Show me your boarding ladder (please)

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by sailor1924

I've actually got three installed boarding ladders: the one pictured below is patterned after the Mystic Ladder mentioned above. It is mounted to starboard, for swimming and dinghy use, for us older folk. It is removeable with the pulling of two hairclip pins at the toe rail, it folds down into the water 36" with four steps under water for ease of boarding from the water. It stores as can be seen at the rails.

This is exactly what I want. Did you have it made, or can it be bought?

[sailor1924]

A64pilot

After looking over the Mystic ladder and the price of it, and since I have more time then money these days, I decided to make one.

I't's pretty simple to make. I used 1" SS tubing, Bimini fittings: tees, elbows, slides, attachment brackets and end caps, Trex for the the treads , rubber crutch tips for the standoffs.

I've replaced the set screws at the critical stress points with SS rivets
Width can be made to suit, this one is 24" wide to match the companionway. I used about 28 feet of tubing at about $120, 16 tees, 6 elbows, 4 jaw slides, 2 deck brackets, and two end caps at +-$240, 8 feet of trex $10 $20 misc fasteners and rivets.

The ladder works really well, the only adjustments to the design I'm planning to make; is to add another attachment bracket and replace the pins that hold the ladder with a continuous rod to allow the whole ladder to slide forward clear of the companionway. I want to do this because the ladder is fairly heavy and I'd like to accommodate the occasional raft-up. (I've raised the railings to 3 feet so it can be difficult for people to step over.) And the standoff lines will be replaced with chain or wire.

After the photos were taken I rounded off the treads with my router so there are no sharp edges. It took me about 12 hours to make and install the ladder. Of course there were many happy hours of ruminating and sourcing materials.