Does anybody have any concerns about going aloft on a Hunter 27'? The keel is a shoal draft weighing 3200 lbs. As far as safety rigging is concerned, I use a climbing harness with double halyards and a double figure 8knot. My concern is whether the mass of the keel is adequate for a stable climb. I weigh 200 lbs. Thanks in advance for any comments.
Going aloft on a 27'
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I went up the stick on my H27 once.. scared the bejezus out of me! Had no problems, but swinging back and forth that high above a floating boat can be a bit unnerving! After that experience, I let the younger less faint of heart do that task.
Cheers,
Brad
Cheers,
Brad
I asked the same question a while back concerning my C27 and was told it was doable. Haven't done it yet
I have just been wondering that too, i got 2500 pounds of ballast, with a 35 foot mast, some greek, said, "give me a leaver big enough, and i will move the world" think it was aristotle, but not sure, but thier suerly must be a mathematical formula, for working out, stuff like this. I would tend to think, you would be ok up the mast, because if you think of the wind that it takes to put the boat down, where someone climbing the mast of 200 lbs, is vertical pounds, though, you could get a swing, but, thier is no way, 200 llbs, of pressure on the sails, can make a 5000 lb boat go at six knots,
Their is probably an angle you could get to, where you could pull the boat down, if you think of the center of gravity of the boat, and the hieght and weight you are, just think how high above a 3200 hundred pound car, you would have to be, to be able to pull the car over, you couldnt possibly lift the car over, and a ten foot post, no good, i know i have tried that out in in our yard, a ten foot post, with 200 lbs wont lift a car, well it will slightly, I reckon if you pulled a 22 foot yacht down, to where the mast was level, and you held it, you probably could hold that yacht down
No Problem!
My brother, our slip-mate, and our rigger all weigh 200+, and all have been to the top of our mast. To top it off, I weigh 285, and have been up there myself!
Loading on the sails at 15 knots puts a lot more stress on the rig than pulling a weight up the mast. Most of the strain of hoisting a person to the masthead is born by compression of the mast itself - and you weigh around 10% of the downward force exerted on the masthead by properly tuned rigging.
The math is easiest to do imagining the boat is heeled until the mast is horizontal. If your 200 pounds is 40 feet from the center of bouyancy of the boat, you exert 40x200 or 8,000 foot-pounds of torque on the hull. The keel with 3,200 pounds over 5 feet from the center of bouyancy exerts 5x3,200 or 16,000 foot-pounds of torque - the keel wins! A more detailed analysis would include the weight of the mast, and of the rest of the hull around the CB, but the result is the same, I suppose.
My brother, our slip-mate, and our rigger all weigh 200+, and all have been to the top of our mast. To top it off, I weigh 285, and have been up there myself!
Loading on the sails at 15 knots puts a lot more stress on the rig than pulling a weight up the mast. Most of the strain of hoisting a person to the masthead is born by compression of the mast itself - and you weigh around 10% of the downward force exerted on the masthead by properly tuned rigging.
The math is easiest to do imagining the boat is heeled until the mast is horizontal. If your 200 pounds is 40 feet from the center of bouyancy of the boat, you exert 40x200 or 8,000 foot-pounds of torque on the hull. The keel with 3,200 pounds over 5 feet from the center of bouyancy exerts 5x3,200 or 16,000 foot-pounds of torque - the keel wins! A more detailed analysis would include the weight of the mast, and of the rest of the hull around the CB, but the result is the same, I suppose.
As long as you do it in calm waters the righting momemtum of the keel will not allow the mast to move beyond a small degree of heel. With the mast straight up a 200lb weight only exerts a force of 200 lbs downward. As the mast moves off center the force divides into a downward and a latteral component but the lateral component at shallow angle is very weak and quickly brought into equilibrium by the the righting momemtum of the keel. As a matter of practical information I have been at 220lbs atop the mast of an h27 and it felt very solid. There were people below geting on an off the boat but after a soft roll the keel straightened the boat right up. The shallow draft version of the h27 has a keel weight of 3,200 lbs spread over 3'4" of draft. The mast heighth is 36' 3" and probabbly weighs around 200 lbs. Accordying to my figures the torque force exerted by the keel still dominates the torque force exerted by your weight on the mast by no less than 3,000 foot/pounds.
I've been aloft on my '92 Hunter 27 to replace a VHF antennae and an LED anchor light. Two friends winched me up but got bored and started to look around the boat. As they moved from side to side the boat heeled a few degrees but it was exaggerated at the top of the mast which made things interesting for me trying to finish the jobs I had to do. No risk of breaking the mast or capsizing anything. David's math proves that.
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