[Public-List] Mast up! No halyards~!

[Jeffrey]

Good morning Gord.

I agree with your comment on the halyards and blocks. My experience is
with technical climbing, and the equipment is rated to exact standards
and I know the strength of everything. Some of these sailing blocks
are seemingly under built for human safety.

Question on this though:

"You'll probably have to drop the stick and rig the halyards horizontal.
That should only take a few minutes each way so is not really much more
bother than sending a man up."

Because of the yard being reluctant to send a man up on the crane? I
don't think they will have a problem with it. I've seen them hoist one
of the yard guys up in a chair before. The crane can list 12,000lb
boats all day. It's massive. Which is part of my wish to solve this
w/o the crane. Getting time under it is difficult with a busy spring
of boat launching.

-jeff

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 8:40 AM, Gordon Laco <mainstay at csolve.net> wrote:
> Good morning Jeff -
>
> The mast column is no problem - it's massively over built for the loads our
> boats put on them with regard to compression.  They'll take thousands of
> pounds.   The issue is the integrity of your halyards and blocks - those are
> the weak link in the system.  I would hesitate to trust a forty odd year old
> nicropress or an old block.
>
> For your immediate issue rigging your halyards, I'd say the safest way to do
> this with the mast in place is to use the mast crane to hoist somebody up to
> the masthead.  That person should have a sailor's safety harness on so that
> once in place they can clip onto the mast, thus providing a redundancy for
> safety.  A problem you may encounter is your marina, who probably doesn't
> have a human lift rating for their crane.
>
> I think I have already related my story of getting hauled up to the masthead
> of a Fife P class boat when I was doing itinerante rigging only to discover
> that the block I was on had opened; all that was holding the sheave on the
> pin was the remains of the burr that was once the riveted end holding the
> absent strap.... I started carrying binoculars in my kit so that I could
> take a hard look at the masthead before going up, and then always requested
> two halyards on my bosun's chair.
>
> You'll probably have to drop the stick and rig the halyards horizontal.
> That should only take a few minutes each way so is not really much more
> bother than sending a man up.
>
> Cheers - Gord #426 Surprise
>
>
> On 16/06/11 8:29 AM, "Jeffrey" <fongemie at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Well,
>>
>> We launched the boat yesterday in fine weather. Everything went
>> smoothly (for a change). Our boatyard helps us raise the mast with a
>> crane. We had the spreaders on, stays arranged and all looked neat and
>> tidy. Mast went up fine & we motor out to the mooring to finish
>> rigging. We were there for a couple hours enjoying ourselves when I
>> looked for a halyard to check the positioning of the mast and there
>> were no halyards! We pulled the halyards last fall and forgot to
>> string them back in.  The only line going up the mast is 1/8 flag
>> pennant.
>>
>> I'll likely ask the yard to let us come back in and use the crane &
>> bosuns chair to thread the two halyards, but I'm wondering if I could
>> figure out a way to safely do this myself. I've got years of
>> experience with technical climbing, & aid climbing experience and I'm
>> very familiar with prusik hitches. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with
>> climbing the smooth mast with prussic hitches alone though. I've got
>> some small cord that seems to grip well with lots of wraps but
>> still..the mast is a smooth pole.
>>
>> I've also though if I could raft up alongside a similar sized boat, go
>> up the other boat's mast then we shift ballast to lean the boats into
>> each other? Getting a willing participant is the tough part of this.
>>
>> Can't think of a big tree near deep water, or a suitable bridge.
>>
>> Any other possibilities?
>>
>>
>> Another question: is there any practical limit to how big a person an
>> Alberg 30 mast will safely hold? Last season I needed to fix my
>> anemometer atop the mast and a buddy of mine wanted to go up in the
>> worst way. He's about 225 lbs and I carefully squirmed my way out of
>> it. My wife is 100lbs and has no trouble with heights.  Truth is, I
>> was concerned for the rigging & my 45 year old mast beam. Should this
>> be a concern?
>>
>>
>
>
>



-- 
Jeffrey Fongemie

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