Page 291 - Brion Toss - The Complete Rigger’s Apprentice

the Carabiner Hitch is secure, they can cast off the
primary, which you can now use for a gantline (mes- loop knot
senger line) for sending equipment up and down. If
you don’t need to lower yourself, leave the primary
attached and use another halyard as a gantline. If
you’ve run out of halyards, hang a block from your
chair or around the mast and reeve a light halyard
through it.
Sometimes, as for changing a masthead light or
installing instruments, the places you need to get at
are just out of reach above you. Because the hal-
yard attaches lower on a climber’s harness, you can
always get up higher with them than with a chair.
If your legs go to sleep while you’re hanging
around up there, shift position until they wake up. A B
With a good harness you can slide the leg loops up
and down your thighs as needed, for maximum
hang time. Leg numbness is a bad sign, health-wise.
Now you’re ready for work; all you need are
some tools and materials.

Working Aloft
The gear you need will be coming up on a gantline.
You could have brought it up with you, but why add
all that weight and clutter to the exercise? If you’re
going to send the primary down as a gantline, stop
and tie a Butterfly or other loop knot in the line,
about 2 to 3 feet (0.6 to 0.9 m) from the end, before Figure 7-9. Preparations for sending a line down
you detach the line from yourself. The knot will pre- from aloft are shown in (A). When sending items
vent the halyard from accidentally slipping out of up, the deck crew ensures that it will not be nec-
the block (Figure 7-9). Now tie a Bowline with the essary to untie the line before installing the object.
end around its own standing part, so that the end In (B), for example, a stay is coming up with the
won’t blow away out of reach as it goes down. It is gantline Rolling-Hitched to its standing part, not
sometimes convenient to tie the end around a jibstay, its end.
backstay, or other piece of rigging instead. In any
event, send the line down to deck. If you’ll be using diameter by a foot (300 mm) tall is a good size—
another, extra halyard that already has both ends on and should have its own tether, so it can be hung
deck, have your deck crew put the loop knot in. from the mast without a halyard.
The first thing to come up will be your rigging When the bucket gets up to you, tie its tether
bucket. This should be a stout item, preferably of on, then detach the halyard and send it back down
canvas and with a stiff rim, with tool pockets on for the next piece of gear. If everything you need is
the inside so the tools can’t snag every little thing in the bucket, leave the halyard attached, the other
on the way up. The bucket should be big enough to end belayed on deck.
hold basic tools with enough room for paint or mis- The sure mark of a pro aloft is a profusion of
cellaneous fittings—10–11 inches (250–280 mm) in lanyards. Lanyards for all the tools, a lanyard for

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