Practical Boat Owner – August 2019

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Practical projects

Slippery gangway!

Dave Vass improves his aluminium gangway for Med mooring

About the author

David and Christine Vass have been cruising the

Med for three years in their ketch-rigged Moody

42 Spindrift of Hamble and overwintered this year

in Crete.

Aluminium folding gangway

bought in England

Top Hat sections cut to size.

Screws strengthen the areas

of weakness

Gang plank with raised non-slip wooden inserts Fitting the non-slip pieces

Spindrift

of Hamble

benefits

from a

bespoke

gangplank

When stern-to in the Med we

had a problem with the

gangway, as it became very

slippery when wet.

Initially we tried non-slip

tape, but after a fall I decided

to try something else.

A fellow liveaboard in Licata,

Sicily, suggested a form of

wooden block to stop our feet

slipping. So I took his idea

and made some ‘chocks’ – a

solution that may be of

interest to those with a high

stern either living in, or

moving their yacht to the

Mediterranean.

I bought a 2m length of

20mm thick pine to make four

steps. I marked out the wood,

into four sections, each of

which was the width of the

gangway. I then cut in to each

side to form a ‘top-hat’ shape,

that when inverted, fitted

between the gangplank gaps,

but didn’t fall through.

I found that the top-hat

sections were a little prone to

cracking in use, so I drilled

and screwed the weak points

to stop the wood breaking.

Drilling is important to avoid

the wood splitting when

screwing the long screws into

the wood.

The wooden blocks are

inserted once the gangway

has been lowered, and

removed prior to departure.

The blocks don’t need to be

removed when going ashore

or at night as their depth

(100mm in my case) allows

them to stay in place even at

quite acute angles.