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

Thu Jun 16 15:01:29 PDT 2011

Ok. I called the yard, and they may be able to fit me in tomorrow afternoon.

I'm going to the boat in the morning with my aid climbing gear and
long lengths of fuzzy cord to make prusiks with. Actually I'll use a
klemheist hitch but you get the idea
(http://www.animatedknots.com/klemheist/index.php).  What I'll do is
try to climb a few feet and guage how well the hitches hold by bounce
testing close to the ground. If all seems ok, I'll go up to the
spreaders, until which I can get a belay from tossing a rope over the
spreader bracket. Above the spreaders, I'm soloing.

If it seems dicey I'll come down & try the yard. I'll let you know how
it goes~

-Jeff

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 5:43 PM, Mike Lehman <Sail_505 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> BEER! - where's the boat - hell I'll go up
>
> -----Original Message----- From: crufone at comcast.net
> Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 5:16 PM
> To: fongemie at gmail.com ; Alberg 30 Public List -- open to all
> Subject: Re: [Public-List] Mast up! No halyards~!
>
>
>
> Jeffery,
>
> Since you just paid the yard $$$ to launch and step the mast I'll bet they
> will humour you and let you do the halyards for no cost or a kind jesture of
> BEER.
>
> Dan Walker and I launched his boat a few years back and didn't notice that
> the slot in the jib furling foil was full of dead leaf debris (from several
> years of outside storage) until we tried to bend on the jib. We got it up to
> about 3 feet from full hoist and then no further. We were dumbfounded until
> we took binoculars to observe "something" dark in the foil slot. I
> volunteered to go up the mast , cuz I felt that I could reach the final
> three feet of the foil from the mast. Dan certainly wasn't going up (he
> dosen't like to be too far above terra firma) and then he decided as the
> boat owner that he didn't want me to go up either. So right back to the yard
> the next morning we went where they sent me up the man lift to clean out and
> spray lube the foil. Once the yard realized that Dan was the brunt of dumb
> luck (the leaf debris had compressed into a solid column) they were gracious
> and would not accept any money for their time. I don't know for sure but I
> believe that Dan did give them something.
>
>
>
> Jeff, this is worth a try, especially if you work with that yard on a
> regular basis. But perhaps the midwest is more user friendly about their
> yard time,;-).
>
> Michael #133
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeffrey" <fongemie at gmail.com>
> To: "Alberg 30 Public List -- open to all" <public-list at lists.alberg30.org>
> Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 8:52:49 AM
> Subject: Re: [Public-List] Mast up! No halyards~!
>
> 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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-- 
Jeffrey Fongemie

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