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

[Len Payne]

Good Morning, Jeffrey,
I once pulled 140 ft of 2" PVC well casing that was too brittle for the standard puller using Prussik knots. The drillers were afraid that they were going to have to drill it out in order to close-in the well.
Since the PVC pipe is pretty smooth, I took 4 turns on the Prussik using a 'flat strap', since that was all we had available. The drillers and the other Geo swore that it could never work. It worked just fine - and we just shook it out to get a second grip with the Prussik, before we had too much pipe out of the hole and had to cut it off before the third pull. 140 feet of pipe comes out real easy when things go well.
The drillers were amazed that the Prussik knot worked so well. If you are worried, take an extra turn or two - as you know, just never allow anything to push on the 'top' of the Prussik ..... and stay ready to do a 'grab & slide' if need be. Strap up to the mast so you don't do an 'end over' and use a belay line over the spreaders.

Since you have a 'telegraph' 1/8" line, can you pull progressively larger lines using the 'telegraph'?
That might avoid going up all together.

Just a few thoughts.
Stay Safe,
Len 
===============================================================================
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?

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