[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

This may seem rather too basic for you chaps, but following a discussion in another place on the eternal topic of "how do I get up my mast, singlehanded?" in which I said "4:1 purchase to go up; form a bosun's chair hitch to get down!" I looked for a drawing of how to form the lowering hitch and I could not turn one up.

(Brion - if it is in your book and I have missed it, I do apologise - it's a big book!)

The Code of Safe Working Practices for Merchant Seamen says (my annotations in italics):

15.5 Bosun's Chair

15.5.1 When used with a gantline the chair should be secured to it with a double sheet bend and the end siezed to the standing part with an adequate tail

Comment - I think most yachtsmen will form a bowline more reliably than they will form a double sheet bend and a seizing

15.5.2 Hooks should not be used with bosun's chairs unless they are of the type which because of their special construction cannot be accidentally dislodged and have marked a safe working load which is adequate for the purpose.

Comment - Nah! (Seriously, don't ever use a snap shackle with a bosun's chair!)

15.5.3 On each occasion that a bosun's chair is rigged for use the chair, gantlines and lizards must be thoroughly examined and renewed if there is any sign of damage, and load tested to at least four times the load they will be required to lift before a person is hoisted

Comment - Nah! And you are more likely to get a back injuryfrom crew members lugging around the weights required to proof test the chair and gantline, unless you get four seamen (who has four men available for deck work at one time these days?) to jump on the chair together. Totally impractical for yachts.

15.5.4 When a chair is to be used for riding topping lifts or stays, it is essential that the bow of the shackle, and not the pin, rides on the wire. The pin should in any case be seized

Comment - good advice.

15.5.5 When it is necessary to haul a person aloft in a bosun's chair it should be done only by hand; a winch should not be used

Comment - meaning a powered winch. But never ever use a wire retaining reel halyard winch with a bosun's chair.

15.5.6 If a worker is required to lower himself whilst using a bosun's chair, he should first frap both parts of the line together with a suitable piece of line to secure the chair before making the lowering hitch. the practice of holding on with one hand and making the lowering hitch with the other is dangerous. It may be prudent to have someone standing by to tend the lines.

Comment - here we get to the crux of the matter. The only possible way in which the worker in the chair can get both hands free to form the racking seizing (on which he will be depending until the lowering hitch is in place) is to have someone else tending the fall of the gantline, with it belayed until the seizing is formed. But the Code is silent about how the lowering hitch should be formed.

There have been recent shipboard accidents because the lowering hitch was not used.

If, as Brion recommends in his book, a second safety line is secured, the worker in the chair can be much more confident about forming the lowering hitch, and indeed this is what I would suggest, but holding the parts together rather than making a racking between the parts, which is a lot of trouble for not much more safety, unless the worker is accustomed to making, and removing, a racking.

There is a case for using some sort of jammer, I suppose.

But I still think that the technique of forming the lowering hitch should be routinely taught.