Life without life lines, pulpit,ect...

[CCutshall]

...so she's a 36' yawl, built mid '50's in Maine. Before covering her for the winter I removed stanchions, pushpit and pulpit in preperation for stipping the canavas decks which have got to be redone before she goes back in come spring. With all that hardware gone her already nice lines take on an elegance and simplicity that strike me as desirable. So this is where you all come in...opinions. What am I giving up in leaving off this stuff. Look at old photos of early CCA boats (Dorade, Stormy Weather), no life lines, look at the Spirt 42 (?) in the new Bond movie, no life lines. Assuming she's not going to Bermuda or the Azores but sticking to Casco Bay and the coast down east is a cruising boat with out life lines some sort of hazard? What am I over looking?I'm counting on you to let me know.

[paladin]

Having sailed in some pretty nasty weather.....I think it is a very foolish decision to not take advantage of every possible safety item that may be available to you......you may disregard it for yourself, but not for someone relying on your expertise to keep them safe..

[hansp77]

I'll throw in my less than valuable two cents...
After replacing most of the the deck on my 30ft van de stadt, we have been taking our time to put back on the lifelines and pushpit. This is primarily because I am yet to build a new stainless pushpit (to replace the rusted out old steel one) this time with a seat extending over the back of the transom.
Here she is with them on
http://www.boatdesign.net/gallery/data/500/medium/11.jpg
here she is without (still with the pullpit on)
http://www.boatdesign.net/gallery/data/500/medium/181.jpg

Personally I can't wait to have them back on, though I like the look with them off and it gives more of a feeling of space- on my boat there seems to be actually less space to use becuase too much of it is too easy to fall off from. But in comparison, my boat is a lot smaller than yours.

Have you got some photo's?

[John B]

You can run webbing jacklines and a harness policy.It always amazes me how people strut around on a boat with lifelines. Watch them get on one without and they take a heck of a lot more care.
So the answer is that you can safely do it but you have to make some provisions.
Us? had em, took em off, put em back on, took them off and left them off for the last 20 years. We're an inshore boat though. I'd have them for offshore no question.

[SV Papillon]

To take a pessimistic view. If you are worried about going over and you are not wearing a harness and life jacket, I wouldn't put alot of faith in the lifelines. However with webbing or netting in them, they are great for catching dropped stuff, sails and other things the wind grabs. A partial bulwark with short lifelines can work for esthetic on some boats.

Jake

[donald branscom]

Looks real nice.
Put the life lines back on.

[hansp77]

Donald, if you are talking about the photos, then
that was my boat, (and thanks;) )
not his,
and yes I am putting them back on,
as soon as the pushpit is built, in a couple of weeks I hope.

[David W Pratt]

doesn't have a fence. At night or in stinky weather we rig jacklines and wear harness/inflateable PFD combos. The tethers are double ended so you never have to be unclipped. They attach to the snap shackle at the harness with a clove hitch so you can adjust the length. There is a pad eye in front of companion way so you can clip in before you come on deck.
BTW, offshore racing regs now ban vinyl covered SS cable because of the risk of crevice corrosion.
Good luck.

[rbgarr]

If you have doubts about it, put them back on.

[Bruce Hooke]

Much of my sailing has been on a 23' boat that has never had lifelines or a pulpit. I took that boat down the US East Coast, down the ICW, from Maine to Florida and back. Except when I was in places like the many sections of the ICW where it would be safer if I went overboard to swim 50' to shore and walk up to where the boat had run aground, I almost always wore a lifeline, inside the cockpit or out. So, that is where I am coming from.

With that background, I have to say that your average lifelines do not do that much to make me feel more secure. Most are too low -- just the right height to trip you up and send you over the side head first. It also seems like it would be all to easy to slide out under the bottom lifeline if you were already low to the deck. In the end, however, it is probably, on average, safer to have lifelines on a boat. How much is the question and under what circumstances.

Sailing inshore in summer weather, it seems like failing overboard would be more likely to be the result of not being careful (in bad weather offshore it could more easily be because you simply got hit with more force than you could resist, but here I do NOT speak from experience because I have never been offshore, let alone offshore in bad weather). It seems like not having lifelines would cause you to be more careful moving around the boat in good weather and so in some ways make you safer under mild conditions. Of course under mild conditions falling overboard is not nearly so serious as it is when the seas and wind are running high, which can certainly happen in the summer.

A pulpit is a nice place to wedge yourself while dealing with the headsail or the anchor. A pulpit is also by far the best place on most sailboats to mount the running lights you have to have near deck level if you want to be legal while motoring at night.

So, I would almost certainly put the pulpit back on. The lifelines are not as clear-cut to me, but others here certainly have more experience in this area than I do.

[Frank Wentzel]

That is one reason I like having a chinese lug - you never have to go on deck except to anchor and, with a little forethought, even that could be handled from the cockpit.

In the past I have sailed on sloops with lifelines. It seems that you often have to go on deck when the weather picks up for sail handling. That's one time you really need them. A safety harness will do the job quite well, but what about the times when it seems like it really isn't quite bad enough to put on the harness? I would guess that more people fall overboard in good weather than in bad.

My first choice would be to rig your boat so all sail handling can be done from the cockpit. Second choice is lifelines. After that the odds get a whole lot worse.

/// Frank ///

[Bob Cleek]

Lifelines and pulpits are ugly and just another expense added to the cost of a boat... until they do their job. This may be only once in a lifetime, but without them, that lifetime could be cut short!

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

Which is more important, elegance, or length of life?

Discuss.

N.B. there is no correct answer.

[John B]

I'm not trying to sell anything so don't get me wrong. We do what we do after a lot of consideration .I see it as right for us and our boat and set up ,and as I said,I'd alter it for a different boat doing different things.
Personally, If my crew are uncomfortable walking around the boat with no lifelines, I see that as a good thing .The overconfident walk up a deck just because some lines are present right at knee level is not right to me. Maybe they'll catch you, maybe they'll topple you( I've seen it more than once).I've also see people go between the lines because they were leaning on them and one let go or slid up( how often do you see that... noodles or backrests on lifelines.. lots)
The point I want to make is that there are different protocols for operating a boat without lines and there are a few things that need to be addressed. Sail controls being one of them.( I don't see them as being necessarily lead aft but they have to be available efficiently...although a furler is a good idea in this case). Size of the boat and numbers of crew being another.(extra crew out of the cockpit is part of that).
oh and of course,a harness policy in appropriate conditions as previously mentioned.

[paladin]

On Tana Mari I made sure the tops of the lifelaine stancheons were at least to the crotch on me.....additionally the metal tubing consisted of two pieces, a 1 1/2 inch piece that had a reinforced base approximately 4 x 6 inches well through bolted and reinfiorced below the deck, and a smaller tube dropped into the center of the first, with a hole drilled and a pin to secure it down low.....
then nets were strung all around the boat, with the bottom of the net secured by pad eyes on the gu'nl.....kept me and critter on board..
in addition, I installed a piece of "T" track on the cabin top with a sliding car, to which I secured my harness when on deck....and off the coast of Iceland, near the Faeroe Islands...it all came in very handy..

[bischoffboatworks]

I recently redid the lifelines on my cutter (no more vinyl coated wire, thank you very much). I have grown used to them. I am about to start construction on a Murray Peterson "Susan" (30' schooner) and I noticed there are no mentions of lifelines in the very detailed plans. While chatting with Bill Peterson (Murray's son) I asked about it. He felt they were unnecessary except in questionable conditions, at which time he runs line from the stern, tied all along the rigging at waist height, and made fast at the stem. When the weather lets up, he drops the line. I think I will follow that model (NB: I single hand so have a harness on most of the time as well).

[Roger Cumming]

I sailed a 24' yawl along the Atlantic coast New York to Maine (but not offshore) for 15 years without lifelines but with harnesses in bad weather. Never had even a close call. It seems reckless in retrospect. My next boat will have lifelines.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

On a 36ft boat?

Take them off and leave them off.

There are two things wrong with them - they create an illusion of security and they damage the boat.

The problem in both cases goes to the design of the stanchion bases.

Just look at the problem with an engineer's eye, for a moment:

These things are at least 24", usually 30", tall, and are intended to resist the shock loading of a 180-220lb man falling into the lifelines from the uphill side of the deck - say 8-10 feet away.

How big should we make the bases?

And how big do we make them?

Because, of course, if we made them with bases of a reasonable size, we would totally obstruct the side decks.

The result is that they are a snare and a delusion, making it hard to get into, or out of, a dinghy (the moment when most drownings from yachts occur) and creating an illusion of safety.

They are also a fertile, nay, a guaranteed, source of fresh water deck leaks and consequent troubles.

I took ours off when our elder son was four, he is now 11 and his brother is four. Both were brought up knowing that they must clip on when coming on deck.

[SV Papillon]

It seems the majority of responders feel that you should go without. Ultimaltly it is a question of what you are comfortable with. If you have young kids or pets going without would seem like a bad choice. Any pieces of saftey equipment can and will break if at their limit. D rings on saftey harness do seperate. If you bury the bow and are on deck there is an incredible amount of force working against you. There is no cureall answer, it's what you are comfortable with. Spending most of my boating time where the water is around 45 f I tend to take the opinion that if you go over it's over. Certainly the case in the Bearing. That said I refer to the always useful Mr. Twain,
"Most generalisations, including this one, are false."

Safe sailing

Jake

[TomF]

If you put them back on, make sure that they're high enough and strong enough to do their job. Inadequate lifelines will give a false sense of security, which is worse than having no lifelines. If you leave them off, you're committing yourself to keeping people on well-fastened tethers when the weather gets the least bit lumpy. I'd argue for rigging good lifelines for any offshore passages, and using tethers anyway.

As the recent tragedy from the Picton Castle illustrates, even bulwarks on a tall ship don't substitute for a really good tether.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Speaking for myself, I know how I used to stroll up the deck when we had lifelines, and how I go carefully from handhold to handhold now that we don't, and I reckon I am safer without.

[Kitlani]

I agree that in most cases lifelines and stanchions detract from the lines of the boat, but after removing mine for a while, and relying on jacklines, I found that even if you make the tether very short, if you go over the edge and the tether stops you right along the freeboard, that it is still incredibly difficult to climb back onto the deck. At sea, almost impossible.
Just my experience.
-rg-