Page 285 - Brion Toss - The Complete Rigger’s Apprentice

primal grab at the backstays kept me from following hands before you go up; go up on two halyards in
it down. case one fails; tie safety tethers to something solid
And once a friend was doing a routine mast- once aloft, for additional backup support; and bring
head light replacement on a big sloop. His chair was lots of spare shackles.
hanging from the hook of a dockside crane. When he My friend on the crane had the advantage of
was finished, my friend signaled to the crane opera- being on gear far stronger and more easily adjust-
tor to bring him down. The boom swung away from able than a sailboat halyard. On the other hand, the
the boat and stopped over the dock. Just then some- operator was the only thing between safety and a
one from the shipyard office called to the driver, Wile E. Coyote–style landing. Redundancy, however
who turned to respond, inadvertently releasing the primitive, might be preferable to helplessness.
halyard clutch, causing the chair and its occupant So much for the scary stories and general les-
to begin an unnoticed freefall. A chance peripheral sons; now let’s get down to the details that can make
glance by the driver and a quickly applied brake life aloft a pleasant, relatively safe experience.
saved the day, the chair stopping so close to the First of all, preface any job with an on-deck
dock that my friend just stepped out of the chair conference in which you go over the job in detail,
and walked, unsteadily, away. including likely material needs. Generate alternative
When working aloft, gravity is your enemy. But scenarios, in case things go wrong or differently than
near-death dramas are almost invariably the result you expect (for example, what will you do if a tool
of poor planning, poor communication, poor atten- falls in the water? Do you have a magnet? A spare
tiveness. My near fall was a lesson to the deckhand: tool?). You can also take this time to be sure you
Look aloft before you let go a line, to be sure you agree on nomenclature and hand signals, to avoid
have the one you want. Then take the turns off confusion later. And you definitely want to be sure
slowly, so you can feel and control any surprise load that you’ve allowed a generous amount of time to do
before it’s too late. the job, and that your deck crew can hang around
My near fall was a series of lessons for me: that long. Ever been stuck up a mast at suppertime?
Ensure that things on deck are in good, organized Next, lay out the primary halyard, the one your

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