For those of you like myself, who can not get comfortable in a bosun's chair or climbing the mast. Have a look at this video to confirm what girlymen and women we are.
[url]http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/u/u/ll2_player_files/mp55/player.swf?con...
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Cepheus dream
C36 MK I # 825
MK I Tech Editor No Mas
I climb telephone poles for a living, and that scares me sometimes.
Nope, no way.
Blair White
2004 C36 MKII # 2169 "Dash"
Pacific Beach, CA
I almost passed out watching that. I'm sure I'll have a nightmare tonight.
When I was a foolish teenager, we used to climb the radio towers at the abandoned Cape May Point NJ Army base. They were maybe 200 feet high and it scared me half to death [I]then[/I]!. Doing it now would be out of the question.
I remember seeing a video of a single handed female sailer going up the mast while the boats' heeled over and doing 15 knots in the middle of the ocean. More courage than I have.
Gary and Cathy Price
1997 C36 Mk II Tall Rig/Wing Keel Imagine...
Hull # 1617
Worton Creek, Md.
Northern Chesapeake Bay
I don't know whether to thank you for the video or to ask you to help me clean up the mess. At about 7:00 he actually lets go to reach for a carabiner.
Larry Brandt
S/V High Flight #2109
Pacific Northwest, PDX-based
2002 C-36 mkII SR/FK M35B
All I can say is "Holy Crap!"
Tom Sokoloski
C36/375IA Past Commodore
Noank, CT
This one nearly brought tears to my eyes.
We lost a man at work a number of years ago. He was "experienced" as a former lineman in the Army and he liked to climb, so his boss allowed it for this one guy.
Although he was wearing a harness AND the tower was equipped with a special cable to tie off to, this person made a conscious decision NOT to tie off that day.
Somewhere near the top (we think as he transitioned to the tower platform where he was going to replace a light), he fell 90 feet to his death.
This is what is sometimes scary in the safety world: you have the young bucks who don't have the experience OR you have the "I've been doing this for twenty years" types that don't believe in safety devices. These are the two groups that get hurt the most.
Safety begins when you get up and put your boots on everyday. Same thing on the water. How many "experienced" sailors have drowned for lack of wearing a PFD?
Laura Olsen
Past Commodore
S/V Miramar
hull 938 (MKI 1989, TR,WK, M25xp)
Edgemere, MD
Man, I had to turn that off. Once that guy climbed out over the top that was it, no way I could watch that.
If you saw this one on 60 Minutes a couple of weeks ago, this teenage free-climber (Alex Honnold) makes tower climbing look like child's play:
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leCAy1v1fnI&feature=fvst[/url]
Ben Ethridge
Miami, FL
1984 MK1 Hull# 263
Yep, saw that one, don't understand the sport, must be a Darwin thing.
I have seen several of these, there is a woman speed climber that has done several video's that make your heart stop. In these she leaps from one shakey toe hold to the next small nubb of rock for a hand hold on crumbly rock thousands of feet to the bottom of the climb.
One of my past empoyees was a climber and followed these free climbers, he would rattle off a list of the top in the field followed by comments like he died in 95 and he died in 2001, a few left the sport before missing that one hand hold.
You could not drive a hat pin up my butt with a croque mallet if I am above the fourth rung on a ladder, though I have been to the top of the mast on several of my boats (when I was younger).
Cepheus dream
C36 MK I # 825
MK I Tech Editor No Mas