Mast Climbing on the Cheap

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by double u

"Pull one meter on one end of the halyard and the other end will go up one meter."
this is when someone standing on deck & remaining there would pull you up

Ha, you're right!

Learn something every day!

[double u]

...to ease your mind, DH:
I had been mulling the exact ratio over for a long time, drew vector diagrams, etc. but couldn't come up with a definite figure.
as chance will have it a gearbox-designer is part of my mountainbike-circle of 10 or so friends & I asked him one day (his lady, an engineer in physics & computer science was present also) & within 15 or so seconds they both had the answer ready & this simple expanation with the ropelength that goes through one's fingers too...goes 2 show...

[KeelMe]

On a small boat you can actually bring the mast down to your level instead of climbing up. I would tie a halyard to a dock and winch it in, heeling the boat over.
I did this many times on my Alberg 30. We would heel her to port and paint half the bottom and then heel her to starboard and paint the other half. I would also inspect my rigging while the boat was heeled over.

[charliehows]

It's a good discussion to be having.
The OP has a couple of fundamental fails built in to his question – the first being the “on the cheap” part – when it comes to mast climbing, it's about as dumb as possible to consider anything other than safety; the cost of decent ropes and fittings are absolutely negligible in this respect. I've had a couple of instances of UV damaged hoisting 3strand ropes just breaking midlift recently – maybe 2 year old ropes. Poly braid rope, on the other hand, seems to be quite resilient. I wouldnt trust a manilla rope.
My best bit of training for this sort of thing was an abseiling course I did a few years ago – mountaineering gear and techniques are a very good basis for this sort of thing – safety is at the core of this area of practice, and it translates pretty well to sailing. Looking at a number of posts including the OP I didnt see much evidence of any of this – no mention of double figure eight knots, proper harnesses, ascenders, obviously proper rope choices, etc, etc.
If you are going to use halyards, do you know if the pulleys, fastenings and attachment points etc, are rated and what the loading limits on them are? My main halyard dropped the sail on me awhile ago – shackle just loosened itself and came undone – my first thought at the time was “glad I wasnt using it to hoist meself up the mast at the time”

[Sailor 99]

Originally Posted by CFS Klopas

The halyards are 3/8" synthetic, probably dyneema. Masthead rig. I can live with a short lifespan for the rope, using a synthetic rope at that thickness would dramatically increase the cost.

Good quality climbing rope is less than a buck a foot CDN$. Thats 159 for about 190 ft of rope.


Going cheap on the rope your climbing on is not the place to save money... Your not going to buy a wheel chair for that kind of money.

[Sailor 99]

Originally Posted by Kerry1

Here is a link to a youtube vid that shows one inexpensive way to achieve what you want:

I made my own, (and improved on it slightly) plus used a safety harness. I have used it several times. You can find my post here: Getting Up The Mast It's rather lengthy and maybe confusing a little but it was just my way of paying a tribute to a guy that gave me some pointers. He recently lost his wife to cancer.

That was a scary video.

1. never ever get hoisted up by using the stainless snap shackles. I have seen them fail with someone in the air. They lived but there was a lot of blood. Always tie a bowline unless you have wire rope and if wire rope then use a standard shackle through the wire eye
2. Always have a safety line. Never unhook it.

[CFS Klopas]

Since this got bumped, the Manila rope was never used to climb. I used the main halyard to haul a ladder up to the spreaders to install lazy jacks. The climbing harness was tied with a Blake's Hitch to the jib halyard and the bottom of the ladder was secured as well. It worked, but it wasn't stable and I wouldn't recommend it.

In the future, I'll try rigging ascenders with line, but not any time soon.

[masonc]

Originally Posted by CFS Klopas

Since this got bumped, the Manila rope was never used to climb. I used the main halyard to haul a ladder up to the spreaders to install lazy jacks. The climbing harness was tied with a Blake's Hitch to the jib halyard and the bottom of the ladder was secured as well. It worked, but it wasn't stable and I wouldn't recommend it.

In the future, I'll try rigging ascenders with line, but not any time soon.

That's mostly what I do when I have serious mast work, I have my crew haul in a 32ft ladder, haul it up with a halyard, and secure it. I have a specially modified ladder with lifting strap and padded top rung. It only works if we can get along side the dock, but it is so much faster.

[agb512]

I've found that the cam cleat cam be a weak point and might slide down the rope.