I need to go up to the top of my Hunter 356 mast to replace the wind instrument transducer. I have a bosuns chair and tool bag. Planning on dropping roller furling main and using the relatively new spectra main halyard bowlined to chair, and using the backup halyard which is commonly used as the boom topping lift, as a backup. Main halyard goes to one jib sheet cabintop winch with backup halyard/safety on the other. One person on each winch. It's a fractional rig, mast clearance height is 58', and I weigh just under 100kg. Advice, comments, thoughts? Thanks all
Going up to masthead on Hunter 356
- Thread starter TomS218
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My go-to climbing knot isn't the bowline.
Double figure of eight.
Double figure of eight.
Check how high the boson's chair will take you. Subtract for...
Depending on the winch size and the sizes of the blokes turning them, you may need to help lift yourself. Consider what winching the sail up is like, and it does not weight 100 kilos. This is why it is normal to send a small person.
- Distance from seat to tie-in point.
- Length of knot.
- Distance halyard ends below the mashead.
Depending on the winch size and the sizes of the blokes turning them, you may need to help lift yourself. Consider what winching the sail up is like, and it does not weight 100 kilos. This is why it is normal to send a small person.
Last time I had to do some work at mast-top my 14 year-old 45kg grand-daughter offered to go... to all would-be winch grinders!! If you really must be the one to go up, can you use your anchor windlass to pull you up? 100 kg plus the resistance of turning blocks is a lot. I eouldn’t want to be winching!
We use our horizontal windlass drum (not gypsy) to take someone aloft on a spinnaker halyard. It is faster, safer and a lot more comfortable than cranking someone up on a winch, and much less tiring for the one doing the winching. Tired and safety do not go well together, and when someone's heading up 70 feet or so off the deck, safe is the word. Never mind it takes less than a minute to get someone to the top.
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The above works slick. Shop it, cuz you can save by piece mail acquisition . You can trim the Genoa, raise the main, furl the Genoa in a blow, go up the mast....and if your anchor windlass is manual it's now powered... I got the chuck for $28.00 and the drill kit for $356.00
I have the corded angle drill by Milwaukee, I found that on my (2) speed winches that CW (high speed/ 2:1 ratio??) the drill gets hot (could have been a voltage issue didn't check), CCW = 4:1 ratio, but, its in the direction which unscrews the drills chuck from the arbor. So how do you get around that issue?
I can tell you the winchers will appreciate it if you help yourself up with some climbing.
I did watch a boat neighbor go up his Islander mast using the anchor windless. It worked pretty well. It was kind of an elaborate set up. That drum was horizontal. I can't picture the drum on my 356 but I thought it is vertical. If so you would need a beefy turning block on some solid structure. The windlass motor is sized for more like 35 Kgs. Pause it on the way up.
I did watch a boat neighbor go up his Islander mast using the anchor windless. It worked pretty well. It was kind of an elaborate set up. That drum was horizontal. I can't picture the drum on my 356 but I thought it is vertical. If so you would need a beefy turning block on some solid structure. The windlass motor is sized for more like 35 Kgs. Pause it on the way up.
So far the cordless system works well. It might be the difference in the motors. The corded motor expects a constant power source. The cordless motor expects that the power source will diminish. The base price difference between the corded and cordless reflects the hardiness of the cordless motor.
Lots of good advise as usual!!
Ditto justsomeguy on the knot and thinwater on the things to check!! I use my spare spinnaker halyard to attach to the bosun chair with the halyard on a winch with deck helper taking up the halyard slack on the winch as I climb the mast (to reduce the winch load} and like you I use the topping lift at a safety back-up, with someone on deck cleating it off every 6 feet at the mast. If I did not need to get to the vert top of the mast I use my 10:1 purchase swisstech mastlift and that eliminates one deck helper.
Ditto justsomeguy on the knot and thinwater on the things to check!! I use my spare spinnaker halyard to attach to the bosun chair with the halyard on a winch with deck helper taking up the halyard slack on the winch as I climb the mast (to reduce the winch load} and like you I use the topping lift at a safety back-up, with someone on deck cleating it off every 6 feet at the mast. If I did not need to get to the vert top of the mast I use my 10:1 purchase swisstech mastlift and that eliminates one deck helper.
I feel your pain. I recently noticed my windex broke. I hate going up the mast but will be doing it soon.
Same here, but Electric
. Our back up is the boom lift.But...
The problem is to stabilize yourself to work at the top.
You might use a large bungie cord to kind of tie yourself to the mast.
No wind is best.
Jim...
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8 track tape What sacrifice C.S.N&Y just to know which way the wind is blowing?
Gary
Gary
Point taken. I don't have any 8 tract any longer and nothing to play them on. You could use VCR tape (Nominations?), and I've used cassette tape for long ignored 70's bands, which I have nothing to play them with either.
So far as I can tell, I bought the albums, some of the tapes, the CD's, and then downloaded them. Now they tell me I can't move them from one device to another because I haven't paid for them. I've paid for some of them three times. I've been playing my old vinyl LP's lately and I still own the right to play them pretty much whenever I want.
Most windlass motors on windlasses with both a gypsy and a drum are way overkill and geared down quite a bit. They normally run around 65' a minute with a working load of at least 600#. I don't know much about those tiny ones, but most of those only have a gypsy anyway.
We go directly from the spinnaker block to the horizontal drum with no need for any blocks. What I like about this is being well forward of the mast on the foredeck, I have an unobstructed view of the person going up without cranking my head around to a nearly 90 degree twist.
With a vertical windlass I'm sure with some snatch blocks a fair lead can be achieved, but obviously each boat will be different. Another plus for choosing a horizontal windlass, if choosing.
I would not try this with a manual windlass.