How to Climb a Mast Using Climbing Equipment

How to climb a mast. Video. Nowadays, with electronic navigation software, there is no longer any need to climb the mast to make out distant land. But if a halyard has snapped or jammed, an antenna is faulty, or a stay needs to be removed or fitted, you will have to go aloft. This is how we do it. While Lady Mary was laid up in the Puerto Aventuras marina on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, the captain was repairing the engine, waiting for spare parts from America, and replacing a broken shroud with Dyneema, while the rest of the crew took it easy as best they could—or, more precisely, melted in the heat. During the passage to Cuba, several strands in one of Lady Mary’s upper spreader lift wires (a section of shroud that holds the upper spreaders horizontal) had snapped and begun to unravel. Trying not to put too much strain on the mast, we made it to Mexico for repairs. It turned out that finding stainless-steel wire rigging in Mexico was anything but easy. Tony, a local sailmaker, suggested a solution. Among his supplies he had a couple of dozen metres of 8 mm Dyneema ( a rope capable of supporting a nine-storey building a synthetic-fibre rope with a higher breaking strength than metal wire of the same diameter). Our handy captain used it to splice together a temporary shroud. Two of them, in fact, just to be on the safe side. Based on the experience of the aforementioned Tony (his experience amounts to more than 100,000 miles of circumnavigations and long-distance voyages), replacing standing rigging with Dyneema is only viable as a temporary measure because, unlike metal, Dyneema does stretch. We cut the upper and lower terminals off the old shroud and welded them together, and this is what we ended up with: With this arrangement, Lady Mary will sail to the Cayman Islands, hoping to exchange this exotic rope contraption for an ordinary piece of wire rope. Actually Climbing the Mast The usual way to climb a mast is this: a bosun’s chair is attached to a halyard; the sailor appointed to go aloft sits in it; a second sailor uses a winch to hoist them to the required height, then lowers them back down. But what if you are alone on the boat? In that case, specialist climbing equipment is indispensable. We are lucky enough to have experienced climbers among our close friends, and with the expert guidance of our friend Dima Davydov from Novosibirsk, our lead consultant, we selected the equipment needed for this technique. Now climbing the mast is easy :). An instructional film from the captain: If you found this article useful and would like to thank the authors but do not know how, click the button below 🙂