MacGregorSailors.com

I added a SS "shower bar" (1.5" diam x 24") from HomeDepot. It provides an essential safety assist both on and off the water. I also keep an overturned, 5-gal paint bucket aft of the trailer as a stepping point, and I use the up-tilted outboard drive as a very secure handhold.

ETA:
Just realized another point ... many times when the boat is on trailer - scrambling up and down is even easier over the pulpit with the trailer's ladder.

We keep ours in the yard. I climb up on it almost everyday....twice....once to open it up and then close it before it rains. Usually up the swim ladder....inside to open the forward hatch...then up top to prop the hatch open.....and down the trailer ladder. Reverse it to close it. I have wondered about the drop to the ground if I got tangled in the rigging.... 62

Gees, Idle, get a dehumidifier and empty it out once a week. Youre going to wear out the hatches.

A trailered boat provides plenty of stuff to hold on to. The mast is static and runs all the way to the pushpit. Never haul stuff around with both hands. Chances are good of snatching a lifeline on the way over which will minimize injury to a snapped ankle or screwed up knee, with the assorted bruising.

Eventually a loopy shroud will catch your ankle and you will spill over the side and your skull will be cracked upon impact. Try to put this event off for as long as possible with the hope of dying of something else in the meantime, like old age.

My current nightmare is having one of the dozen little pieces that raise the mast fail, and have the mast come back and pound me like a ten penny nail down into the after berth. Any strange noise during this process makes me flinch.

Mate says, Hey, youre giving everybody a headache.

Yes. Goodnight.

Frank C wrote:I added a SS "shower bar" (1.5" diam x 24") from HomeDepot. It provides an essential safety assist both on and off the water. I also keep an overturned, 5-gal paint bucket aft of the trailer as a stepping point, and I use the up-tilted outboard drive as a very secure handhold.

Frank,


Where did you mount the shower bar, and how was it mounted (nuts and washers on the other side of the bulkhead?). Did you have to seal the holes you drilled into the bulkhead?

Jim

Jim,
Reach the upper bolts using the factory hole plug at the helm seat hinge. That's pretty easy. The lower bolts required cutting thru the way-back interior liner - it was a bit of a pain, a 2-man job in my case.

I also replaced one of those lower grab-bar bolts with an eyebolt, as terminator for the rudder purchase system ... which still doesn't work very well. I have an upgrade-in-progress on the rudder lifting system.

SS 24" Shower Bar from Home Depot


Rudder purchase: large shackle plus mini-block

Frank,
that shower rod is pure genius-- I didn't even realize it was one till I read your caption. The 5 gallon bucket could be dangerous if you don't step on the middle of it. 2 years back I bought one of those 3 plastic step boarding units(bout $150). Definitely worth the money for us backyard sailors.
Rolf

The discussion about climbing about a Mac safely is very validating. Last year, after a day of cruising, weary and hot, while we were trying to put the finishing touches on the cabin tent enclosure, my wife stepped backwards tripping over the main hatch threshold and landed on her posterior on the cabin floor and her back against the dinette seat. Moored at an island marina, needless-to-say, the 911 call was complicated, and thankfully, all that came of it was a compression fracture on her L-2, a cancelled cruise, and she still goes boating with me. However, we do have a BIG rule on our boat! No stepping backwards! Turn around and go the direction you want to go. Seems to be working for us.

Yup, earlier this year while dousing the spinnakerI stepped into the open forehatch as I was looking up. Put the hasp for the closure mechanism into my knee down to the bone.

No 911 call but the lower corner of my spinnaker now has red highlights.

A safety tip I tell all my customers is - Never go on the cabin top unless the main hatch is closed.
I sold a boat to a couple. They dropped the mains'l. She went up on deck, didn't see that the hatch was open because it was covered by the sail, fell thru the hatch into the cabin below, broke some ribs, wouldn't go back aboard the boat, so they sold it.
Now, I'll also mention the forward hatch.

Hitting that driveway from the deck would be catestrophic. I was scurrying up and down the tralier ladder until I weighed my chances of falling - too high.

When doing my mods, I simply had to go up and down too much. So, I bought an 8' fiberglass A ladder. Light, stable, & high, only $50 or so at Lowes.

You won't be doing much sailing from your wheel chair.

"Sheet in! Sheet in!! #$##**!! Throw me the winch handle!!! Somebody get me up!!"

I have done the shoreside tumble.........

Had the mast down and stays on deck stays, raining, parked along side the shop, and for some reson I thought I could dance my way through the cables on deck with both hands full of tools and chemicals....

During the lengthy ..............(Oh why did I try and do this......) double stumble and snare of my right leg........I was very thankful for thick jeans to protect my leg..........and very wet soggy hillside to decelerate my shoulder and torso.........

Still,
pretty sore for a couple of days.......

p.s. The handful of tools was thrown clear on my downward travel, and they all missed me.

lucky guy! First I've heard. . . hmmm good POLL, but most of those who went over may be quads now and unable to type.

All of us, including me, have done what you've described; Im embarrassed to say myself. I know better been on deck way too long and seen way too many people fall and seriously hurt them selves. Didnt we just read that someone once fell on deck and drove something into their knee?

Moving on deck has the same rule as dealing with potentially energized lines - the one hand rule. One hand for the boat, one hand for you.

I'm constantly reminding my crew to never have something in their hand(s) when traversing the deck - unless absolutely necessary. A pitching deck is like a rodeo bull, except you can drown.

A tailored deck is deceiving. I prance around on it like nothing, doing cartwheels over the spreaders, dodging coiled shrouds with my 18 volt DeWalt in one hand, screw bags in the other, 5200 tube in my mouth. Just like all of us. I remember the first time I climbed up onto an M in the yard when considering buying it. I was very uneasy and very cautious.

Gravity never sleeps.

On the trailer, that's gotta be a good 6 to 8 foot drop, 12' for your skull. And if you didn't break bones or rip tendons as you rapidly decelerate, you'd probably rip some important internal organs from their mounts resulting in all kinds of havoc inside.

Lets be real careful. Would hate to read that one of us was seriously hurt. Is that why sometimes we loose track of a once-active skipper?

Michael