Just sharing... So, for the 3rd season out of 5 my marina dropped my boat in the water with the main halyard shackle at the top of the mast. I usually make them go fetch it on principle, but I was in a hurry, and I have a windlass with a drum and a bosun's chair. Why not just go get it? I attached the chair to the topping lift, and one of the other guys in the marina loaded the line on the windlass drum, and hit the button. I heard this sickening groaning sound, and I wasn't moving. A subsequent inspection with binoculars showed that the topping lift had jumped off the sheave, and was now jammed beside it. Ten years of use, and on the day I need it most, the stupid thing decides to jump off the tracks. Now I have TWO unusable lines. My boat has a 7/8 fractional rig, which means that going up on the jib halyard left me with about 6 feet of shinnying. Ever try to shinny up an aluminum mast? I found out that I can't do it, anyway. The big problem was that I couldn't keep the bosun's chair snugly on my rear as I climbed, and that felt overwhelmingly dangerous. Finally I realized that I could reach the main halyard--the original object of the trip up--with a boat hook if I went up on the jib halyard. When I get to the top, I discovered that the main halyard shackle pin was unscrewed, but I managed to twist the halyard around the boat hook and got enoug purchase to pull it down. Success! Then we went sailing, and the wind died to 5 knots. What a day. Paul sv Escape Artist h336