Safety Ladders

[Anonymous]

I want to buy a Safety Ladder

My Nauticat 42 has a sugar-scoop stern and the boarding ladder is so long that when the tender is on the davits, it is impossible for it to hinge down, so you need to drop the tender first. Not good in an emergency or when there is any sort of sea.

Apart form emergency use, we quite often anchor for the odd night without wanting to drop the tender but we want to go for a swim.

The sides of the N42 are rather like a barrel - they bulge out so obviously there would be a potential issue with the rope or canvas ladder type but not having tried them, I have no idea how easy they are to use.

I have seen two ladders on the Mailspeed Marine website - the Plastimo at £60 and the Ocean Safety at £40. The Ocean Safety says that it is 2.7m which would be fine. The Plastimo length is not stated. The Ocean Safety has five rungs of material (canvas?) and the Plastimo has four rungs which look solid?

Can anyone advise me whether either of these ladders would be suitable for me (bearing in mind that I want to use them for swimming as well as emergencies) or any others on the market? My freeboard is around 2m so the ladder will need to be around 3m to allow 'ordinary' folk to get their foot on the bottom rung.

A solid ladder would be nice and I suppose that I could stow it along the stanchions but it would have to accommodate the barrel-shape of the hull.

Many thanks for your input.

 

[damo]

Could you split your stern ladder and put in intermediate hinges? Or have the ladder slide in hinged channels? From pics of Nauticat 42 it looks possible.

I have seen side ladders on boats with a pronounced tumblehome, using standoff posts on the ladder rails.

 

[Anonymous]

[ QUOTE ]
Could you split your stern ladder and put in intermediate hinges? Or have the ladder slide in hinged channels? From pics of Nauticat 42 it looks possible.

[/ QUOTE ] That is a good idea although the stern is an intimidating place to be in any sort of sea - we use a fender step on the side to board from the tender in rough conditions. I will ask the metalworkers what they could do.

[ QUOTE ]
I have seen side ladders on boats with a pronounced tumblehome, using standoff posts on the ladder rails.

[/ QUOTE ] Yes, I've seen that. I think I'd have to have a custom ladder made which might be the best idea at the end of the day.

You didn't comment on the non-rigid type - do you not think that they would be convenient?

Many thanks for your swift reply!

 

[boatmike]

Lemain, I have never had much success with rope or canvas ladders. they swing away from your feet unless you put your weight directly downwards on them. IMHO they are a bit of a chocolate teapot. Go for a rigid ladder every time. Also, when I had a boat full of kids swimming I always dropped the tender in the water to act as a safety float and rescue boat if anything went wrong. If your dinghy is on davits, that should not be too great an effort surely? I have a thing about dinghys on davits personally though. Always think the most important thing if you do have a MoB is to get him back on board ASAP. Often thats very difficult, especially if unconcious. Hauling him into a dinghy is much easier than hoisting him/her back on board, especially with your freeboard. Always like to see a quick release mechanism for the dinghy rather than loads of "security lashings" as you sometimes see for that reason...

 

[pvb]

Another vote for rigid ladder...

Agree with boatmike, go for a rigid ladder. Flexible ladders can be a nightmare to use. If having a rigid ladder made, consider getting flat rungs (perhaps wooden rungs over stainless supports) as they're much easier on bare feet.

 

[Abigail]

Re: Another vote for rigid ladder...

Our vote would be for a rigid ladder solution too. We've tried various soft ladders and do keep one readily availabe as backup in a MOB situation but they're v difficult to get onto in the first place and fiddly to fix. (We have spliced on shackles).

On RG the boarding ladder folds down. Folded up, it goes down low enough to be easy to use to board from the dinghy, at the stern. We have found this a much easier method than the fender step alongisde, though we keep it there when anchored just in case. Folded down it's good for swimming/MOB, and MUCH easier than any other way of boarding from water level given a high freeboard. Our dinghy is on the davits, plus we've a windvane and life raft hanging off the transom so it's a distinct but clear pathway aboard. However, we have a very straight up and down transom, not a sugar-scoop.

We have seen several nauticats with steel boarding ladders fitted into purpose made holes in the deck midships and clearing the tumblehome, so presumably they are not an unfamiliar bit of kit to the right suppliers.

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Another vote for rigid ladder...

Thank you, and thanks to you all for a great response. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I'll go down and see the stainless shop tomorrow, and see what they can do for me. Point taken about the rungs - we find the pipes on the stern ladder very uncomfortable, there is no need for such discomfort when a small steel or wooden step would be more comfortable and safer.

 

[vyv_cox]

Re: Another vote for rigid ladder...

I bought a safety ladder from Force 4 last year, I think it was made by Plastimo. I notice that it is featured in the December YM. It consists of a nylon and plastic 'rope' ladder that loads into a receptacle fitted into the transom. It looks rather like a 1.5 inch skin fitting with a lid.

Having bought it, Force 4 asked me to write a review of it. We tested the thing in nice warm water at anchor off southern Italy and found it virtually impossible to use. Any weight on the lower rungs simply pushes the ladder forward, preventing one from climbing upwards. Trying to use the caving method of one heel one side and one the other was hopeless. I found that by using my stern platform and applying an explosive upward force I could just get back on board. My wife was quite incapable of using it. I wrote the review as requested, but somehow cannot find it on the Force 4 website. I wonder why?

 

[charles_reed]

I have a Plastimo ladder, it has 7 rungs. It is very good.

I really wouldn't recommend it for use over the side because the rungs are pressed to the side of the boat and it's almost impossible to get your toes in.

A fixed stern ladder is the only real feasible alternative - could I suggest you tow the dinghy?

 

[Anonymous]

[ QUOTE ]
A fixed stern ladder is the only real feasible alternative - could I suggest you tow the dinghy?

[/ QUOTE ]We won't go anywhere near the stern of the Nauticat unless it is almost flat calm - far too much movement. In August 2005 we were anchored in Herradura Bay just along from Motril. We had gone ashore in the tender with about 0.5m swell from seawards, causing a slow and modest roll. After we had been ashore for half an hour the wind picked up to F7 and the sea picked up considerably. We needed help on the beach to hold the tender bow to the white water, to leave the beach. When we got back to the yacht it would have been totally unsafe to board from the stern or try to hitch the tender to the davit falls. Fortunately we have a fender step midships and boarded without trouble there. I could not risk raising the tender or towing it in that sea, so I left it anchored to my large Danforth kedge anchor for a couple of days until the weather settled (we went round the headland into Marina de L'Este /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif).

Our tender is a 3.4m RIB with a Suzuki 8hp four stroke and is far too heavy to deal with manually when the conditions are bad, which is one reason why I have to get this midships boarding ladder sorted out. As soon as the sea gets much above 0.5m the transom area is out of bounds, in the sea. With such a large tender the speed is affected significantly, when towing - I bring it up unless we are just going along the coast a few miles.

 

[Abigail]

Completely agree about not towing the tender, especially one that size. When we had a 23' halcyon our inflatable was the liferaft and we towed it everywhere, but it was also a major pain. Now we don't like towing our hard chine swifgig (10', about 96lbs, outboard 2.3hp) in anything but v flat water. Actually don't like it on the davits much at all underway and have got v handy at putting her on the deck. Everytime we don't, we regret it!

Interesting what you say about the transom. We were anchored at Camarinas for 2 weeks in 2006 waiting out 35-40 kt winds, and absolutely relied on being able to get up the stern! Now only go amidships if absolutely necessary. Our legs may be shorter than yours of course, which makes the dinghy/rubbingstrake or fenderstep leap much more frightening, and we really didn't get on with the flexible ladder effort.

 

[Anonymous]

I think it must be due to the shape at the stern. I don't know the technical terms for the form of our stern but if you think of the sugar scoop as being like a very prominent chin, the 'chin' is large and hard. When you are alongside the stern bathing platform, in the RIB, you have about 1m to step over to get to the platform unless you stand on the tube (which is fine for some of us, but not all). The tender tends to get dragged under the 'chin' with frightening consequences, if the ladder is up, and it looks even more dodgy with the ladder down. Midships, I can get aboard in very rough conditions in complete safety. Even after we have fitted a solid midships ladder I shall probably leave a fender step down on the other side for boarding in really bad conditions since it would be hard to get hurt getting aboard that way.