... let me see, then - ten stone and a bit times seven metres divided by 960 lbs at, say, one metre equals ... approximately ... well, one, actually. Although there is some lateral stability, it seems the boat is a little on the small side for this type of activity. In harbour, my preferred option is to drop the mast. I made up a hinged bracket and can raise and lower it myself, although I wouldn't like to admit to how many times I've straightened a bottlescrew instead of replacing it. General consensus seems to be the sensible option is - no heroics, get back home safely. That's a relief. I hate heights anyway.
Cheers, Robin.
 
Bonjour
May I suggest that it might be NECESSARY, to climb the mast offshore. In this case a good equipment would limit the risk.
The offshore proffessional are using montain climbing eqipments (harness, step maker, elastic retrieving line...). I have that on board (I only used it in harbors) it must be something like 2 kilos for the complete set. The only issue is that they must be kept protected and in a water proff bag, because these equipments are not rustless.
Eric
 
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