How Do You Climb the Mast ??

[Tomahawk]

I use a Pretzl accender and "grigri" together with a climbing harness. I go up by putting the grigri on the belt loop of the climbing harness and putting an Accender with foot loops about head height.. I ratchet up on the accender and grigri ... Then take the accender off the rope for the decent which I control with the grigri which then acts as a decender.. That way I can do it by myself.. But I much prefer to have my wife at the bottom with a secondary rope for safety..

[svHannabel]

I detailed my mast climbing method here in this blog post: http://www.sailfarlivefree.com/2011/...latitudes.html

[Me-and-Boo]

I bought a Top Climber which uses a static line. I will be ordering one very soon. Which shackles would be best to use with it? Would the halyard end use a different shackle than the deck end? In one of the video the user clipped a shackle the base of a stanchion, I could not make out the shackle he used though.

[ovrmyhead]

I pray, sweat, shake profusely and if you stuck a lump of coal up my a$$ I could bring you down a diamond... that's probably not what you meant eh?

[roverhi]

Use a static line if you must with your TopClimber but you don't need to. As long as you have a free end of a halyard, you can use that. I'd probably want a shackle with a 1/4" pin just to be doubly safe. Imagine smaller would work though.

[roverhi]

A Top Climber on Ebay: Bosun's Chair ATN Top Climber | eBay

[Nicholson58]

Originally Posted by rebel heart

For you and everyone else with the ATN, I thought you had to have a permanent line rigged and not just use a halyard? Not sure if I have a spare line that goes all the way up that I could always keep dedicated.

If your halyards don't fit the cams in the ATN then use a halyard to hoist a line of proper size. The whole lot stays in the bag ready to go.

[Andrew G]

I've installed two fold out mast steps (one each side) about 4' from the top of mast so that, however you get there, you can stand safely (and comfortably) and even service the pulley that got you up there. Handy to service items on the very top of the mast.
Always maintain a load on the bosun's chair and tie yourself around the mast as well as to its top. Andrew

[Timsh]

I am currently dealing with a situation where a bosuns chair won't work. Both halyards are seized in their sheaves and the only way I could think of to fix them was to either climb up there or pull the mast. I took 2x4's and cut them to 12" pieces, drilled two holes in each 7" apart and used bolts to sandwich them around the mast. Now I can go up and down as I please to get things fixed (using a safety rope atound the mast of course). I got the sheaves all taken apart and am waiting for all the new Garhauer stuff to replace them with. I think I'll put a new wind vane and light while I'm up there. If I had working halyards a bosuns chair would be my first choice.