How to: Climb a mast

D%*$@ birds!

This weekend, sailing along close-hauled, I was watching the wind direction indicator, and was amazed at my ability to keep the boat exactly on the right course.  While congratulating myself, some doubt began to creep in.  Am I really that good?  Able to track even the slightest wind shift?  Then I noticed that the wind vane was missing from the mast head.  Cue ego deflation.  Some plus-sized bird must have sat on it and broke it off.  So it wasn't my ability after all - without the vane, the sensor was reporting a constant wind direction.

So now I have to make a trip up the mast, to the mast head.  You probably have had to do it too.

Jane watches me, up at the top

There are some irrational fears (and some rational ones) that I have to get past to do this.  At the top, I am 6 and a half stories above the water.  It is crowded - all the stays, shrouds and halyards terminate there.  And yet, working at the very top of the mast, there is nothing at all around me.  Nothing to reach out and grab, should I want to.  No mistakes are allowed.



I've written about mast climbing before, but I've never gone into the gear I use.

Petzl ascender

First, I securely cleat off a halyard which passes over the masthead.  I want one that does not depend on a pin to stay up there.  (Do you trust your own knots?)   Then, I use a pair of Petzl ascenders (think: rope clutch on steroids) to climb the uncleated end of the halyard.

Both ascenders on the
halyard - ready to climb

My bosun's chair (it has an integral seat belt) hangs from one ascender via a locking carabiner.  From the second ascender hangs (via another locking carabiner) a line with two foot loops in it.  The footloop ascender is on the halyard below the bosun's chair ascender.

To climb, I stand up in the foot loops and raise the seat ascender.  Then I sit down in the seat and raise the footloop ascender.  In this way, there is always on ascender clamped on the halyard - most of the time there are two, except when one is being moved.  Ascenders are impossible to release when there is tension on them, so it is not possible to release the wrong one by accident.

Interlocked loops
bracing against the mast

The footloop is really two interlocked loops - this keeps them from spreading out, and allows me to prop myself against the mast.  (I always wear these white tennis shoes when climbing, to avoid marking the mast.)

Where's the vane?

Yup, the vane is gone - it used to be on the top.  D*&% fat birds! Now the fun starts - how to find another mast head transducer for a Standard Horizon WS1.

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Update: I am making a new vane.

How to: Climb a mast