Going Up The Mast on A Capella

Dan White · Post by **Dan White** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 7:05 pm

My Stack Pack lines broke, thus I will be taking a trip up the mast in my bosun's chair. This will be a first for me. Anyone do this before. Tips?

Loki · Post by **Loki** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 7:39 pm

Most things are obvious, but here a few things that might not be: I never use a shackle; I tie a bowline in the halyard. Take a small line with a bag with you so the person on deck can pass up whatever you forgot. But the most important thing is wear long pants!

Post by **Lady of the Lake** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 8:11 pm

Here is my 2 cents. Find a cute little 95 pound girl to send up! For some reason, my daughter loves to go up the mast and I am afraid of heights. In fact, we lost the main halyard on our monohull a few years back and she retrieved it for me while we were pitching about while offshore! She was 13 at the time. Brave kid.

Marc Gershel · Post by **Marc Gershel** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 11:00 pm

Hi Dan, personally, I don't like relying on anyone pulling me up the mast. About 8 years ago I bought a TopClimber at the Miami Boat Show, and I've been climbing up the mast myself ever since. I've made as many as 7 trips up and down in 1 day for various reasons, without needing someone to stand by. I realize this won't help you now, but you may want to consider it in the future

http://www.atninc.com/topclimber

Marc Gershel · Post by **Marc Gershel** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 11:06 pm

Sorry, Try this

http://www.atninc.com/topclimber.html

Knotty Cat · Post by **Knotty Cat** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 1:06 am

Marc, I have a topclimber I haven't used yet. I know you're supposed to use a static line but I'm not sure where you tie it off at the bottom. What do you do ?

Cat Tales · Post by **Cat Tales** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 8:57 am

My wife is afraid of heights, so it's always me going up the mast. Winching me up is a great workout for Kelly, so I bought the Mast Mate to make things easier. Our taller rig has the Tides Marine Track & Slide system and the slides are simple to pull off the track. The Mast Mate then slides on the track & up the mast, giving me temporary & secure mast steps. Total time for me to rig the Mast Mate is 1 minute. But I don't recommend the Mast Mate if you have sail slides with ball bearings in them. Too much risk of losing a bearing when taking them out of the sail track.

http://www.mastmate.com

Marc Gershel · Post by **Marc Gershel** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 1:05 pm

Rigging a static line for a Topclimber can be a problem at first. You must have a line with a free end on it (no shackle or spliced eye). This is needed to slip the ascenders onto the rope. When I first got mine, I tied a spare line to a halyard, and hauled that to the top of the mast. After that first time, I installed a seperate (halyard) dedicated line just for climbing.
I use it by slipping the asceders onto the free end, then secure that end to the base of the mast. The other end is led to the sheet winch where I tighten up the line. Very important to make it tight, otherwise it's almost impossible to climb. The climbing itself is a fairly easy motion of standing up and sitting down. The hardest part for me to learn was getting myself to lean way back in order to get my knees up higher. Being fat, bald,ugly, 70yo, and afraid of heights didn't help. Now I swear by it, and I almost look for any excuse to use it
I had a Mast-Mate years ago, but I didn't like having to remove the mainsail. Also I had to climb with a bosus chair straped on, so that I could work with 2 hand once I got up there. This meant that I still needed someone to haul that up while I climbed. Didn,t like that.

Marc

amytom · Post by **amytom** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 8:08 am

I have the TopClimber and can use it to climb without anyone else around. Just tie strings to all the tools I'll need and pull them up when I need them. I even installed the radar in a stiff breeze by myself.

I am afraid of higths as well so I have to have complete control and the TopClimber allows that. To rig it just tie a bowline in the main halyard and tie a static line with another bowline run it up the mast and work the bottom of your static line onto a mast mounted cleat or winch. The first step could be quite high depending on your mounting options. Two key points: 1) keep the static line as tight as possible to keep you from swinging around. 2)the static line needs to be a dedicated line, I bought one with the TopClimber.

Now I just need to work the courage to go all the way to the top and fix the wind transducer.

Marc Gershel · Post by **Marc Gershel** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:39 am

Amytom, Hi. You may have some difficulty getting all the way to the top because of the way your static line is tied to the halyard. Too many knots may not let you slide the ascenders high enough. There is a way of shortening the line that supports the seat, but I don't know if that will get you high enough. You could stand up, but you would need a strap around your upper body, similar to a telephone pole climber, in order to use both hands. Because I use a dedicated line (halyard) I don't have to contend with the knots, which can leave you a foot or more short of the top.

Good Luck, Marc

amytom · Post by **amytom** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:54 am

Marc,

Thought about that. I figure I could make the bowlines as small as possible and just stand at the top. (holding on for dear life of course!) I think my biggest hurdle is the courage thing. I don't even ride on rollercoasters.
In the Navy I did fairly well working on the mast mounted radars; but that was after awhile and those masts generally don't move as much as ours do. Only one way to get over the fear though... just do it.

Cat Tales · Post by **Cat Tales** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 10:33 am

What about installing two mast steps (the flip up kind) toward the top of the mast? They can be placed for a waist to chest high view of the mast top. You can rig one of those belts that go around the mast for support, like the telephone pole climbers. My mast climber has one, it clips just slightly above my waist & gives great support for working with both hands.

Marc Gershel · Post by **Marc Gershel** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:21 pm

http://www.mastmate.com/workbelt.htm

Very neat, Marc

Dan White · Post by **Dan White** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 1:21 pm

Thanks for all the tips, of which I used several, especially the ones about long pants, an extra line for hauling up stuff and using a bowline in lieu of the shackle.

Went up yesterday using a bosun's chair with no problems. Needed a fairly strong person on the winch ( I weigh 200 pounds).

amytom · Post by **amytom** » Mon Feb 16, 2009 8:26 am

Wohoooo! I finally made it all the way to the top using the TopClimber! A big step for me. I was able to remove the old unused SSB antenna that had been snagging the main halyard. I almost got the wind transducer down but I was just a couple of inches shy. I could turn the mounting nut but I couldn't hold onto the transducer at the same time. I went back down with the idea that I would re-rig the line a little higher with smaller knots but then it started to rain and I called it a day.
Two things I did differently that helped me get to the top this time. I used to cleat the base of the static line to the mast but this time I went to the stbd center cleat. Hanging off of the rope and not having so much for me to tangle on made it easier. The second was I had Amy and my little princess watching; no way I'm going to ruin the "my daddy can do anything" image she has of me. (she'll loose that during the teenage years anyway)

Next time I'm thinking of tying off to the foward cleat to increase the angle and bring me closer to the front of the mast. I'm using the main halyard so this will have to wrap around the top of the mast. I looked at using the spinnaker halyard but realized that for the last several feet on top it is outside of the mast running up to a block on the masthead plate. A failure of that block would drop me 5 to 10 feet, not fun. I'm also thinking of getting a proper OSHA safety harness and using the topping lift as an extra safety line.

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