Plastic Classic Forum

I have to get to the furler top to thread new line for the genoa halyard. The line came broken on my new to me Ensign. Another member, much more experienced a sailor than me suggested using the main halyard to roll the boat (it's in the water) until the mast tip can be reached from a side dock. The dock is about 2" above the water. Should I try this? Will it damage the mast? Will she swamp? Thanks for any comments. David.

If I read your question correctly, you need to re-reave the jib halyard, correct?

I would look into either climbing the mast with the main halyard and re-reave it up there, or un-step the mast and bring it down to re-reave the halyard. Either of these options shouldn't be that big a deal on an Ensign.

That is, unless pulling the boat over that far is actually possible...

I'm not sure they're all this way, but the Ensign I've sailed on does not have a self-bailing cockpit. That would mean it would be much easier to swamp if you heel it over. (Wonderful cockpit for sailing though!)

I like the idea of using a bosun's chair with the main halyard.
You could also post your question to the Ensign's User's Group to see if your fellow Ensign sailors have another idea.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EnsignSailors/

Careening a boat is a good method to get at parts of the bottom to clean them, I use it to scrub my triton's bottom. It can also be used to service near the waterline through hulls. As a method to get to the mast head though careening would be hard. Getting the tip of the mast to where you are standing will take strong rope, and most likely put the rail under and swamp the boat. Depending on how she settles on the bottom after sinking you might be able to then reach the mast head.

The problem is getting the mast head that low. If you could stand on something real tall, like another boats mast that has steps, or a nearby building or cliff you can pull the mast toward you. You can also go to a high pier or bridge on a calm morning and just move the boat part way under. If the boat is sitting 30 feet below then no problem. It takes only a minute to reeve a halyard if the block is prepared.

I have also used a 20 foot extension ladder tied to my main halyard and hoisted that up to the top. I then lashed the ladder to the mast. I have folding mast steps up to the spreaders and then climbed the ladder to the top. Climbing a vertical ladder without a cage around it is spooky. I did this without safety ropes and alone. I wore a life jacket to aid in the recovery of the body in case of tragic mistakes.

Unsolicited tips:
Careening:
The hull moves away from the point of pull, If you draw the mast over to the starboard side the hull will shift in the water to the port. The boat hull must be fixed in some way, either tie the bow and stern in place or put the keel in the mud.

I use the main halyard lead aft of the mast, straight to the beam. I use the shackle as the turning block in a simple purchase. I tie a nylon dock line to the cleat in the middle section of the dock in the slip a couple of yards away. I lead the free nylon end up to the shackle and then down the cleat. I can then have a truckers hitch like purchase.

Ropes break, cleats rip out, shackles unscrew. do not straddle loaded lines, do not lean your head over loaded cleats. keep the kids and animals away or under voice control.

on working with heights:
plan and rehearse all your procedures on the ground first. know what you are going to do up there. if you use tool lanyards practice how they will lead.

Try not to end up having your arms be the only thing to hold you on. Tie yourself up there while you work.

Do not relax into falling, if you lose balance fight to the death to grab on. Forgo the task, the tools, and ego. If you are working alone, and find yourself falling YELL and/or SCREAM. Do not be embarrassed, that will pass, while paralysis sadly does not.

I enjoy using alcohol (fermented grain/hop) to modify my state of consciousness. This state of consciousness is not the state for working at heights. do it in the morning, but not to early if you know what I mean.

These methods are somewhat circus gorilla. They can get you arrested, and or killed. they are cheap and can be done alone. Well, maybe not the driving under the bridge thing. As I am sure is clear, I am not a professional rigger and I like to write. It has been an enjoyable half hour composing and I hope that it is of some assistance. I have attempted to maintain the high standards of blitherary style and tethnical obtuseness of this august forum.

In all heavyness and grace

r

Thanks for the advice. I think I've settled on using a harness and gin pole. I trust it mo9re than the main halyard which will be replaced also.

It has been almost a year since I posted this question. I ended up rigging a boatswains "chair" out of 5/8” line and having my wife run me up the mast at the club's gin pole. I do not recommend this method except in an emergency as that line cuts like a knife. I actually found a way to disassemble the furler from the bottom in the end.

But today's issue is the answer to the question burning on the mind of everybody. Can an Ensign be careened. Yes it can. But most here already knew that.

This year, as in the past, a thunderstorm brewed as I stepped the mast on the only day I had that week to put the boat in the water. So not to dally around I got all but 3 stays up and put the boat in the slip before the lightening struck. One of the not-yet-up stays was the port stay and it came out of the spreader (I had taped the boot on) in the process.

Problem; The boat is in the water and I need to access the port shroud/stay boot. De ja vu.
Answer; Careen the boat.

I had room at the end of the slip to stage this without encroaching on neighbors. Heck, I was the only one at the club on this 50' F, 20 knot southeasterly wind, heavily overcast day anyway (I thought). So heeding Robert's advice (eyes roll up to look at previous posted advice) I used dock lines to keep the boat from slipping away to the starboard as I cranked the mast down to the port.


Didn't need to because the Ensign does NOT like to be careened.


I was amazed at how much effort it took to pull the mast down. I had to rig the main sheet block for a gazillion:1 advantage to get it down as far as I did.


The boat wanted to right it self and moved up to the port dock and I instead had to lay bumpers to protect the hull. I ended up using a step ladder to get the final few feet of height.


I was actually not alone as thought. A neighbor saw me working and came over to offer his help and on one break went back to his boat for a very welcome cup of coffee. Thanks Kevin.



Then I wanted to re-rig the head stay furler, again. De ja vu. So, as before I disassembled it and did all the tweaking I wanted and then tried to thread the head stay through the furler plastic thingy (sorry for the technical jargon). Previously it was 102' F and now it was 50' F and the winter long kinks were not letting the stay slide through. Since the previous advice was wrong (eyes look up at previous post again) I decided to follow other previous advice. I found a step ladder section and lashed it to the mast and climbed up to help thread the stay. But I was discriminating in the advice I followed because I did not tie myself to the mast, thinking I was the only one at the club on a Monday when the other members would not likely be around until Friday. I was tired and didn't get pics of this last part but let me help you visualize it. What is the last thing a redneck says? "Hey, guys watch this." What is the last thing a redneck hears? "Go ahead. Bubba, you can do it!"

I learned several things. I can overcome my fear of heights, when I want to. The ballast in an Ensign works. Main sheet blocks are handy things.

All chores got done with no accidents and no boats were harmed in this endeavor.

Should I ever be forced to careen Bolero again (and I certainly hope not) I would choose the spinnaker halyard over the main halyard.

On a fractional rigged boat I just don't like the lack of support for this type of loading.



Bill

(Who wasn't especially overjoyed digging this photo up)

Thanks for the reply and the painful picture. I think you make a good point. The main halyard would be best used to careen fore to aft, then.

Clearly, we're talking about careening a relatively small boat for masthead access. Loads are less and things are likely to be relatively stronger than on larger boats.

While nearly all sailboats can be careened by their masts, usually it's done by wind and the load is distributed along the mast and through rig components intended for the loading. The proof is in the pudding when you read about all the boats which are dismasted when rolled over, the rig components are sized for wind, not water, not for pulling on mastheads. When you see drawings of sailing ships careened, they're assisted on their way by being pulled with tackles rigged to the lower mastheads; but most of the work is done by the tide. Ditto, were you to Google for large cruising sailboats.

I think I'd be inclined (no pun...) to sling a line around the spreaders to get full support of the lowers as well as the uppers.

An important detail to be sure of is what the arrangement is of your halyard sheave. On both Quetzal and our previous boat, a Morgan 27, the cheeks are sharp and relatively unsupported. I'd run the risk of damaging the sheavebox and the halyard by pulling from so far out of plane of the sheave. And advantage of many spinnaker halyard blocks is that they are ordinary blocks hung on the masthead; a disadvantage is that you're torqueing the masthead perhaps more than the design intent. Certainly, boats are occasionally pulled over when flying a spinnaker, but just as certainly lots of the load is from the mainsail.

Here's another way to careen a boat with a spinnaker:

Quetzalsailor, that pic just hurts.

Ignorance is bliss. I had not given any of this any thought. I just did it. the angle of the line to the main halyard sheave was quite sharp, but the cheeks are old and worn smooth by age. No damage done. The spinnaker block is about the smallest Schaffer made and as old and worn. It probably would have done the task if asked.

All things considered, I think the main issue is that there is no lateral support to the mast from the shrouds to the head when the main halyard is used. I guess my mast was up to it.

Next time (Oh, I have no doubt there will be a next time) I think I'll use the spinnaker block. You know as a double blinded controlled trial.

Dave.

I do feel that working on the mast head by careening is really problematic due to the above mentioned fair lead and loading issues. I do think that in a tidal area or around high docks the mast head can be tilted towards the high object and the mast head could then be reached.

That spinny crash looks like it is going to trebuchet that guy on the back rail. Just like punkin' chunkin'. He will have to do a stunt man fall onto the main.. I imagine the bow man wishes he brought his snorkel, or at least gots submarine pay. Maybe he was the reason for the crash!! For the relatively slow speeds of sail boat racing, slower than horses and bicycles, the forces are intense. When one thinks of those big open ocean french cats and tris, those must have hellacious crashes, at 30+.

r

If you are the neighborly sort you could practice careening in pairs. That way there would be someone handy to help with top of the mast maintenance while you are otherwise occupied.

Robert, I agree. I just can't get it together to work on the mast when its down. I don't know what I do from Nov1 to March 31 but it doesn't involve the boat for some reason.

Bill, nice pics. Somebody was using a rapid motor drive (yeah old school).

My favorite solution:

Give me a good old bos'n chair any day.

That's right! Can't quite imagine using an extension ladder there; I hope it's a joke! Picture belongs with the series that's been going around the 'net, showing things like the fellow using a power tool while standing on a tall stepladder in a pool. (I confess to having leaned a stepladder against the Morgan 27's backstay to rig something about 9' above the deck.)

This discussion is about what's possible if the boat's small and not stable enough to bear someone at the masthead. There's an unhandy range in size where unshipping a mast is too much like work and trouble, and the boat's too small.

Peter, you could of been there. I found 1/2 of a 16' extension ladder and rigged it very similar to the picture you posted. It only reached the spreaders and I lashed it to the mast so was climbing vertical. Seemed much less tipsy than I imagined it would be. i was able to thread the forestay through the furler housing doing this. Glad my kids and wife weren't there to see it.

earlylight I don't have a bos'n chair but I do have rappelling gear and could shimmy up the main halyard in a heart beat. If I could remember to bring it.

Quetzalsailor, I live those stories too. Crazy what those people will do. No common sense. Just plain dumb. Me? No I'm talking about those other people.

Dave.

I read in an email the other day of someone who tried the ladder trick on a C-22....the boat fell over. It worked ok (the second time) with bubba1 and bubba2 port and starb'd to steady the boat.

Fyi: It takes ten minutes to drop or raise a C-22 mast.

Regards,
Tony Orchard
S/V Bonnie Blue
Catalina 22 #4823
St. Helens, OR

I was thinking about a ladder to get to spreader height...but just to inspect and put a coat of paint on top...

Alberg 35 shouldn't feel a thing and should be more stable than a bosun chair.

Bad idea??

Tony, if this boat had been on land or trailer I could easily see it falling over. Even though that would allow me to reach the mast top, I think I would have unstepped it instead. As it was I was surprised at how much effort it took to tip her in the water. As mentioned above she tried mightily to right herself from even slight degrees of heel.

Ignorance, laziness, whatever. 2 years in a row I have stepped the mast with things still needing to be done up top. Even a dog learns after you kick 'em a time or two (figurative guys, I'd never kick a dog).

Dave.

Ahem...
No, I have no idea what you're talking about. Really. I MEANT to forget to put the VHF antenna on the backstay...and not add the flag halyard this year...and put on that anchor light I meant to put on two seasons ago...Nope, not me. :-)


-Tony