Going for a swim?

[Julian Swindell]

Hi Tony
Glad you are getting a proper night's sleep.
I don't know yet if the ladder can be deployed from the water. I hope I can just reach up and heave it over, but that may not be easy, especially in wet clothes. If it isn't. I'll experiment to see if I can arrange a rope to pull it over.
I needed a new rudder blade on Daisy G. as the original was sticky. Matt left the single step off the new one as it was barely practical. The step on its own didn't get you high enough to get over the transom. You had to stand on top of the rudder, which was difficult and you were hanging off the mizzen like an orangutang to do it. Again not really doable in a seaway in wet clothes. I shall experiment fully when the wtaer gets warm enough.
The ladder itself I am very impressed with. It is much more solid than I have anitcipated. I have climbed up it get on board in the barn and it does the job.

[Tony]

Hi Julian.
    How about a bathing platform or sugar scoop with a flip-down ladder?  You see this kind of thing on AWBs, usually in conjunction with a boarding ladder and a freshwater shower (for posing in port).  It need not be as ugly as the drawing I made below, would definitely make re-boarding easier on a small, tippy boat and, if designed properly, could reduce wake turbulence and so increase performance. (Huh? A First in Hydro-dynamics? Wheel, not exactly. A Bronze Survival Award, actually.) Dont think it would retro-fit on a BayRaider, though,  even with a split in the middle for tilting up the  rudder. 
Would such a thing increase waterline length and therefore  speed ....or just mess up the water flow and look damnable?

[Julian Swindell]

Hi Tony,
I have seriously toyed with the idea of a bathing platform on the transom. You could even fit a full width one if there was a slot for the rudder blade to tilt up. There is room above the rudder head to take it (see piccy below). The problems with it are:
a- it costs money
b- I think it could look awful, but maybe not
c- I am not sure the transom is built strongly enough to take the loads

Plastimo do a little bathing platform and ladder which I considered, but again, I think it could look ugly (piccy 2 below)

[Graham W]

Here (below) is my temporary solution to the swim ladder issue, involving more Chipperfield-style woodwork. I have put this in place before trailing my BR to Greece this summer.

The Meccano-reinforced owl box on the top of the rudder stays in place the whole time and the platform is hinged so that the rudder can be raised.  The mezzanine floor slides on to the bottom of the stainless rudder fabrication and is braced internally in all sorts of complicated ways so that it stays in place when put under stress by full-sized adults.  It acts as a steadying platform for the rope ladder, which can be collapsed and stowed on top of the owl box, or taken off altogether.  The rope ladder is attached by a carbine hook to a long M10 eye bolt on one side (replacing the original rudder pivot bolt) and to a matching eye nut on the other side.

The solution is temporary because I wanted a stronger and more permanent stainless solution but no-one was available to do it in time.  The Swallow Boats contractor is too busy with SB work and the local fabricators here in Shropshire all seem to have gone out of business, or at least gone into hiding. 

I will see how this stands up to real world use this summer and then try again with the stainless solution later in the year.

[Julian Swindell]

These photos show the solution I have used for the last two season. No alteration to the boat. The only fixings are three bolts securing the plywood platform over the rear deck. I should think something similar could be done on a BayRaider. When I am single handed I leave the retracted ladder just hanging over the transom, where I could reach it if needed. I use it for swimming whenever the water is warm enough and it is very strong

[Graham W]

Julian
I would have gone for a solution like yours but unless you have the arms of an orangutan (and then some), there is not enough access to the underside of the GRP BR rear deck to do the necessary bolting, plywood backing etc.

[Tony]

Hi, Julian, Graham,
I think your ladder is about as neat a solution as could reasonably be expected. Having no transom, the Storms, CBLs etc. cant use the same idea.  Ive solved the swimming problem – more or less – with a rope ladder tied to the cabin top, using a couple of large fenders  to reduce the amount of heel  produced when I hang my 13st off the end of it. It's OK when you KNOW you are going in for a swim but useless for a man overboard situation.
When I was a kid I spent weeks making a Keil-Kraft slope soarer from a balsa and tissue paper kit only to lose it one day when I forgot to light the dethermaliser fuse.  She just circled up into a cloud and I never saw her again.  Four Sisters, on the right point of sail, will steer herself for hours in a steady wind . Fall off and its the slope soarer all over again!
I experimented with trailing a knotted rope  - makes more drag than you would imagine and has to be quite long ( 5 knots = 2.6 m/s    -  at only 3 knots the boat will have travelled 15 meters in ten seconds). How many seconds would elapse after a dunking before we knew which way was up, let alone where the rope was at!

[Julian Swindell]

The trailing rope idea is really a non-starter.As Tony says, it will be long out of your reach before you resurface unless the boat is becalmed. If the boat is moving and you did manage to grab it, it would pull your arm out.
My transom platform is bolted to the cockpit coaming, not through the rear deck, but I don't know if the Bayraider rear deck layout is suited to this. The platform has a down-stand at the fore edge and three bolts go through that. You can see their heads on the photo below.The ladder is just bolted to the platform. You can also see the tent hoop I have fitted for a cockpit tent. I have never used it in practice. If it is raining, I don't want to get wet fitting it. If it is not raining, I don't want it at all. The sprayhood covers nearly half the cockpit anyway and that is usually enough.

[Graham W]

I used my Heath Robinson rope ladder arrangement (see above) to rescue someone quite large from Lake Bala last month and decided that while it was OK in an emergency, it would not stand up to the rigours of life as a swim ladder in the Ionian. I finally tracked down a stainless fabricator who also does work for dairies and cheese factories.  He made me a sturdy rudder bracket with winglets either side on to which I could bolt a collapsible ladder.  The ladder is easily demountable but can also be kept stowed in an upright position (see photo below) without interfering with the play or uphaul of the rudder.  When deployed, the ladder stands clear of the rudder (see second photo) and should make getting out of the water much easier.

[Julian Swindell]

I can't see how the ladder is fixed to the boat. Is it fixed to th rudder head or to the transom?

[Graham W]

I can't see how the ladder is fixed to the boat. Is it fixed to th rudder head or to the transom?

It slides over the buttresses on the rudder head and is secured with an extended bolt where the roller for the rudder uphaul and downhaul lines go, plus another bolt around the back, like so....

[Tony]

Hi, Graham.

That bit of kit looks the business. If rudder hangings of different styles can be beefed up to take the weight of an 18 stone rugby player in a flooded drysuit (they nearly always are in my experience. people dont close the zips properly) then something similar should be standard equipment on all Swallow boats.
Looks ugly? Thats a design problem. Remember how bad European cars looked when they were first fitted with American spec. fenders?

[Graham W]

Hi, Graham.

That bit of kit looks the business. If rudder hangings of different styles can be beefed up to take the weight of an 18 stone rugby player in a flooded drysuit (they nearly always are in my experience. people dont close the zips properly) then something similar should be standard equipment on all Swallow boats.
Looks ugly? Thats a design problem. Remember how bad European cars looked when they were first fitted with American spec. fenders?

It is moderately ugly but can be completely demounted when not needed for warm seas.  I will report back if I have any rudder hanging problems.

[Johan Ellingsen]

Hi folks,may I remind you that I´m an actual,sharp-end,Swallow-Boat solo MOB?But while I could steer the boat ashore with a foot on the rudder,climbing back in was a hopeless proposition.So,no half-arsed solutions here-Great Poseidon will likely give one warning only.
Options:

A)Have Matt rebuild  to a transom stern(what he wanted in the first place,overruled by me)

B)What I wanted in the first place,overtalked by Matt,namely horizontal quarter brackets for Tq driveshaft one side,ready-use stern anchor the other,protected by "fins" fairing forward.These could have ROCA steps mounted under.

Your esteemed views,please?

[Graham W]

Johan,

Do you have a notch in your rudder as an emergency step, as on the Bayraider? I have not tried it yet as I have not been MOB, involuntary or otherwise, but in the Australian MOB video, it looked fairly easy to use in an emergency. I have installed a ladder because my crew will be in and out of the water all of the time in the next few weeks and some of them are less agile than others.