Pulpits and guardrails are for wimps

Not so much to snag on, without guardrails and pulpit... Didn't they just leave crew to sink or swim, when racing J class before the (last world) war?

The old boys used to say that those newfangled rails were dangerous, made people feel too safe.

I love that bloke that monkeys up the downhaul to trip the guy :D
 
Ubergeekian said:
The lack of pulpits and guardrails doesn't surprise me, but the lack of harnesses and lifejackets does.
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I would agree on the absence of lifejakets but not harnesses.

There is so much going on so fast to beat the clock, that probably deck lines would get in the way and trip up the foredeck crew.

When you concentrate on doing something in a hurry as part of a practised drill, it is easy to overlook obstacles.

One example:~

If you leave the cockpit to go forward in a harness and in a pitching sea
and the signal halliards are not made neat close to the mast and out of the way, the temptation is to use the shrouds for handholds.

It is very easy to mistake a signal halliard in the wrong place in front of you for a shroud as all you see is a vertical blur in front of you that you grab.

You happen to be grabbing the wrong thing.:eek:
 
VO5 said:
I would agree on the absence of lifejakets but not harnesses.

There is so much going on so fast to beat the clock, that probably deck lines would get in the way and trip up the foredeck crew.
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Sorry, I was being a bit terse. I can quite see why they would not use them at times, but I am surprised that none of the crew was wearing any sort of safety gear at all.
 
Ubergeekian said:
The lack of pulpits and guardrails doesn't surprise me, but the lack of harnesses and lifejackets does.
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Lifejackets, yes, but no one in superyachting thinks they are cool as for harness lines - Does it seem choppy to you, The boat looks pretty stable with not much outside of the boat going on.

But I know that the crew are very experienced so falling in is not an option - for a beginner crew I would suggest being clipped in because at 12.5 knots a man overboard ith a spinnaker up is long gone without a lifejacket.

PS I know the English dude right at the end, I partied with him in the USA when i was working on my slightly smaller superyacht! where I would have to do this procedure usually on my own!
 
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When we sailed the J Velsheda she also had no guardrails. Except for two winches to handle the runners there were no others, thus everything else was done by hand. It took twelve people to hoist the main, eight to lift the storm trysail and twenty two to handle the spinnaker. It was tiring work.

I mentioned in another post that we had 70 knots plus for hours and we did clip on once it went over force eight, the J's are so big they are fairly stable. Provided you are orgnised harnesses are not too much trouble.
 
I sailed on Velsheda once and the only easy action was dropping the main.

But you had to flake out the halyard on the foredeck VERY carefully, because once the cleat was released, the sail dropped in about 5 milliseconds. Any problem with the halyard running would have been a nightmare.
 
michael_w said:
Spinnaker takedown on a J class.
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What you don't see in that video is the safety boats that follows all the big classics around the race circuits, to scoop up anyone who falls or gets washed off the deck because they don't have guardrails.

I was on board Mariquita during the RTI a few years ago when someone was washed over the side. Even though there is a safety boat, it's no less scary when someone goes over, and seeing him go over with surprising ease and watch helplessly as the top of his head went by under the water is not something I'd like to see again.
 
Skysail said:
I sailed on Velsheda once and the only easy action was dropping the main.
But you had to flake out the halyard on the foredeck VERY carefully, because once the cleat was released, the sail dropped in about 5 milliseconds. Any problem with the halyard running would have been a nightmare.
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--Not to mention getting your boot caught up in it..
 
>flake out the halyard on the foredeck VERY carefully

Absolutely right. The big issue is the enormous sheet loadings, you really can't make a mistake. You can imagine the sail weight loading on the main halyard if twelve people are needed to hoist it, let alone what it is when the main is loaded up.

When we were out we didn't have a safety boat which is why we eventually clipped on. The viz was so bad in the storm that you would have lost sight of somebody within a few seconds.
 
Ubergeekian said:
Sorry, I was being a bit terse. I can quite see why they would not use them at times, but I am surprised that none of the crew was wearing any sort of safety gear at all.
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Not to worry.

My viewpoint is additionally borne out by the statement in post No 14 above of this thread, that explains that because of its size, a J Class is more stable in heavy weather than would normally be the case.

Hence the need for clip on would be delayed until absolutely necessary, which is the direct opposite of what could be expected as a matter of prudent seamanship in a sailing vessel of lesser tonnage.
 
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