On Sun, 18 Nov 2012 09:38:45 -0500, "Flying Pig"
wrote:

"Bruce" wrote in message
.. .

The proper technique is to have a canvas tool bucket on one halyard.
Your "safety man" can fill the bucket and haul it up to you. Gets away
from the problem of arriving at the top of the mast only to discover
that you forgot the light bulb :-(

That's exactly what we do. The smaller one I just clip on to my belt, if
the occasion warrants. Otherwise, the bucket comes up via the spinpole
topping lift. I have some scabs healing on my leg from where the line
rubbed both inside and out on the first day's couple of trips up and down...


I also use an electrician lineman's safety belt and snap on when I'm
at the work site. It gives you something to oppose the pressure on the
drill bit or the screw driver (and it makes you feel safe :-)

I don't use that, but I have a line on the chair for just holding me in some
place; if I need back pressure, I use the double-clipped belt from the
galley to go around the mast.


The canvas bucket, by the way, is not only "salty" but doesn't ding
dents in the mast when it swings around.

And, ours is, actually salty, which reminds me that I should probably throw
them in the washing machine while we have one available to us. Our lines
which I just did came out great, but I couldn't possibly have forecast how
dirty they were, taking several times the amount of detergent as used in a
large load to just get the first bubble in the black water, despite the tub
being nowhere near full...

L8R

Skip, not going up today due to the wind

PS our routine is for me to "help" climb with the spin halyard safety line I
have clipped around my chest (not on the chair), and, when I get wherever it
is I'm going, pull up enough line to double-half hitch it around me again;
if I fall from a failure of seat or line, while it won't be comfortable,
I'll not go more than about a foot, max.

I've been up masts without steps but I always felt more secure with
steps. A bosin's chair is fine until you need to work on the top of
the mast and then it never seems to be able to get high enough. I had
mast steps with the top two at the same height so that I wasn't
standing on one foot, and high enough so that standing on them my
chest was at the top of the mast. Climb up and belt on and it was
pretty secure. I also used to occasionally wear a harness with a
halyard clipped to it and my wife belaying that end of the halyard so
if I did fall I didn't go far.

When I was anchored in Singapore there was a young French guy there
that used to grab the shrouds on his 25 ft. boat and shinny up the
mast with no equipment - like a monkey up a coconut tree :-)

--
Cheers,
Bruce