Let's take a look at the gear and techniques that Phyllis and I use for mast climbing now, improvements we are planning for next season and, most important of all, a list of mistakes I have made over 50 years of mast climbing that you definitely want to avoid.
Despite that what follows will at least help you think critically about what you are doing and how to improve it.
Great article in the series, all of which have now made me reconsider what I am doing. The Petzl ASAP device looks very good and I am going to look into this for my own boat. When I climb Derrick ladders, many are fitted with 3M DBI Sala LadSaf systems. They work similarly to the Petlz system but on wire. Which brings me to my point, Rescue At Height Plan. Basically if at height and an incident happens which requires the Petzl device to work, you need a rescue plan to get you down, if you can’t help yourself. That may mean, the halyard that the Petzl device arrests the fall on, may have to be lowered to get the suspended person down, unaided, which means the halyard may have to have a long tail, if the incident is at the top of the mast. Having been up the mast in the Atlantic, it took all my strength to hold on in the rolling boat (main halyard had jumped a sheave). Rescue plans need to be thought through and practised for the situation where the at height party can’t help themselves. It easy.
At the end of my comment, “It easy” should have been written as “It’s not easy” to sort out rescue on the day with a half thought through, unpractised rescue plan.
Hi Alastair,
Glad the article was useful.
Yes, I agree on a rescue plan, that’s why we went over to hauling a separate rope up with the backup halyard. That way there’s plenty of line available to let me down since the halyard is in the same position as it would be with a hoisted sail.
A few more things.
Good articles with lots of good advise. Perhaps the best was the speach about a false sense of security. Climbers call bad gear “psychological protection.” Climbing the mast can be safe, and there are many ways, but no shortcuts.
The worst accident I have witnessed resulted from buckling a harrness incorrectly. The harness remained on the rope and the climber landed 40 feet from me (he fell about 250 feet). The other bad accident in involved a long time climbing partner (I was not there–he was climbing with someone I did not think was a safe climber). When time came to lower off, the wrong rope was belayed, resulting in a 50-foot fall and about 20 fractures.
Check your rigging and train your belayers. Belay errors are the greatest danger.
Hi Drew,
My comment about screamers was a joke.
As to the nylon line, it was marine line, so not tested knotted, but rather spliced. And yes I know that was a mistake and one I will fix next year, as I write in the article.
Sure climbers use slings and all kinds of other stuff to secure themselves at height, but I think it’s a dangerous mistake to encourage, even by inference, yachties to use the same sorts of techniques. Heck, even climbers make the mistake of using slings for this, which was why the video I linked to was made in the first place.
All of this has really reinforced my (and Matts) thinking that we sailors need to, while learning from you guys, be be very careful about taking advice from climbers.
A good example of the results of not filtering climbing advice is so doing results in things like the many climbers who use climbing harnesses for POB prevention, which you and I both agree is a very bad idea: https://www.morganscloud.com/2017/07/21/person-overboard-prevention-use-of-climbing-harnesses/
I don’t understand why slings are a serious risk, or perhaps it comes down to knowing how to use them correctly. Climbers do this at every single belay, and very, very few climbers carry Screamers. They are a one trick pony that lacks versatility. Like rubber snubber for anchoring, it is simpler to just add a little stretch to the rope system. They were invented when ropes were less elastic and have become obsolete in the climbing community, except for some aid climbing applications.They have been adopted in industry, but the application is different from both rock climbing and mast climbing. I will not climb without a pair of long slings and a handfull of carabiners, based on long experience. I might need them for something, and I can rig them many ways. They are the most versatile gear I own and the bit I would be least likely to climb without. I have several Screamers and have not used them in decades, other than for testing something.
The only sling hazard is creating slack and falling directly on a sling (a VERY hard stop), but this will not happen unless you climb above the anchor (stupid). Another risk is attaching an extention sling to an ASAP or other arrest devise, but this is unnecessary climbing a mast–there is no need for any sling. I clip my Goblin direct to the harness. In industry there can be reasons you need an extension. They also have value on a non-strerch rope (Dyneema–polyester has enough stretch for this) halyard near the mast top, but I would hoist a climbing rope and eliminate the risk and halyard wear. To a climber, slings hanging from the gear loops are vital to contingency planning.
I agree you need to be careful taking advise from climbers. We may leave out important safety aspects that we thought were obvious. Less experienced climbers may not understand how all of the bits work together, particularly taken outside of their familiar practice. More expereinced climbers are relaxed at hight and know more contingency methods. You can’t imagine how many weird anchors and contingencies I’ve worked through up some crag. Rope frozen. Gear dropped. You learn all the tricks.
Matt makes some good points, but is off on the climbing vs. insurance issue, or rather it requires explanation. High altitude mountaineering (Himalayas) contains unavoidable risk. Avalanche and lack of oxygen, for example. But rock and ice climbing are considered much safer than, for example, riding a motorcycle. I know very few climbers who have been injured, and I know many, but practically every motorcycle rider has either scars or stories of dead friends. Climbing looks scary. Riding is scary.
Hi Drew,
Once again you are assuming that us sailors are properly trained in the gear that you climbers use. We are not.
Therefore, in my view it is dangerous to suggest things like slings without a complete dissertation on how they should be used. And even with a dissertation, a sailor could easily make a mistake with a sling given that they might use it once or twice a year and most sailors don’t understand how short a fall it takes to hurt you if you are on the wrong gear. Heck, clearly climbers screw this up regularly given the video in Part 2 was made to warn of that error.
Therefore, in my view, it is safer for us non climbers to either use fall prevention, (no slack) as Matt does or a screamer.
And bringing in motorbikes is not relevant to Matt’s point that industrial fall prevention and arrest is safer than climbing rock. He is not the one that’s off side here, in my view.
Does anyone actually use a seat harness for POB protection? That displays a distinct lack of common sense.
However as a counter, there are many sailors that use a sailing harness for fall protection climbing the mast. I suggest that they first try hanging in a sailing harness for 30 seconds–they probably won’t last that long. Stay for more than 2 minutes and permanent nerve damamge is common and documented. This is why OSHA and UIAA have banned them from all fall protection uses (other than in combination with a seat harness to keep you more vertical). And then consider what would happen if you fell on such a harness. Most likely a trip to the ER and some permanent damamge.
I’ve seen commercial bosun’s chairs that should never had a place in the market. Garbage. A case of a sailing manufacturer thinking he understands work at height. Then there are the Spinlock Race clips, that can unclip or bend under little more than bodyweight if loaded at an angle. They never investigated climbing gear testing standards, and then denied that they applied.
It’s not about sailing vs. climbing, it’s about quality and matching the gear to the application, which is not always obvious.
Hi Drew,
We had a bunch of climbers advocate for use of climbing harnesses for POB, that’s why I wrote the article above. This is a classic example of climbers assuming they know best in a very different environment.
And I agree, and have written repeatedly about, poor gear in the yacht environment as well as advocating for the use of climbing gear where it makes sense. For example kong tango carbines and DCR for tethers (in the right place):
https://www.morganscloud.com/2018/04/08/time-to-stop-using-and-selling-tethers-with-gibb-style-hooks/
https://www.morganscloud.com/2017/02/27/the-right-tethers-to-keep-us-aboard-part-2-construction-and-hardware/
Be careful with screamers. They’ll absolutely save your ass if a window-washing scaffold falls out from under you. But they need some distance to work, and a lot of people who use them don’t think to add up the tether slack, plus the length of the *extended* screamer, plus the length of your body and legs, and then end up breaking their shins on something at 4–5 m/s when the screamer still has another metre to go.
I might mention that, if you talk to a life insurance underwriter, they charge a pretty fat premium, or sometimes refuse coverage entirely, for mountain climbers. And yet most of them don’t even care about whether you work at heights for your trade, as long as you’re in a trade that follows OSHA etc. regulations and requires proper training and approved/certified safety gear. 120 years of injury and fatality statistics have convinced them that proper industrial fall protection training and ANSI-certified equipment are sufficient to reduce the risk to statistically negligible.
Hi Matt,
Good point on fall distance. I’m going to explore that at length in Part 4, it’s that important, I think.
That’s interesting about the view of insurance companies. While there are days when I’m no fan of the insurance industry, particularly when they come up with silly restrictions on yacht policies that are not based on fact or even common sense, I would always defer to said industry when it comes to measuring things like the relative risk of various activities. They have the stats.
Hi John,
Looks like I am going to have to do my homework on non-knot based belay devices. I watched Petzls video on the ASAP and one thing that jumped out at me is how well does it stand up to the marine environment? Do you or anyone else have any experience with this? If the mechanism gets sticky, it may stop working reliably and I don’t know how you would tell that. I looked through their documentation and they say not to store in a salt or wet environment. They do provide an inspection procedure which is mostly high level but they do tell you to do a test actuation but what I don’t know is whether it could reach an intermittent stage. I know with the ascenders that I use for climbing only that they do get sticky and I have to inspect and sometimes lube them up before climbing despite them still looking cosmetically perfect and never having direct salt contact. This probably isn’t a big deal if you really focus on proper cleaning and storage and then do a few test actuations before using it.
Like you, we hoist a line (dynamic climbing rope in our case) to the masthead for the safety line for the exact reason you describe which is the ability to lower from deck if needed. If I am jumaring up, then I hoist a static line for that too but if I am grinding my wife up, then we just use the halyard directly.
Eric
Hi Eric,
Good point on the importance of maintenance and testing the ASAP. I have had mine for four years stowed on the boat and it’s looks as-new and testing, which I do before every assent, is easy and very reassuring.
My other thought is that these things are used on building sites and by window maintenance people and probably get drenched with who knows what stuff and then dumped in grubby tool box, so I’m guessing that they are pretty fault/abuse tolerant, although I certainly would not treat mine like that.
The pre-check procedure for the Petzl ASAP is pretty comprehensive. Indeed, the simple fact that such a procedure exists is one way to help tell good equipment from potentially sketchy equipment. (Linked from “Technical information” on the product page:
https://www.petzl.com/INT/en/Professional/Mobile-fall-arresters/ASAP )
Do note that virtually all devices of this type will include a certification warning that says something like:
In other words, the device is a component of a system and you need to follow the design and specification of the complete system in order for the thing to actually meet its safety certifications. You can’t just clip it to any old rope or carabiner that looks to be about the right size.
Hi Matt,
Good point on the “system”. I screwed up there too, but will get right next season.
These are all really great articles, and some good points on the comments too!
I just want to add, as I was mentioning in an earlier comment, that taking a fall, is serious stuff! A LOT can happen on the way down! And also, what happens to the ropes when they suddenly become loaded is sometimes hard to predict. It may very well pull you in unforeseen directions at an uncomfortable speed. Especially if you’re using a backup on the other side of the mast. Having taken countless falls while climbing, it never cease to amaze me how far you fall before all the slack is pulled out, and in which direction you go!
This goes for both fall arrest and fall prevention, since the primary and backup are rarely routed the exact same way with the exact same tension.
I resorted to having mast steps as the main climbing device, no one needed to haul me up or down. Having a safety backup is a no-brainer, for me it is a Petzl climbing harness, combined with a Prusik knot over the main halyard that is snug tight when going up. I did some “test jumps”, and always had to get new underwear after that, but nothing more – the Prusik held, even after moving it up or down some steps.
I considered some device such as the ASAP, but the Prusik gives me a huge advantage – it is not only a safety backup, it also keeps me stable when I need to lean out to the spreaders, or the like, while the ASAP would start to brake a meter or so below. Not enough time to complete work planned, then.
At work height (the top being the most convenient, having two level steps), the Prusik is still attached, but an additional loop around the mast gives me a hands-free work area (and I always make sure to have some fresh underwear ready below…)
Ah, yes – the whole setup was trained and inspected with a friend who is an avid rock climber.
Hi Ernest,
As I say in the article above, I would not rely on a prussic hitch for fall arrest. This is based on advice from a world class rock climber I interviewed on the subject. The point is that knots may work for fall arrest, but they are not reliable for that function because whether or not they work depends on so many variables, such as how tight the knot is at the moment of the fall, etc.
Also, based on several years of experience the ASAP will not lock on you and impede your movement and it’s also not separated from you by a meter, more like 30 cm. I regularly went out to the spreader ends on our M&R in this way with no issues.
My favorite method–and this is just me–is a MastMate. I have used pretty much every system, and this fits my individual needs best on my last tree boats. I was introduced to it by a solo-surveyor 35 years ago.
As I said, this is just me. Chairs are very well proven and have a few advantages, including increased mobility. But they are not very handy for the singlehander.
Hi Drew,
Thanks for the thoughts. We are going to look into single handed mast climbing in Part 5.
The drop test video really got me concerned as I have a fraction rig my safety line is the jib halyard which is at least a 3 m drop with the loop
Hi Bill,
Based on my understanding, I think that pretty much means that your backup system is not going to help you at all, at least in most cases.
I think if it were me, I might accept that and then focusing entirely on the safety of primary system, at least when climbing above the hounds, given that there are few things more detrimental to safety than having a back up system that won’t work.
And then I might, once I had made that decision and made the primary as good as it can be, while being hauled up climb the mast very deliberately with all four limbs so as to be ready to hold on and slide down under control if the primary system failed. I might also practice this at the bottom of the mast to see how I did when the person hauling me up slacked off quickly, although said practice has dangers too.
I guess the other big question to think about is does this problem disqualify the boat for offshore cruising where climbing the mast is a common event? Only you can decide this since it’s a classic risk to reward decision and also depends on your confidence in your own strength and agility to save the situation as above.
All that said, maybe there’s a better way to solve this, but having thought about it for an hour or so, I can’t see one.
If your total distance to drop before the safety line catches is 3 m, then you’re already falling at 7.7 m/s (28 km/h) before it begins to do anything.
If your masthead is 3 m above your safety line exit point, then you have at least 6 m to fall, which means you’re doing over 11 m/s (40 km/h) when it snatches up.
To safely arrest a fall from that speed, you need lots of empty space below you. Probably more empty space than is available.
If you’re stuck with that situation and can’t get a safety line rigged from the masthead then I would be inclined to add a tether from your left hip, around the mast, to your right hip. That tether, plus your feet braced against the mast, should be sufficient to hold you in position and let you control your descent if the main halyard were to fail. Test it and work out the details at just above the level of the boom, before committing to climbing with such a setup.
Actually, this common challenge has a simple, safe solution that I have used on a number of boats, a number of times.
Once you pass the hounds, wrap a 3/8-inch polyester rope loop around the mast, forming a Prusik hitch. Depending on the diameter of the mast this will take about 8′ of rope, tied with a double fisherman’s or other strong knot. Yes, the hitch will hold on a mast, over 1500 pounds, I’ve tested this with a winch and a load cell. The breaking strength of the Pruiskic should be over 5500 pounds (remember, it is a loop). Webbing can be used, but it is more difficult to move and reset. Dyneema offers no stretch and is not recommended for this. The method does add some complications, but it eliminates the slack and long fall potencial.
You will need to slack off your fall arrest rope as you ascend past the hounds (otherwise it would be pulling you down). You do not need to disconnect, though if climbing solo this may be the simpler way (I clip to the fall arrest device with a sling I can extend until I return to the hounds). Clip into the Prusik first. You will need to reset and dress the Prusik hitch each time you push it up. This is unavoidable. But you don’t have far to go and will probably only do this a few times. Repeat going down.
The trick to avoiding the risk of Prusiks not catching or heating when sliding is to dress the knots and manage the slack. Again, the polyester gives a little bit of stretch, reducing impacts, and the knots will slide/shift a bit when taking a hard load, absorbing more energy.
With no available halyard to the top of the mast, this is the only safe way.
—
This is one of the reasons, I suppose, that I am steadfast about carrying slings. My boat is fractionally rigged. I do this every time I climb, so commonly I take it for obvious. My last boat was masthead, but the others have been fractionally rigged sport boats.
Hi Drew,
That sounds like a much better solution than mine, thank you.
I’m also wondering about adding a screamer to the arrest line given that when being hauled up, or using ascenders, on a halyard it would be very easy to get well above the Prusik and so end up with a greater than 1 fall factor. Also, I’m thinking we would need at least a foot of slack, and probably more, in the arrest line after the hitch, so in a worst case we could have a factor 2 fall with say 2 ft of slack, pretty nasty on Dacron rope or static climbing rope. On the bright side I guess the Prusic pulling tight in an arrest will impart some absorption.
So that got me wondering if we could you use DCR for the hitched arrest line to impart some more shock absorption? I’m guessing that might compromise the effectiveness of the Prusik though?
I don’t see why 8-9 mm climbing rope would not work well for the mast Prusik. Climbers just don’t think about it, because the rope is always the dynamic part. Same with a Prusik on the rode.
One downside is that knots in nylon are more prone to jamming than in polyester, because the rope gets skinny when it stretches, allowing the knot to over tighten and then jam when the rope recovers and expands. But I don’t think Prusiks are very prone to this, certainly not under body weight.
Climbers typically use Dyneema/polyester blends for Prusiks on climbing ropes in order the get the right blend of strength and friction in smaller sizes.
Hi Drew,
That makes sense, thanks again.
Hi Drew,
It is good to see you write this. I have used this technique but never known whether it was really good.
One thing I have thought about when doing this is what you do if you ever end up using your safety. It could just be that the person grinding you up had a major whoopsie and can reset and continue but it could imply that something is really wrong and you are now stuck hanging from a prusik around the mast. I think a solution for people who are not able to freeclimb is simply to have a light tag line going from your chair/harness to the deck but there may be a better way. This would give you the ability to haul up what you need to set up a proper rappel and get yourself down, obviously requiring some skill for knowing how to execute this. You are going to want the tag line anyways for when invariably you need a different tool at the top of the mast. When it is available, I prefer to keep a bucket on a spare halyard with a tag line that is where most of my gear is instead of the chair pockets and then it can be hauled up and down quickly to restock ro whatever. When that spare halyard isn’t available, I just use a piece of light line and do the hauling from in the chair but then the bucket is lower and not as easy to get stuff in and out of.
One other thought is that most fractional rigged boats still have a topping lift. Even if it is deadended at the masthead, it potentially could be used as a safety with the same issues as a prusik around the mast. I have seen a lot of these be wire but these days there is no reason they couldn’t be a double braid allowing an asap or whatever to be put on them with appropriate shock absorption.
Eric
I don’t recall reading this in these threads, but a tag line is extremely handy for the tools and parts you have forgotten, or even the whole tool bag, if it is heavy. You avoid climbing with all that extra weight. I always take a tag line, unless climbing solo, typically an 8 mm climbing rope, just because that is multi-purpose and I have it. But anything ~ 5/16- to 3/8-inch would do.
I don’t see you suggesting having a proper climbing rope, especially with an ASAP. Where possible running a dedicated climbing line ensures you know the rope is good and is the correct type and diameter for the safety equipment. Especially if you are on someone else’s boat but even on your own knowing the rope is safe would be rule one in an industry setting rather than relying on what is there.
Hi Stan,
I quote from the above article:
Look under backup and halyard.
Unless I’m missing something, surely that covers your concern?
Hi John
I wonder if you are missing something from Stan’s comment. Or maybe I’ve misread your article, or mis-interpreted Stan’s comment, or both.
I’ll plunge in anyway.
In your article you’re talking about hoisting a dedicated climbing/high elongation rope on a halyard to the masthead as a back up line for your ASAP to run on (at least that’s how I understood it), whereas I thought Stan was suggesting running a halyard out entirely and replacing it with a climbing rope. This ensures you’re using a good, known rope; solves the problem of a tested splice (you don’t need one); and adds to the overall elongation available should a fall ever need to be arrested.
I’m curious as to whether this is what you meant, and if not, your thoughts on it.
It is our standard practice.
The ropes we use for going up the rig (we call them ‘person halyards’) are only ever used for this purpose.
All the best
Andy
Hi Andy,
First off, I think you may be right that I misunderstood Stan.
Second, no I was not thinking of replacing the halyard with the static climbing rope, but now you have suggested it, the more I think about it, the more I like it.
The only problem I can think of is what happens if the primary fails and the person aloft must be lowered down on the backup? The only answer I can see is to make the backup three times the mast height.
Good point about the extra length needed to lower the climber if the primary system fails. I think your idea is a good one. It is more rope, but at least at 10mm or so diameter it’s not going to be too massive to stow. And that diameter is the same whether you’re going up a 30ft or 100ft rig.
We have a couple more halyards free, at least potentially if we’re dockside, so I’ve just thought I’d use one of those. It does, however, rely on the climber being in a fit state to transfer on to a new halyard. Being able to lower the backup halyard is better because that should work in the event that the climber was unconscious too.
Hi Andrew,
Yes, I think that’s the way I’m going too. I will try it out in the spring and then add my experience to this series. Thanks again for the idea.
THANK YOU. My rigger, amazing guy, walks up the mast on a halyard, but with a fall arrest system in place. I will never try that. We too use the anchor capstan. He did urge me, in the strongest terms, never to use a spinnaker block hanging from a crane. Best to use, as you do now, an in-mast sheave.Worst that happens is your line hangs up on the mast if a sheave gives way. I have two main halyards to use. But your focus on the 5000 lb strength raises this concern: How much strength does a line lose going 180 degrees over a sheave? Do rope manufacturers tell us that?
Hi Terence,
Your welcome!
I don’t think I have seen any solid data on the amount a halyard is weakened by going over a sheave, other than the warning in part two on Kevlar halyards.
That said, I’m not sure it matters given that we will be knotting the halyard and so should take that weakening into account, which I’m pretty sure will be way more than that of going over the sheave. To be safe, I’m using 50% for this factor.
Hi Terence,
It is a function of the bend radius of the sheave and the radius of the line (for some reason I often see it as D/d in the sailing world but everywhere else it is R/r). Hampidjan has a graph you can find that is widely quoted. For an uncovered dyneema line, a sheave radius equal to the radius of the line would give a 50% strength reduction but this is a really small sheave. That same line with a 5:1 ratio gives closer to 20% reduction. This is a more realistic sheave size and the strength reduction is significantly less than most knots we are discussing. One other safety factor built in is that most of us run covered, core dependent halyards so using the line radius as opposed to the core radius is overly conservative.
Eric
Hi Eric,
Thanks for fielding that. I got interested and did some googling, but only found graphs for wire rope. The yacht rope vendors seem to specify relative sheave diameters around 8-10, as of old, without defining actual drop in strength. I’m guessing because that would vary so much with fibre type and rope construction. I did find several references to the correct sheave diameter for aramids being 20 x diameter, which confirms my advice to avoid the stuff!
Hi John,
I don’t have the original source for the graph but this US Sailing lifeline one includes it and should be reputable: https://www.ussailing.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Dyneema-Spectra-Lifeline-Revision-Jan-2014.pdf
That is scary about Aramid. 20X gets pretty impractical on a lot of mastheads or just about anywhere.
Eric
Other questions. I use big double screw shackles on my main halyards. Why do you urge tying the halyard to the chair/harness rather using a ROBUST shackle? Also, I use a Brion Toss harness, not a chair. I can’t see how I can wear another harness under the Toss thing. It is pretty bulky and has leg straps. Suggestions? Thanks.
Hi Terence,
Well, first off, it’s not just me that cautions against using shackles. For example, my Harken bosun’s chair includes that warning and just about every other text I have seen on mast climbing does the same. Even our new Sparcraft mast came with a sticker warning against the practice.
I guess the reasoning is that halyard shackles are not proofed or certified and therefore could have a manufacturing defect or be suffering from crevice corrosion. Also the splice could be defective and it’s difficult to identify that visually.
How likely is that with a good quality screw shackle? I just don’t know, and probably no one else does, so in the end it comes down to your own risk analysis when deciding whether or not you want to continue to use the shackle.
One thing I can say is I personally would not use a shackle, particularly if it were made of stainless steel, which most are.
As to the Brion Toss chair, yes that’s a quandary. On the one hand I’m guessing the Toss chair is well made (never seen one) but on the other, a fundamental of backup systems is that they should share no components with the primary.
Again, your call.