Practical Boat Owner — November 2017

My old boarding

ladder was a

swivel down

arrangement

but only had

two steps: when

deployed it was

too short and

you had to rig a

rope to help pull

yourself out of

the water

PRACTICAL

Fitting a fold-away

boarding ladder

Having a decent boarding ladder is handy

for convenience but is also a very useful

safety device. David Parker shows how to

fi t a compact design under a swim platform

I

f you’ve ever been on a sea survival
course in open water your instructor
might have played a trick on you –
it’s called the crisp packet test.
They like doing this for some reason
and it involves allowing you to freeze in
the water for a while before you’re invited
back on board.
‘You look hungry,’ they caringly say
as they throw you a packet of
crisps. They then seem to fi nd it
very amusing as you try to
open the packet.
You can’t, of course, because
your hands are cold and you
have the apparent dexterity of a
seal wearing mittens.
This seemingly trivial trick serves a
serious and highly useful purpose, of
course, in demonstrating beyond doubt
how quickly you can become victim to the
effects of cold-water immersion. You might
be in the water by choice – you might not –
but you won’t need much convincing after
the crisp packet test about the need to be
able to get yourself back on board with an
easily deployed ladder.
Boarding ladders are obviously fi tted for
convenience too, for stepping out of a
tender or getting back on board after a
snorkel round the rocks or when checking
the prop.
However they should also be considered
for safety reasons, particularly with the
high freeboard on many modern yachts.
Even if you weren’t wet and weak from
being in the water it would be pretty tricky
to haul yourself back on board without
some aid. In fact they made a whole fi lm
about it called Adrift. A group of friends
goes for a weekend cruise on a new yacht.
They jump in the water for a swim... but
nobody thought to lower the ladder to
re-board the ship. I won't spoil the ending,
but did you ever imagine a boarding
ladder could be a Hollywood villain?
Even if you already have a decent,
permanently installed boarding ladder,

be at least two or three rungs below the

surface: that way if the boat rolls away or

the transom suddenly pitches you can still

get on the ladder. My previous ladder was

fi tted on top of the

swim platform on my

motorboat and

swivelled down into

the water. The swim

platform itself is great

and if you have a

keel-hung rudder and

transom space a

short platform can

also be very handy –

particularly when

boarding from a

tender, or for use as a tool shelf if you’ve

gone over the side to give the hull a scrub.

Although this ladder looked fi ne, when

you came to use it, it was too short and you

needed a rope to haul yourself out.

So I decided to fi t a different one

altogether, which fi ts under the platform

and can be deployed easily from the water

when needed. Ideally this fold-away type

would be fi tted with the boat out of the

water. But a haul-out just for that would be

expensive and where’s the fun in it

anyway? In the end I fi tted it with the boat

afl oat and fortunately all went according to

plan. Here’s how I did it.

‘You look hungry,’ they caringly say

This seemingly trivial trick serves a
serious and highly useful purpose, of

Step

by

step

Telescopic fold-away ladder

fi tted to swim platform

consider this: perceived wisdom is that

when boarding from the water the bottom

rung of the ladder should be at least a foot

below water level – but in reality this is not

enough. If you’re cold

and weakened,

hauling yourself up

onto this fi rst rung can

be very diffi cult. I

reckon there should