On Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:15:12 -0800 (PST), Frogwatch
wrote:

Bosun's chair: Not bad but does require that somebody else has your
life in their hands which I do not like.

On my old sailboats we always made it standard practice to have a
second halyard attached to the bosuns chair, which was tailed to a
winch by a second person. In all of the many trips up the mast, the
second halyard never came into play but it was reassuring to know it
was there.

Wayne.B wrote:
On Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:15:12 -0800 (PST), Frogwatch
wrote:

Bosun's chair: Not bad but does require that somebody else has your
life in their hands which I do not like.

On my old sailboats we always made it standard practice to have a
second halyard attached to the bosuns chair, which was tailed to a
winch by a second person. In all of the many trips up the mast, the
second halyard never came into play but it was reassuring to know it
was there.


That's the way I did it recently.
The second halyard on a second winch didn't actually carry any loads
as it was always a little behind, and at the top was slacked off a bit
to allow the main to hoist my head up above the top.

But it made for more confidence in the two new crew handling the ropes!



--

Richard Lamb
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~cavelamb/


"The clock of life is wound but once, and no man has the power
to tell just when the hands will stop, at late or early hour...
Now is the only time you own. Live, love, toil with a will.
Place no faith in time. For the clock may soon be still."

In article ,
says...
Wayne.B wrote:
On Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:15:12 -0800 (PST), Frogwatch
wrote:

Bosun's chair: Not bad but does require that somebody else has your
life in their hands which I do not like.

On my old sailboats we always made it standard practice to have a
second halyard attached to the bosuns chair, which was tailed to a
winch by a second person. In all of the many trips up the mast, the
second halyard never came into play but it was reassuring to know it
was there.


That's the way I did it recently.
The second halyard on a second winch didn't actually carry any loads
as it was always a little behind, and at the top was slacked off a bit
to allow the main to hoist my head up above the top.

But it made for more confidence in the two new crew handling the ropes!

Hey---you had helpers. No Fair. I was doing this all on my own. No
helpers down below to crank winches.

On the plus side, I was 20 pounds lighter then (1974) and the
boat was an Islander 24. Full (and pretty heavy) keel and
not a terribly tall mast. If something went really bad---
like the halyard parting, I would have slid about 10
feet until my feet hit either the spreaders or the
coachtop. With a bit of luck, somebody in the marina
would have heard my yell and come to investigate.


It was actually much scarier going up the electronics mast
on a DE underway in the North Pacific. Even though there
was a good ladder and a proper safety harness with dual
clips (one always attached to a rung above me), there
were diesel fumes in the face and rolls such that I saw
a lot of seawater below me at each end. Heck of a place
for a junior spook officer, but the bosun's mates had
no clue about preamplifiers and my maintenance tech was
so seasick he could hardly walk. I had taken the
basic rock climbing class at Yosemite, understood
safety harnesses and had no particular fear of heights
(at least not when I can hold on tight!).


Mark Borgerson

On Sat, 23 Jan 2010 19:05:01 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:15:12 -0800 (PST), Frogwatch
wrote:

Bosun's chair: Not bad but does require that somebody else has your
life in their hands which I do not like.

On my old sailboats we always made it standard practice to have a
second halyard attached to the bosuns chair, which was tailed to a
winch by a second person. In all of the many trips up the mast, the
second halyard never came into play but it was reassuring to know it
was there.

Some use the second halyard attached to a safety belt or harness. One
line on the seat and a second on the man.

Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)