I was born a poor Ohio flat-lander. Just outside of Toledo in the quiet (read BORING) town of Swanton. This area is so flat – not a hill or slope for 50 miles - that I was denied any kind of winter sledding as a child, destroying my chances of becoming a world-class luger. I used to cry when snow went down my neck and up my sleeves anyhow, so it really wasn’t meant to be. This probably explains my sheer terror when it comes to heights. I’m not talking skyscrapers either – I used to have to go up on the roof of our one story house in Palm Harbor and I would cling to the chimney like a baby possum. It just freaks me out.
It’s lonely at the top.
Now, if I’m tethered securely, it’s a different story – say 2 stories. That’s about all I can do. Window washer will never, ever be on my resume. A couple weeks ago our windicator thingy got bent from the finches or blackbirds that are here for the winter. It needed to be straightened and thank freakin’ Neptune CannonBall volunteered. He has some sort of mental problem that causes him to ENJOY hanging from a string 40 feet in the air.
Mariola came with a nice bosun’s chair and CannonBall wanted to give it a try. JackKnife and I prepared to haul him up the mast. Common sense told me dangling him from the halyard alone was risky, so we also clipped the raggedy looking jib halyard to the chair. Since the jib halyard is on the front side of the mast it had to be unclipped, passed over the spreaders and reclipped. This was the breath-holding tense part, but it worked smoothly. We managed to haul CannonBall up, he straightened the windex and we lowered him back down without incident. Since then I’ve read a few things online that would seem to help should there be a next time.
Thing that helps you go up.
The line ascender. This little clip thing looks like a better solution than hauling the main halyard and jib halyard up at the same time. With the line ascender you can leave the jib halyard cleated off and just slide it up the line as you go. I’m going to get one of these soon, to have on hand for the next climb of terror. I’ve got water coming in around the mast whenever there’s a heavy rain. This bugs me as I like a dry bilge to keep the mustiness in the cabin down to a minimum. When CannonBall was at the top he said there was a big gap that had potential for blowing rain to enter (you can see it in the pic). The next trip up the mast, I’m going to volunteer myself – with my chair, ascender and big gulp of rum, I think I can make it. “Swim for the wreckage!”
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