Day of the tackle
Bob Goode explains how his friend Geoff constructed an invaluable lifting tackle for no cost whatsoever
That my long-time sailing buddy Geoff and I are not getting any younger was brought home to us as we struggled to lift his recently acquired, larger than necessary but very keenly priced inflatable onto the deck from a wobbly pontoon. The obligatory post-effort beer in the cockpit got Geoff thinking about easier ways to do the job.
His solution began with a broken spinnaker pole found in the marina skip, followed by a rummage in the ‘bag of bits’ that he had accumulated over many years afloat. This yielded a couple of snap shackles, a block cannibalised for its sheave, a short length of braided line and two copper ferrules. The spinnaker pole was cut down to a length which just allowed it to swing over the side from the mast but which still meant it would easily fit in a cockpit locker when not needed. The end fitting from the discarded piece was removed and drilled out to take the sheave, which was then bolted into position before being refitted to the shortened end of the pole. A snap shackle was fitted to both ends of the line after it had been threaded through the sheave, and that was it – job done.
In practice, the lifting tackle is clipped to the mast track and held aloft with the spinnaker pole uphaul line. The spinnaker halyard is clipped to one snap shackle and the load to the other. The slack is taken up on the spinnaker halyard.
Once the lower snap shackle is chock-a-block with the sheave, the spinnaker halyard lifts the load and the pole together, with the help of the mast winch if necessary. A locking turn on a mast cleat allows the handler to guide the load to its new position, then return to the mast to lower it onto the pontoon.