![]() The higher I got, the more exaggerated the movement became. My arms ached but the adrenaline was pumping and I forced myself towards the second spreader, where I was able to take another break. I was going to be bounced all the way and I had to deal with it. I stopped climbing and held on for a while, hoping it would last only for a set of waves. Then the wind increased and the boat heeled over more.Įach impact with a wave jolted the mast, flicking me like a rag doll outwards and then back into the mast. ![]() ![]() It was starting to hurt and I was still swinging against the rig but I got into a rhythm for a while and was almost starting to feel good. I took a deep breath, put my weight on my feet and pushed up again another few inches. I looked around for big clouds or gusts heading my way. I reached the first spreader and sat on it to adjust my harness. The rope wasn’t deflecting too much, so I started up again. I told myself I was procrastinating, trying to find some excuse not to continue. I’d be hurting by the time I got to the deck, which would hardly inspire me to come back up again. I’d descended about a foot when I realised this was a stupid idea. But to tighten the rope, I needed to be on the deck. I thought I could do this by tightening the rope between the masthead and the deck so that I wouldn’t be swinging so much, if at all, with the motion. I was already bruised from being bumped against the rig and decided to make myself more secure before going any further. The motion, though still relatively stable, was enough to be jolting me around. I’d lost my footing a couple of times already. It took me 20 minutes to get to the first spreader. Pindar had three sets, spaced approximately 20, 40 and 60ft up the mast. Scaling the mast when Pindar was in dock took a few minutes, and not long at all to reach the first spreaders. If the boat’s motion became too unstable, the consequences didn’t bear thinking about. I was still uncomfortable with the thought of a big gust coming through while I was high up there. The tiniest bit of slack in the rope multiplied the potential for a hard climb, so I wound it down to the deck as hard as I could. If your platform is Pindar in choppy seas and gusting winds, it becomes a different proposition altogether. It sounds so simple, and on a steady platform with a taut rope, it is. Then I was able to release the pressure on the lower jammer by raising my feet, and move that up a few inches and so on. When I put my feet in them and stood up I was able to release the pressure on the seat jammer, move it up a few inches and sit back down. The foot straps were also attached to the rope with a one-way jammer. When I let go – and therefore exerted downward pressure by sitting in the seat – I could lift my feet from the ground and the seat was supported. The jammer gripped the rope when you exerted downward pressure on it. When I was ready, I climbed into the Topclimber, which was attached to the rope at waist height with a strap and a one-way jammer. This consisted of a little platform seat and two stirrup-like straps, with loops for my feet. The ascent would be via a length of rope stretched between the top of the mast and the deck, using a Topclimber. I put my video camera in my pocket, strapped on my helmet and psyched myself up. I took a knife to cut away the old dead end, the spare main halyard (240ft), some tape and a block in case the one at the top had been the cause of the halyard breaking. ![]() The wind was varying between 15 and 25 knots and I needed to make sure I had a sail setting to cover the range of winds while I was up there. I’d planned to go up at dawn, but I ended up waiting to allow some black clouds to blow through. They might as well have been a million miles away, I felt suddenly so isolated. Namibia lay 2,000 miles due east, Brazil 2,000 miles to the west. We were a fraction south of the Tropic of Capricorn and slap bang in the middle of the South Atlantic when the main halyard broke. Now, over to Emma… Extract from Around Alone Read it and, as I did, ask yourself how you might have measured up.įor a vivid glimpse into this race, have a look on YouTube for videos from the 2002 Around Alone. This extract from Emma’s Around Alone is by far the best description I have come across of the horrors of climbing a mast on a solo race boat. The skill and sheer guts lie outside the experience of the rest of us, relatively normal sailors. Sailing the Open 60 Pindar, she was pipped at the post for a podium finish, but reading her book 20 years later, I realised again that the placing is less important than the character of the men and women who take up the challenges of the great single-handed events. In 2002, Emma Richards (now Sanderson) was the youngest person and the first British woman to finish the ‘Around Alone’ race. ![]()
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