Boarding Ladder

[Tom Hoffman]

One of my first posts here was about what to get for a boarding ladder. I have been scuba diving and seen what passes for boarding ladders. Some are really thoughtfully designed for easy access to the boat from the water. Some are horrible.

My personal experience with the worst of the worst was a rope ladder with wood treads hanging on the side of a sail boat that would follow back under the boat as you tried to climb.

I and 6'5" 300+ lbs and levering myself up something like that was never in the cards.

Most of the other commercially made boarding ladders barely had one step below the water.

After looking long and hard for a ladder that would allow my wife and I to exit the water in ease and comfort. I finally found a dive ladder. Costs were prohibitive. $600-$1200 was all to common.

I finally found what I wanted and took screen shots of it and took it to a welder friend of mine and he made it for me.

Here is our completed ladder mounted on the boat.

http://sports.webshots.com/album/578165965zhiOMi

It actually works. I just have to install Marine non skid tape to each tread tube and it will be done.

Regards,

Tom...

 

[sinnettc]

Seems like that lower mount will drag when you heel? Sure looks sturdy though.

 

[Joe]

That's one serious piece of hardware.

 

[Tom Hoffman]

Seems like that lower mount will drag when you heel? Sure looks sturdy though.

The whole ladder can be stored vertically above the upper mount pivot point. It stands up abourt 4 feet above the top of the rail. That is probably the way it will be transported while under way.

Yes, it is sturdy. The upper and lower mounting brackets are made of 1/4" SS. The upper is backed inside the hull with 3/4" teak block wider and taller in all directions than the exterior size and then a 1/4" SS backer plate same size as the exterior bracket plate. He used the heavy SS as he had it around the shop and it allowed me to get it with out him having to buy a bunch of stock and have a lot left over. Most of my pieces came from his scrap bench. The square tube 1 1/2", 11 guage I had to buy. It was 8' long and only cost about $50.00. The round tube he had left over from another job and was basically scrap pieces. They were off cuts left only a couple of inches longer than they finally finished up being on this ladder. So all in all most was from scrap.

He likes to over build things and so do I.

Now this is what I call useful recycling...

 

[timebandit]

I add oak steps on my round tube ladder for foot confort.

 

[themadscientist]

If there was ladder that took other ladders lunch money, that would be it. Wow that thing is formidable!