Mast Climbing (moved)

[Bob Pingel]

I moved this post for TPG
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Off topic, I know. Can't figure how to post new topic. Is there a link I'm missing?

My question is; what is the best equip for mast climbing - assuming the climber is 60-years on
& may be climbing without aid of other hominids.

Qualify that, please, to under $500 bucks...make that $300 bucks). Mast height circa 50 ft.

And, Why has El Jeffe, "The Brion," not launched his own mast climber?

Highest regards. tpg
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[Ian McColgin]

Let's see if I remember it all just sitting here, at least two weeks since last aloft.

The basic tools are:

Comfortable sit-harness. These are available at both marine and mountaineering suppliers. Take the time to get one that fits you well.

Suitable chest harness. This can be as easy as a loop you can make a figure eight across your back and over shoulder/under arm or can be a pricey unit with sewn D rings and all. Again, consult local mountaineering or marine suppliers.

Two ascenders. These are a mechanical evolution of the famed prussic sling. Basically makes it easy to slide the thing up, transfer your weight to the one just slid up, and now slide up the other. There are various ways to arrange this, discussed below.

Five or six carabiners. A couple carabiners for your sit-harness, two for the chest harness and tether, one for a short tether on one ascender, and one more for the descending ring if you get that. Learn from a suitable book or instructor how to have two 'biners in the sit-harness with the gates flipped so's you can't accidentally open into a fall.

Descending ring. A nice touch.

Some sort of snatch block and very strong bungee or rubber snubber that you can attach at the mast base or on deck or, worst case but it works, around the boom at the gooseneck.

The set-up gives more flexibility in how your work aloft than the fixed line often recommended for ascenders.

Set up the main halyard's fall through the block attached by some strong but elastic snubber to the deck or boom. If the boom, you'll be doing all what I describe below in the way of set-up standing a bit precariously on the boom but if you lean a shoulder against the mast, it's not so bad. Anyway, keep a grip on the end of the fall as you suit up, maybe by looping it into your harness temporarily.

This is not a bad time to check you have all your tools. I made a PFD with pockets for my favorite always needed fids and wrenches and pliers and such. A good riggers' bag is essential if you've a bigger job.

Attach the hoist of the main halyard to you sit-harness 'biners. Run it up inside your chest harness.

Attach the ascenders to the fall about at chest level. One ascender should have at least a shortish tether that can 'biner onto your sit-harness alongside the halyard hoist. Two choices from here. Some like a foot loop for each ascender, using the short tether just when belayed and working or resting. The motion is a bit like climbing a ladder.

Others like to rig a double foot harness to the second ascender allowing an automatic rest on the sit-harness while raising the other ascender.

Sit with weight on the sit-harness ascender attached to the halyard fall and on the sit harness attachment to the halyard fall. This gets your weight evenly divided between hoist and fall and stretches the line. Now pull up from the fall's bitter end till you get some decent stress on the block and snubber and taughtline hitch it to the halyard's hoist.

Now when you go up - and it only takes half the effort as a single fixed line - you carry up your slack as you go. The ascenders need some down pull on the halyard to allow you to slide them up and this is the only way to get that without a fixed rope.

With another present and at low altitude, practice going up a few steps and then how to use the ascender to get back down. !!!

When you get where you want to work, you can just sit. I like to lean back almost 45 degrees to where the chest harness against the halyard hoist - remember the hoist is inside the harness - takes some weight. This makes the sit-harness comfortable for really long jobs. I've spent over two hours aloft in great comfort this way.

For a safety line, I pass the check harness tether twice around the mast and let it settle a little loosely at my lap. Should the halyard break, it will tighten as I fall and stop the fall in a couple of feet. Your gratitude at hugging the mast will evaporate as you get uncluttered enough to slide the rest of the way down, but the adrenaline rush with give strength.

You can also prussic the tether to another halyard or even a stay. Just have all arranged that if you fall and are hanging on the tether, you could reach the far end without climbing. It will be enough to ease the tension enough for downward movement.

Depending one the job once you're up, you may need to loosen the end of the fall that comes up from the deck block to that taughtline hitch. For example, maybe you're going out to a spreader tip to foozle on some baggywrinkle that's come adrift. Or you're leaping out to the backstay to rig a nifty doheyhickey for the ensign. Any jobs that take you away from the mast mean you'll need to unfasten the safety tether and then use it to hold you out by your work.

If you like the descending ring for going down, learn how to ease the fall at that taughtline hitch so's you can get a bight over the descending ring. Then, one hand holding at the ring, you can unhook both ascenders and slide down with panache.

Again, practice all the climbing, descending and transferring evolutions at low altitude so if you get entangled, someone can rescue you. Spend the time to get a good fit on the harnesses.

And most of all, have fun. Once you've got it, it's a gas, the view is great, and your neighbors will know you're cool.

G'luck

Ian

[Brian Duff]

Wow ! I just use a simple tackle with lots of line and pull myself up in my chair...

[Ian McColgin]

I used to be strong enough to pull myself up 100' just chair on the hoist and hauling on the fall. That's a 2:1 advantage. But in addition to getting 75lbs plumper and a few decades older, the big hassel of any hoist system is that the pile of line down on deck can get fouled if it's at all windy or if a passing wake caused the boat to roll a lot or sometime if the gods just hate you.

If you must use a hoist approach and it's only 2:1, you can pass the bitter end very loosely under the boom and belay it to your chair. That way you'll at least carry your slack aloft with you. If you hoist a tackle up so you go 6:1 or more, you'll be making more slack than you're carrying aloft and you'll be likely to tangle.

Even so, for short runs like to the lower spreaders, this can be worth the extra speed over climbing with ascendeers, which are quite slow unless you're going up a fixed rope. Thus, it is well to learn to use the ascenders on a fixed rope. A bit like climbing a ladder but it has its place. If you do, have whatever part you're climbing on belayable. Sit on it to take up all streatch and tie it thus. Otherwise, the slop your weight causes on the climbing part will interfere with the use of the ascenders.

I dont' usually used the fixed rope approach because it limits where you can go aloft, increases the stresses on the system, is slow for coming down, and is far less comfortable for working. However, for the fast job like replacing a steaming light or reeving a lost hallyard, the speed of a fixed rope going up may be worth it, especially if you are strong enough to unclip and slide down the mast for your descent. .

If you've no deck crew, you need to think of these things or sooner or later you'll end up high with no easy way down.

G'luck.

[Jim Fulton]

I, too, am over 60, and have to get up and down the mast without assistance. My masthead is about 38 feet from the deck. I use the climbing harness that Brion sells and a slightly modified version of the approach he demonstrates in the Going Aloft video. (The video doesn't really address the problem of going up the mast without asistance, except, perhaps, to imply that one shouldn't. However, that's not an option for me.) On my boat, the running end of the main halyard comes down the front of the mast. I use that to hoist a large Harken ratchet block with a becket to the masthead. The hauling line runs from the becket on the block at the masthead down through another block attached to the harness, than back up through the ratchet block and down again. The resulting 2:1 purchase means that I only have to pull up one quarter of my body weight. (See the video for an explanation.) I have a three-foot safety line that runs from my harness to an ascender that runs up my spinnaker halyard. One end of that halyard is secured to the portside mast winch; the other end is cleated. Even under breezy conditions I prefer simply hooking a leg around the mast while going up and down, rather than hooking a tether around it. The tether adds too many complications at the shrouds and spreaders.

Jim Fulton

[osteoderm]

Another approach i've seen used to great effect: Beg/borrow/steal/rent a really long extension ladder. Pad the feet and top cross bar as not to ding either deck or mast. tie the feet in place, so they can't skitter out from under you. The ladder need not be vertical, then again, with a safety tether, it need not be angled out too far either. Wear a harness and tail yourself up the ladder on a halyard. Tie off the top of the ladder to the mast. Go on to merrily climb up and down all day, as you continue to remember what little bit of tool/rigging/wiring/odd-sized cotter pin you've inevitably left below.
Obviously impractical for taller masts (only seen this on <36' boats), as well as for most masthead work. Great for fiddly wiring at those all-too-often faulty foredeck/steaming light units, or anything else close to spreader height.

[Brian Duff]

I think that the block with becket up top and block on your chair , and hauling from your chair, yeilds three to one, right ? it would be two to one for someone standing on deck to pull you up.
The issue of getting your line caught up on deck can be addressed like Ian suggested, or if you are really worried just keep the fall with you, which I have done in certain situations. Sure, you get heavier as you go up, but with two ratchets I find that I can stop at any point and let go of my weight and rest, with the ratchets holding me well. I have a lot of fatih in ratchets I guess, but I also never actually let go of the hauling end unless it is tied to my chair.
I only find this system to suck if you need to get right to the masthead, which I wear a climbing harness (petzl's deck ware pro harness) and use a lashing of 1/4" conception about 5' long to make a little purchace and haul myselft the rest the way up , or over or where ever I need to go.
Do hold on with your legs as you go, and take a rest if your getting tired. You dont want to faituge or hurt yourself halfway up. Granted, I don't yet know what I'll do when I am sixty
I have seen the extention ladder before and it seems to be a very dangerous and damaging practice. Also, it must me something more than a one man job to balance and raise a ladder up the rig on a sailboat without damamging anything. I will say that I have used A-frame ladders , the kind that fold flat for storage, set on deck and lashed at the feet and to the rig so made immobile, to speed up the installations of spin pole handlings systems, laying out, drilling and tapping from chair with two drills, goop and assorted fastners is slow, but a ladder cuts the time in half I find. Usefull for questus and SSB antenna work aswell.
Climb safely

[kw_martin]

As an alternative, I prefer using a Gri-Gri attached to a climbing harness using a carabiner in combination with an aider (line with a loop for your foot) attached to a halyard using either a Klemheist Knot or a Bachman knot (they both work - I slightly prefer the binding Bachman knot which is a smaller line wrapped around a carabiner - the Klemheist is similar but doesn't use a carabiner). The aider and the Bachman replace an ascender device and aider (see a climbing book). The advantages of using the Bachman are: it doesn't chew up the halyard (or alternatively require hoisting a static climbing line), and it doesn't have to be detached when descending, and therefore acts as an additional back-up. I also attach the belay end coming out of the Gri-Gri to a carabiner around the leg strap of my harness using an auto-block knot (another binding knot - don't use a Petzl shunt - it gets in the way and doesn't unlock easy enough). The Gri-Gri is attached to the belay loop of the harness. Finally, as another backup, I also attach a Petzl microcender to a different halyard (using a longish sling) in case the halyard I'm going up breaks. The aider/Bachman knot are also attached to my harness using a longish sling between the carabiner and my harness. The process of ascending is standing up in the aider (right foot) and pulling the belay end of the line out of the Gri-Gri (using my left hand - my right hand is used to help make standing up easier). Next, I sit on the Gri-Gri and first tighten up the autoblock and then slide up the microcender on the other halyard (not really necessary as it slides up itself, but you do need to slide it down when descending). Afterwards, I slide up the Bachman ready to stand up again and then re-tighten the Gri-Gri. The Gri-Gri is used as the major safety device, and if it happens to jam open (never happened), the autoblock still stops me from falling (it also makes the descent safer when self-belaying using the Gri-Gri - the major reason for the autoblock). In addtition, the Bachman which is attached to the harness loosely (using an additional sling) is another backup, as is the microcender. Finally nothing needs to be changed or detached when descending except taking your foot out of the aider (this is an issue with Jumar ascenders). If I forget to first slide the bachman and microcender down each small descent, it is a simple matter to put my foot back in the aider to re-ascend to get them. When ascending and I need to climb past the other halyard (for re-doing a mast-head halyard - I'm fractional) and can't use the microcender back-up, I use a longish sling going around the mast using a Klemheist knot attached to my harness as a back-up. I slide this up as I go. All of this may sound complicated but works well (at least for me). The binding knots (Bachman and autoblock) slide easily in either direction when not loaded unlike most acenders; and the system has numerous back-ups (three blocks on the first halyard plus the microcender on the second halyard). This method was arrived at after experimentation (I own most common mechanical aids - I'm a bit obsessive in this respect). Please don't try any of the above unless you follow exactly what I am saying and are sure you are competent enough. Many of my experimental attempts (which initially looked good) did not work well at all, so do be careful.