mounting a ladder to a transom

[cnc33voodoo]

so my father dicided to surprise me with a boat warming gift-a stainless folding ladder.its has a 90 degree bend at the top with a swiveling mount made to go right into the transom
problem is i really like the look of my transom and dont want to bastardize it by drilling holes to mount a ladder.
i do however have a gate in the stern rail and am wondering if there is a sytle of ladder that would mount into the back part of the deck and clip into the stern rail.
heres a pre season photo to give you an idea of what im working with

anyone have any ideas of how to mount this thing without drilling into the transom or do i need a different syle ladder?

[sailingdog]

Would something like this work or is this what you got???



Does your boat have a reverse transom? In that case, you would probably want something more like this:

[cnc33voodoo]

its pretty much the same as the first picture but the mounts at the top are pipe welded in a 90 with a swing mount attached with a screw going thru the pipe.
im not really crazy about a fold away unit as i dont want to clutter.
im just wondering if there are special ladders out there made to mount on stern rails or a deck mounting one that clips into the stern rail.
if i cant find anything my next step is to contact a shop that can fabricate one into my stern rail.
that expensive alternative would be my last resort.
problem is the canadian safe boating guide states that i need four things for safety;
1-canadian aproved personal flotation device of lifejacket of apropriate size for each person on board
2-one bouyant heaving line no less than 15m in length
3-one approved lifebout with an outside diameter of 610 or 762 mm that is attached to a bouyant line no less than 15m in length
4-A REBOARDING DEVICE IF THE FREEBOARD OF THE VESSEL IS GREATER THAN .5M (1'8")
and the police have been crawling around pulling everyone over the past few weekends so im hoping to get this resolved by friday.

[chef2sail]

Voodoo looks similar to my C&C 35 MKII. We have a ladder on the stern which swings upward when not in use and ties to the stern uppper steel tube in the center of the stern rail. it has an eyes at the top of the ladder when lower which are on pivots to the two plates on the very upper part of the transome so it does not mar the asthetics of the racing stern.

Dave

[brak]

And here I am planning to drill a second set of holes in my transom (because PO removed the old ladder for reasons I can't fully comprehend and no modern ladder would fit the same hole pattern).

On the other hand - these are pretty small holes, relatively easy to cover up nicely.

[cnc33voodoo]

im staring at this ladder and thinking.....
im going to wait until i get up to the boat friday and see if i mount it in the rear part of the deck if the ladder will even reach the water.
if not, maybe add rubber mounts to where the ladder bolts in and make a hanging bracket out of stainless to mount it into.
if not ill get one of those crappy foldable hang ladders until i can have one made.
every part of restoring this boat has been a mission so why stop now.

[sailingdog]

CNC-

Just remember, unless the ladder has at least two rungs under water, getting out of the water using it is going to be rather difficult.

[camaraderie]

My stern had exactly that kind of fold up ladder but it had to be custom fabricated to make it all fit properly. Cost was over $2k to replace after Ivan..but it was in 1.25 stainless so I'm sure 1" would be a bit cheaper.

It is quite an exacting thing to have it fold down to an appropriate length and then back up within the pushpit neatly. We ended up moving ours to the side of the boat and had push pin releases made so we could put it down on either side gate which helps getting off the dink with supplies in bad weather! IMHO...the stern on your kind of boat (and mine) is not the best place for a swim ladder. Fine if you have a sugar scoop...but otherwise, the hobby horsing of the boat in any kind of chop makes boarding difficult.