Mast Climbing -- Best Practice

[hjohnson]

On our boat, the person going aloft always goes up in the bosun’s chair using a self climber. This is on dynamic line, tied to the main halyard, which in turn is run through its clutch, wrapped thrice around a jib winch, and cleated off.

The safety line is generally the spin halyard and is handled through its clutch, and thrice around the main winch.

When descending, the clutch is released, but the three wraps around the winch are maintained.

This is probably as safe as we can realistically make it.