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"Hi all"! I have a question, which would use to winch someone up the mast, 'mast' winch, or one of the 'sheet' winches, all of which are 'single' speed. The Dam# thing is somekinda hard to turn with a #140 guy on board. I'm ready to back the boat to the bulkhead and use the jeep winch. Thanks, Dave
hello there, I always use my mast halyard winches. On smaller vessels that have a one-to-one ratio it would be very difficult to lift the occupied boatswain's chair. what I have done in that case is spoool out the halyard through a snatch block then back up to the top of the mast using the other halyard. Making a two to one ratio on your lift.
be very careful of what you are doing and use a safety harness......CaptG
I don't think that using the jeep winch is a good idea..
Use the largest winch you have on the boat - use some extra blocks to get a good lead to the winch.
Always use a second halyard as safety rope.
If the person you are hoisting help by "climbing" at the same time i gets easier.
I have made this to make it easier, you put it on a halyard and the climber use it as foot step. You lift it with your foot and the cleat grips the rope.
I use the main halyard to pull a 4:1 block and tackle to the masthead. The bottom block is attached to the bosun chair, the running end goes back to a primary winch. The wife is able to hoist my butt to the mast head using that system.
There are numerous threads on climbing the mast here on SN that cover the topic extensively. Personally, I use a climbing harness and ascenders on a dedicated climbing rope, no winch necessary.
OK, I think the bigger 'main' winch is it, cause the mast winch is kinda small. I WAS kidding about using the jeep winch, much to powerful if something WERE to go wrong. The use of a couple of 'blocks', will/should make it easy. Thanks, all!
Be absolutely sure to have a redundant halyard that the climber themselves can arrest an accidental descent. I like the prussic knot tied around a backup fixed halyard.
We take three wraps around a halyard winch and then off to the capstan on our horizontal windlass. That way the line is arrested by the halyard winch in the unlikely event that it accidentally jumps off the windlass.
My wife can winch me (130kgs) to the masthead with her big toe on the deck switch and is not standing under me. I have a second halyard to belay myself as I go up.
Coming down is as easy as slipping the halyard on the halyard (mast) winch.
I will, before I go cruising be putting mast steps on because to me this is still the best option.
I use "blind" rivets, don't know what they're called where you live, could be pop rivets. The Monel 5mm rivets are easily strong enough to hold the weight of a human being, I have used them for years on steps and never had a failure. They have a blunted end inside the mast that will do no damage to sails, halyards or electrics.
The Youtube clip below shows two 5mm Monel rivets fitted in 1.6mm steel plates and tests them to 730lbs before failure. Normally a mast step would be fitted with a minimum of three and mostly 4 rivets and the material thickness of both the mast section and the step material would be thicker than 1.6 so the shear would be enhanced. You would probably have a safety factor of 300% or more depending on the number of rivets used.
Just be sure not to use ordinary aluminium rivets, they're nowhere near as strong as Monel.
Lots of good advice in this thread and elsewhere on SN about mast climbing. We ALWAYS use the sheet winch as for the primary, and have used the mast winch for a back-up safety halyard. However, I prefer keeping the deck below the mast clear of people in case of an accident, so using sheet winches for both primary and secondary is preferred.
You can read the details of our technique here: Up the Mast
I found the Hake video very informative. I particularly liked the trick with the bridle cable. I was trying to figure out how to rig something like that up ; but was stuck on "hardware", not "soft-ware" LOL
If the person ascending the mast can do some of the climbing it will take a lot of work off the winch and person winching.
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