SAIL

Going Aloft

If there’s one thing as certain as death and taxes, it’s that sooner or later every sailor who owns a boat bigger than a trailersailer will be faced with the unappealing chore of having to go up the mast. Murphy’s Law will make sure of that. Riggers don’t come cheap, and if you have the requisite head for heights and are capable of doing what needs to be done there’s no reason why you can’t attend to the matter yourself.

The question remains of how you’re going to get up that stick. The time-honored way (and to me, the preferable way) is to have a brawny shipmate crank you up in a bosun’s chair—that’s if you can’t persuade some lightweight crew to

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