As earlier posted, while getting ready for Irene my wife suggested pulling up the
jib halyard so it wouldn't wrap up on anything. Not thinking I let her do it before I realized I had nothing to get it back down.
So this weekend we go to the
boat to put it all back together after the
hurricane (boat was just fine). I decide to rig a hoop and loft it up with the
spinnaker halyard to loop around the
furler top. This worked, but couldn't get it to pull back down.
So now I have 2 lines stuck at the top of the
mast. After thinking about my options and feeling
cheap that day I decide it's time for one of us to go up the stick. Now we had never done this, but did know the procedure and had a bosum chair.
So since my started this and feeling that it was going to be easier for me to
winch her up than the other way; we try to put my wife into the chair. But the chair wouldn't up past her butt........... So I get in the chair!
So I climb up on top of the boom and she starts winching me up. Meanwhile I'm looking up and thinking "damn that's a looong way". I know it's going to be 62 feet off the
water and I don't really like heights.
Wife does a good job getting me to the first spreader, where I stand up and give her a break. So far so good. Then she starts winching me higher and now I'm starting to run into the various stays for the B&R rig that are in the way and she is sloooowing down.
I finally get up there. Free the
jib halyard and tie the
spinnaker halyard to me as a back-up for the trip down. On the way up I'm been bounced and banged on the
rigging etc.
Wife starts letting me down and I hear her say "I should have taken a picture". next thing I know I'm hanging in the air and there doesn't seem to be anyone playing attention to me anymore.
Because she left me and went an found the
camera: