Do I Need A Boarding Ladder For My Sailboat?
Moonlight or daylight, You absolutely need a boarding ladder.
Let me tell you how important it is to have a good ladder on your sailboat. This picture of my bruised arm was taken after the bruising had started to fade and I don't bruise easily. It had been a great day of sailing with 4 friends (Kevin, Mike, Darrell & Denny) on my Sirius 21 but the wind had dropped off so we threw out the anchor and poured some Sailor Jerry.
I had a cheap gunwale ladder hung over the back railing. With that many people in the cockpit, Sailor Jerry ended up giving someone a shove and their arse knocked the ladder into the lake.
Thinking quickly, in hindsight maybe not that quickly, I dove in after it to grab it before it sank. Well, sink it did along with my way of getting back into my boat. No worries I'll just climb up the outboard. Not a chance! Flip-up the rudder and hoist myself up. Ha! My friends tried in vain to haul me in but all I got were bruises. Mike almost puked on me he was laughing so hard. Finally, Darrell thought of tying loops into a cleated line and with that, I was able to get back on board.
I vowed to install a permanent ladder by the next spring.
I spent the winter scouring many suppliers online to find my perfect ladder and I made my purchase. I wanted a ladder that would get at least 2 steps below the waterline. I knew that I wasn’t getting my foot up to ear level for the bottom step.
On the day I was about to install it my dock neighbour Bill said that they had the same ladder on their Hughes 22 but the tubing rungs were very hard on the feet.
I picked up an off-cut piece of some composite decking at the lumberyard for $10.00 and set out to modify my ladder. I cut the decking into strips that I thought would work then cut the length to match the outside to outside of the vertical tubing.
I measured center to center of the tubing. To do this I measure from left side to left side or right to right.
Center to center
I drilled holes in the decking step then I just cut out the notches, and squeezed them into place.
I attached the composite to the tubing steps with PVC conduit clamps. I didn't have to put any holes in my new ladder.
In order to bolt the ladder to the transom, I needed access from inside the cockpit. I bought two access plates. I measured, measured, and remeasured before I took a 1/2” drill with a 6” hole saw to the inside of my transom. One was very close to the middle of the transom and one was accessed by the fuel tank locker.
The end result is very easy on the feet.
And very easy to get back into the boat at any time.
One mistake I made was mounting my ladder perpendicular to the rub rail that isn’t horizontal. I should have squared with the pushpit rail that is more horizontal. It doesn’t affect function but it absolutely drives me crazy me to look at it.
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Thanks & Cheers!
Daryl
