The PowerPoint presentation I made at the RYA SE conference titled Renovation or Revelation

A lovely job.

Love the idea of that emergency ladder who supplied that? What what white paint did you use, asks man who suspects he will need to paint the decks in the next few years.
 
westhinder said:
Congratulations!
Dare I ask how many hours you’ve spent on this?
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I hate to think, probably easier counting in months. I would guess about 7 to 8 months of continuous working over 5 years. Luckily I no longer work full time, but do have other demands on my time. Last summer I did 8 weeks work on the house followed by 6 weeks working on the boat, so little sailing.
 
That's a very attractive refurbishment, dammit!

I say that 'cos you've shown me several more jobs I'll now need to do.

I say again.... 'Dammit!'
 
Your refurbishment makes me embarrassed about m little boat however I am more into sailing than working on it. I am not sure about that emergency ladder. Looks very neat but I would want to use it in anger or even in calm waters. I feel that it will be too flexible under water and insufficient hand holds to pull yourself out. ol'will
 
William_H said:
Your refurbishment makes me embarrassed about m little boat however I am more into sailing than working on it. I am not sure about that emergency ladder. Looks very neat but I would want to use it in anger or even in calm waters. I feel that it will be too flexible under water and insufficient hand holds to pull yourself out. ol'will
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Several years ago I found a large gentleman hanging on a mooring buoy after his tender flipped over due to some wash. The water was fairly cold as it was April, very early in our spring, probably about 8C. He had already been in the water at least 10 minutes before I found him, luckily his lifejacket inflated automatically. He could not get his foot on the bathing ladder and I could not lift him as he must have weighed 18 stone plus wet clothing. Another yacht came alongside and tried helping, but three of us still could not lift him. I was getting very worried about hypothermia setting in. Having 2 yachts drifting close to moored yachts was not safe and the nearest lifeboat station is about 10 miles away. so I decided to I strap him to the transom and slowly motored a few minutes to a ponton I knew had a ladder. When he finally climbed out of the water he was fairly cold having been in for about 25+ minutes. I grabbed some towels to dry him off, but he almost completely stripped, wrung his clothes out and them put them back on! He then walked back to his club about a ¼ mile away. He was going for a shower and await his wife to bring a spare set of car keys as these and his phone were fried. This prompted me to research what was on the market and I decides this emergency ladder would have assisted him or anyone else out of the water. The bottom rung is weighted to ensure it is easy to get a foot on a rung and there is a separate handle to help steady yourself. As you climb up then you can transfer to the boarding ladder. Hopefully it will never need to be used, but at least it did not cost a fortune and I feel it was money well spent on a safety item.
 
Sorry when I read my post I realise it was not worded well. What I was advocating was to actually use it. )test it) I feel that it might have short comings. I use my boarding system fairly frequently and even that seems a bit difficult as I get older. The need is for hand holds up high as you get out of the water by a combination of pulling with arms and pushing with feet. Look at any swimming pool ladder and you will see that hand holds extend at least one metre above the deck. ie not so much wrong with the ladderr but the system needs more. ol'will
 
William_H said:
Sorry when I read my post I realise it was not worded well. What I was advocating was to actually use it. )test it) I feel that it might have short comings. I use my boarding system fairly frequently and even that seems a bit difficult as I get older. The need is for hand holds up high as you get out of the water by a combination of pulling with arms and pushing with feet. Look at any swimming pool ladder and you will see that hand holds extend at least one metre above the deck. ie not so much wrong with the ladderr but the system needs more. ol'will
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As I said before there is a separate handle to steady yourself and start climbing. On my boat the drop down boarding ladder is alongside the emergency ladder and provides a hand hold as you would rise out of the water. Finally transfering on to the boarding ladder there are pushpit posts either side of the boarding ladder. The only problems I can see are firstly the emergency ladder steps will only take one foot as they are narrow and being of rope construction could move under the transom as you start to get on it but the higher up you get the less of this effect. As yet I have not tried it as the water was too cold as soon as it was fitted, but one day I will test it out. For £40 it is certainly not expensive and I know it would have helped in the rescue I had problems with mentioned in post #11.
 
Talulah said:
Looks really good.
Why though did you do the presentation at the RYA S E Conference?
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Simple answer, I was asked. Last March I gave a shorter presentation to the East Coast Branch of the Westerly Owners Association and after finishing the talk a representative from the RYA asked if I would do a similar talk at this conference. No doubt I will get a few more requests in the future as most people seem to be inspired by what you can do to refresh an old boat. Currently I am waiting to see if my offer is accepted to take Concerto to be the boat on the Westerly Owners berth at the Southampton Show . So everyone may be able to see her and chat with me. I might even give a talk or two if they want.
 
Concerto said:
As I said before there is a separate handle to steady yourself and start climbing. On my boat the drop down boarding ladder is alongside the emergency ladder and provides a hand hold as you would rise out of the water. Finally transfering on to the boarding ladder there are pushpit posts either side of the boarding ladder. The only problems I can see are firstly the emergency ladder steps will only take one foot as they are narrow and being of rope construction could move under the transom as you start to get on it but the higher up you get the less of this effect. As yet I have not tried it as the water was too cold as soon as it was fitted, but one day I will test it out. For £40 it is certainly not expensive and I know it would have helped in the rescue I had problems with mentioned in post #11.
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I had an incident last year when I fell into the water whilst getting into the dinghy. The auto life jacket inflated and I grabbed the dinghy to get onboard- impossible as the dinghy promptly filled with water. Worked my way around the dinghy to reach the boarding ladder, which had a securing clip at the top. Very difficult to reach the clip but managed it after several attempts. Climbed on board, stripped off and found some clothes and went ashore. The water was warm but there was no one nearby who could have helped.
I have now fitted a cord to the clip, led upwards then downwards to a T handle near waterline. Very easy to release the clip, lower the ladder and climb aboard. My ladder is long so is easy to get aboard. Your rope ladder looks ok but the difficulty will be in locating the rungs, I could hang onto the lower rungs whilst trying to unclip the whole ladder.
I will add photos later when I find them!
 
zoidberg said:
I'm now one of the converted....

Is your emergency ladder up to the job?
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I believe it is or I would not have bought and fitted it. As I said before I hope I do not have to use it in a real situation.

The last rescue was not the only one I have been involved with. Back in January 1966 I was sailing with my parents off the Isle of Sheppy in the Thames Estuary. We came across an upturned dinghy with 5 men clinging to it, one was semi concious. After dropping the sails and motoring alongside, we fitted our hook on aluminium boarding ladder. It was a struggle to get all of them aboard as they had been in the water for about half an hour and hypothermia was setting in. None of them was wearing a lifejacket. If we had not seen them they would have died as no one else knew they were in the water and there were no other boats of any type within a mile or so.

Having twice had to rescue people from the water, I prefer to have something rather than nothing. Every other apparatus to get people out of the water involves multiple crew member and takes time to rig. With cold water that time delay could prove fatal.
 
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