Climbing The Mast

Doesn't exist yet. But see this IDEA as based on a couple of GARHAUER 50 cheek blocks either side of mast at top.
Each block has a taut line to the foot of the mast. Ascent is from the front of the mast.

You crawl with an ascender on each line, with a foot loop to each ascender.
So you are stepping up or down on two separate halyards.
There may be less body twisting off to one side or other with separated lines(?)
Keeping legs together could be a problem(?) - but you will be able at any point along the mast to bring the feet level with each other.
Maybe the foot ropes can be passed around the ascender ropes one time before the feet get into the stirrups.
Don't know the terminology here, but this isn't acrobatic caving either. The concept here is that exactly the same method is used going down the ropes... as was used going up.

Suggest trying Samson's Deep Six 1/2" nylon anchor rope.
All the gear can be kept out of the weather in the anchor locker.
Would have small stuff messenger line strung through the cheek blocks to haul port and starboard crawling rope up and over the sheaves.

So in concept these two cheek blocks are dedicated to getting up the mast. But
with messenger lines always rigged, any line could be used for any need.

Not sure how singlehanding this 'system' would work.
Still need a harnass connecting the crawlee to a third halyard for safety. This could be the mailsail halyard.
That will call for a third ascender. Or klemheist or prusik.
This line goes thru a jumar(?) or roller box on the chest.(?) How is the safety feature always 'on' without a third hand?
Does a harnass seat or bosun's seat enter the picture?
Must use a belt around the mast when positioned in place to work hands free.
There may be enough slack in the foot loops to step up onto a couple folding or strap steps permanently attached to the mast to access the masthead.
At that point all ascenders would be slack but of course stll attached to their individual ropes.
The crawlee would have a belt around the mast - could still have one foot jammed with the ascender.... Don't know about this.

There are THREE LINES (or halyards) used to ascend/descend.
Seems like there is REDUNDANT safety in this - is this a viable concept?
With a super safe climber/crawler....I know I would be more likely to check out the mast and spreaders regularly. It might even be FUN?

Redundant lines, redundant sheaves. Dedicated/replacable rope only for climbing the mast.
(except, for the main halyard used as backup)
A-338 will have a new 6" mast sheave. If there is a choice when rigging the system for a crawl, imco running the safety line over this main halyard sheave would be the ultimate.
I can imagine a cheek block possibly coming loose but not the rope going thru the mast. Depends on the cleats and tie-offs OF COURSE!
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If you want to see an ascender - with some detail views of the gripping device (rope chewer)
google Petzl Ascenders and Pulleys from Backcountry.com
www.backcountry.com/petzl-ascenders-and-pulleys

google> Climbers advice - Descenders - Yachting and Boating World Forums

You'll have to type that in your google bar.
It is a Brit site and the discussion is with a group of rope climbers who climb their masts with halyards.

The gear is still a mystery to me.
I did visit an REI this weekend and found out what a Petzl ascender is
and, though I didn't try it on, what a harness is. The harness looks very uncomfortable - perhaps there is a wide webbing version my softer body would like.
Maybe a marine harness and a nice bosun's couch.

But read the posts in the above three page thread,
they will help identify what we need to get up and down the mast on STATIC LINES. Most guys use two lines, one is the backup, to do the exercise. ebb's redundant third line backup is not discussed.

However while the guy at REI said there are NO DESCENDERS like the Petzl ascender and that he didn't see how the Petzl could be used to descend....
a couple of the Brits say the ascender CAN be used to descend. That's all I want to hear!
I think it's tedious for young testosteroners to crawl down, they prefer a smoking joyride down the ropes.
Now I need to know if a hand can be let go from the climbing Petzl on route to ajust the backup friction knot or ascender on the third line while ascending or descending.
One of the guys posting said he was 6'6 and weighed over 200lbs. I'm way over 200. Didn't say how young. If he can do it......!

That's it for me on this subject...

unless there is feedback.
My mast is still down. So there is ample opportunity to see if cheek blocks can be safely put on at the masthead. No loose blocks - you'll read why on the site above.

WICHARD MX HALYARD SHACKLE
Thumbing through Sail Jan 2011 and came upon a large photo of ths so-called shackle.:cool: Nice!
This forged shackle has a wide smooth saddle for line to go over instead of a sheaved block. It looks plenty strong, has no moving parts except the pin. Hmmmmmm...wonder if a couple of these could be put up there. Perfect for a static line in this case. 3 Sizes up tp 9/16. approx $125, 3/8" pin. 17-4Ph stainless (equivalent corrosion resistance to 304.)
Defender has specs. Largest size approx 1 1/2" W, approx 2 3/4" L, approx 6 1/2 oz.

IMCO:

You can use ascenders to climb a halyard at the dock or in a slick calm anchorage, but - offshore? Forget it. I know from personal experience. In perhaps 2' swells, and basically 0 wind, it proved almost impossible to do. It took me probably 20 minutes to get my shoe soles 5-6' off the deck, and I got bruised and beat up in even that short a distance, and it took that long to come back down. I tried everything I could think of in that time to make it work. Prior to this I had used them at the dock.

I've been hauled aloft at sea, where I was only having to keep myself from getting beat up, and/or keeping a camera slung around my neck from bashing me or the mast. Biggest boat I've done that on was a 56' Hinckley, & seas were perhaps 4', winds Force 4-5. After 20' or so up over the deck, it was a good bit of work just to hang on. The motion of the ocean, amplified exponentially, slings you all around.

So you are an arm or two short of being able to hold yourself to the mast or to the rigging while using the ascenders; and your weight on a line that long *cannot* be held still, unless perhaps - and I still think it doubtful - you used some serious diameter line tensioned far, FAR beyond the strength of anything you'll likely find on our boats. Think steel cable taut, 1/2" diameter, tensioned to a high note when struck, that *might* work... Other than that, you are going to be slung around like so much dead weight; you cannot hang on and climb at the same time, and a line around the mast 'to keep you from swinging too much' only results in short, hard-jarring stops at the end of each swing.

I'm no Brion Toss, but have done a fair share of rigging work aloft for pay. I have been up the mast using every possible method except ratlines to the topmast; I own a nice Petzl climbing harness - the type you can swing upside-down in safely - and a pair of very nice ascenders and the 'biners and such to go with, purchased specifically for use to climb masts. I've used them both singly on one line and in-line, 'frog style', and attached to separate halyards, one halyard for each side of the body (easier, but still strenuous). Going aloft using this gear is the last available method I will use. The climbing harness, while very safe, is also uncomfortable for long periods, so I use it *and* a rudimentary bosuns chair slung under/behind that I can wriggle into when at a place where I am done with the active climbing.

Failing steps (which is what I have decided on using, having tried the rest) but needing to go up when solo, get yourself a nice set of big blocks, min 2:1, max 4:1 purchase, with a jam cleat attached to one block, and a good long fat piece of line. Send the cleat-less block aloft, and haul yourself up. One hand above the tackle attached to your waist harness pulls down (making you go up), the other tails the line through the cleat while aiding the lift, and a safety line on an ascender follows you up on an adjacent halyard strung tight to the deck as a safety measure.

This piece of kit will allow you to be able to swing out away from the mast to inspect *all* of your rigging as you ascend/descend. If you are gonna be up there on your own power, might as well be thorough. Before you go up all the way, try different purchases; if you can handle 2:1, you'll get up further, faster. The more purchase, the less arm strength needed, but - the less distance traveled each pull. I once went up a 62' spar using a 5:1 purchase setup. I got about 4" altitude for every full-arms-length pull. It sucked, and took forever... :)

Never, ever let go of the line thru those blocks with both hands at the same time; teach yourself to tie a stopper knot one-handed that you can put in place on the bitter-end side of that jam cleat, or pull that tail up and make it off to the standing part just above the blocks if you need a rest or to work with both hands.

Keep an eye on the line you are dropping behind/below; you want to do your best to make sure it does not snag and snarl on some deck hardware, thus preventing you from getting back down.

Engineer it right, and you could maybe rig the safety ascender with a tight foot loop of some sort to help with climbing; though if you fell with your foot in it, this could injure you pretty bad, which is why I've never tried it.

But the above will not work at sea - not for me.

Steps have disadvantages, sure, but they really are the way to go (along with a safety line). I will have ratlines to the spreaders, and steps above to the masthead. I'd been thinking that might work, then saw Yves Gelinas RTW video, and that was how he'd rigged his Alberg 30, which confirmed it for me. In the video he scales the mast mid-Atlantic on a fairly calm day, quite quickly.

I read a story once about a rescue crew who found what remained of a fellow - I think it was a leg and some torso in a harness - dangling from a mast mid-ocean. Apparently he'd gotten beaten to death aloft, and by the time the yacht was found, the birds had had their way with what was left. Grisly, but understandable, based on what I've experienced.

Kurt, thanks for the post, and sharing your experience.
That's what really counts.
Climbing the mast is a dangerous 'exercise'.

Your recomendation for using a couple hefty blocks to make a tackle to haul yourself aloft is what I can see using with a full set of stainless strap steps. I've convinced self that I'm not a dangler from a single line. I like the camcleat holder on the lower block, which I 'see' right in front of the chest....holding the sod always in an upright position.

Well I been up and down enough on that rope ladder (in the marina) to know that the body can be slung around like a piece of dead torso. What an image, that poor guy!!! You can get off to one side of the mast and lo-and-behold the boat tips over with you.

Yes, climbing uses all your muscles. Many you haven't used in a long time. And some you don't have any more.

I can see stringing the tackle with 5/8" Samson 6 braid anchor warp. They don't make no stinkun ascenders for that stuff - but it is something that I know I can grasp, still grasp as the case may be. And the expensive blocks for that size line would certainly be overkill (not a good word here). Also the tackle is dedicated to ascent and decent so no working halyards are used.
I wonder how easy or intuitive it is to use the all important cam function on the lower block....
which I assume is at about eye level (or above the head) when hanging there.

A proper jumar rig uses the same muscles you use when standing up out of your recliner, that's it. If you are concerned about the safety of decenders or belay devices, check out a grigri. http://www.mountainhighoutfitters.co...ts/GRIGRI.html

debaser, sir,
So you got the JUMAR here, which is a specific ascending device.
You gotta pulley rigged on it on the top of the ascender.
The rope you are climbing goes through the jumar
goes down to and around the GRIGRI on your harness
back up to the pulley, then the rope runs free to the deck.
The grigri better have a cam in it.
There is a connect web line from the bottom of the jumar to the harness.
Another piece of web from the jumar is rigged as a footloop.


You can get a 3 to 1 haul by pulling on the tail coming out of the pulley A little versatility here.
But there is no safety in this, another jumar has to be rigged on another line for backup,
and there must be some foolproof way the rope can't get away from the jumars.

I have no experience in what we are talking about here.

Jumars are strickly ascenders and cannot be used for descent. Is that correct?

After awhile most any system will become personal and easy to use. I can see that.
Wish I could get savey with jumar and grigri - can't see how to get in their club.
Really want a dignified and easy way to get up and get down.
To keep from swinging I think the climbing rope has to be fixed.
A coward wants two fixed lines. That means each line is independant of the other.
Two ropes going bad at the same time probably can't happen.
But that's just the kind of stuff that does.
A real coward wants that third safety line.
That's a lotta line.
But there's maybe less white knuckles.

One foot in a footloop is not good.
Want both feet in loops, nice wide non collapsing stirrup loops.

Want to step descend the same way I stepped up. Want to think about it.
Want complete control at all times. I'm sure the view is special up there hugging the mast.
But what I really will get off on is getting out of the harness.

I think there is a WE in this.
There are a bunch of old fools who want
to think they are able to do this if they have to.
I want to think I can do it if I want to.

I'm with Kurt on the ladder princple.
No spider in my DNA.

The ascenders I have are the Petzl Ascensions.

The blocks I use were mainsheet blocks for an International 18 racing cat, IIRC they will go up to a 7 or 8:1 purchase. The line I have paired with them is 300' of brand-new 1/2" New England 3-strand.

Coward? I think not. Interested more in sailing than in, as one member here put it, making a coyote-style silhouette on the coach roof. ;D

The pin-up artist Gil Elvgren returning to our subject.

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/elvgren1.jpg

What did they do here? Haul the kid up with the gaff and sail?


http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...r/54b6a1db.jpg

nope, clumb up the luff lacing.

Which naturally begs the question:
If we have a loose foot mainsail,
why not a loose luff mainsail?

Laced like this ole gaff
we would have an easy way up our masts.