Life lines?

[Joshua del Mar]

Hi All,

Just wondering about life lines and if you use them or have installed them on your boat?

I see that many Wharram's sail without them and curious as the reason behind that.

And also the dificulties or possible problems of installing them.

Many thanks,
Josh

[paul anderson]

Mate on my cat i will have a safety line attached to myself and a strongpoint as i plan on doing a lot of solo work,Rory of cooking fat would be the bloke who would give you the best heads up i reckon.I have also thought of trailing a line behind the cat too as a last hurrah.

cheers paul.

[Joshua del Mar]

Cheers for the reply Paul, Looks like you are building a real beauty there.

I reckon that'd be the way to go, but i'll have at least one
young kid on board and possibly 2 by the time i get started
and finished!

Still in the planning/research phase and needing to
to put a few of the wife's concerns at ease!

Cheers,
Josh

paul anderson said:

Mate on my cat i will have a safety line attached to myself and a strongpoint as i plan on doing a lot of solo work,Rory of cooking fat would be the bloke who would give you the best heads up i reckon.I have also thought of trailing a line behind the cat too as a last hurrah.

cheers paul.

[Roger]

My tether is a 5 foot length of dyneema with a mountaineering carabiner at each end. The lifeline is a half inch line tied around the mast and outboard mount. On a Tiki 21 the 5 ft tether is too short for me to fall overboard, but is just long enough to reach the front beam for jib changes (the carabiner slides along the lifeline from outboard to mast). 

[Joshua del Mar]

Thanks for the reply Roger!
I guess what im really wanting to know is, has anyone installed staunchions on their wharram to put lifelines all around the boat, as on the average monohull or cruising boat?
A teather and saftey líne are great ideas at sea, but how about with young kids onboard when your on the pick? I prefer the look without them but for safety of the kids i dont think there's any other realistic option.
Im just curious if there's any drawbacks or problems associated with installing them in regards to structural weakness or increased likelihood of rot.

Many thanks for all advice,
Josh. 

Roger said:

My tether is a 5 foot length of dyneema with a mountaineering carabiner at each end. The lifeline is a half inch line tied around the mast and outboard mount. On a Tiki 21 the 5 ft tether is too short for me to fall overboard, but is just long enough to reach the front beam for jib changes (the carabiner slides along the lifeline from outboard to mast). 

[kim whitmyre]

If you go to the Wharram site and open the gallery to Andy Smith's Boatyard, tiki 28 photos, there is a 28 with stanchions.

[Randall S Anselmo]

Hi Josh,

While tidying up the dock lines one day, a friend came up with a nifty way of stowing them that forms a sort of lifeline.  I don't quite know how to put a link to the photo in this note, but if you look at my photos, there's one of the port bow showing the concept.  The line is tied to the stem "handle", then looped around the end cleat of the forward beam, then cleated on the center beam. The same is done on the aft quarters.  While it wouldn't provide the same protection as a lifeline with stanchions, it does give one something to grab on the way overboard, or if you make it into the water, a good handhold for climbing back aboard.

All my traction,

Randall

[Ann and Neville Clement]

    When I soloed on my old monohull, I wore a harness and kept the tether clipped in whenever the boat moved even if there was no wind or waves.  When Nev joined me on that old boat, he had to promise to do the same thing.   I sailed that boat safely for 25,000 miles.  She was tippy like all monohulls.  Her stancheons were about 3 inches higher than my knees.  But once when I was taking a reef in the main at the mast, I looked down and saw blue water rushing past just below me.  I like the non tippy catamaran so much!

    When we finished Peace, we did not put in stancheons because the edge was so far from where we were walking.  The hulls on the Tiki 46 are 6 feet wide, after all.  We still have those harnesses and tethers and we do have strong points where we can clip in and we have done it during storms.  You just like to do that in a Force 10 offshore!  But we are careful that when we wear our harnesses clipped in, our torso is unable to go over the side.  Think about what it would be like being dragged through the water on your boat.  Think about the drag of 3 knots or even 8 or 15 and how difficult it would be to crawl aboard with all that pulling water against you.  Think realistically.  You likely cannot get back aboard on your own.

   A drag line is not the answer, guys.  It takes a strong swimmer a little while to get reoriented after falling overboard and the boat is likely moving pretty fast so you won't catch it.  Even 3 knots is too fast for you to catch a line because it will tug your hand too fast to grip it securely.  Now you want to hold on to that line and pull your self aboard?  At speed? Seriously, I suggest you get a friend to steer the boat for you and try it out for yourself.  I single handed for 15,000 miles before I met Nev.  I have no belief in anything but being tethered when solo.  Having a clip at each end of the tether line is right too.

     If you are bringing kids on a Wharram, you gotta have more than stancheons and life lines.  You gotta fill it in with netting.  You gotta think hard about how you and they would feel if they fell over the side.  Really think about it and prevent it.  That is the only way.  If you are still building, just put some solid wood where you want the stancheons and screw in there.  Bed it good.  We have had good luck with drilling the holes for screws that go into solid wood and filling the holes completely with liquid epoxy/resin.  We then screw the screw down and somehow it hydraulics the glue into the wood.  They never get out without you heating the screw and we never wanted those screws to come out anyway.  Think carefully about where you want the stancheons.

     When our super active grand daughter came aboard, we clipped a tether to her little life vest and made it so short she could not get out of the foredeck.  We had a baby pool up there with 2 inches of water in it and we all had fun with her.  She was 2.  An adult was with her every moment.  Safety is all about prevention.

     Enjoy.  ann and Nev

[Forrest Nichols]

I sail my Tangaroa with my two boys who are five and three. My boat had stanchions bolted to the deck, they were 30" tall, and I put netting all the way from bow to stern on both sides. Unfortunately some of the stanchions were leaking through the bolt holes so I removed all of them this summer and fiber-glassed over the holes. I am now planning to put four stanchions on each side bolted to custom brackets that I'm integrating into my cross beam suspension plates. I am making one long cross plate to replace the two that currently compress the rubber for my beams and bending it up on the outboard end to bolt into stout wooden stanchions.  With this system there will be no holes in my deck, and the stanchions will be stout enough that I don't have to cringe when guests hang on the stanchions while boarding the boat. I will then run a low bulwark around the base and netting above that. When the kids grow up, I can remove the netting and replace it with one attractive lifeline on the top.