Practical Boat Owner - June 2018

Mike Coates rebuilds a broken boarding ladder in a classic style

D

uring a summer

cruise when

we owned Jolly

Swagman, a Hans

Christian 43T, we returned

after a trip in the dinghy to

find our boarding ladder

had been destroyed.

The ladder, which was

mounted on our aft quarter

well away from our

maximum beam, had been

badly crushed – presumably

by someone who’d got it

totally wrong while

attempting to come

alongside to raft up.

Somewhat annoyingly the

perpetrator had disappeared

without trace.

After an initial inspection I

thought it might be possible

to make a saving on an

expensive repair by

replacing the upper section

of the damaged side, but

closer examination found not

only had the side been split

lengthways from top to bottom, the impact

had also damaged the three steps.

I reckoned the time required to carefully

dismantle the wedged and glued tenons

holding the ladder together, repairing the

split steps and replacing the damaged

side would almost certainly exceed the

time it would take me to construct a

complete new one using the (fortunately)

undamaged bronze hardware.

ABOVE Finished ladder folds to

little more than half it’s total length

Jolly Swagman is a US-built Hans Christian 43T – the T stands for traditional

Making a folding

boarding ladder

PRACTICAL

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Whitby-based Mike

Coates worked in

the spar and

rigging industry for

many years. A

regular contributor

as PBO’s masts

and rigs expert he

sailed his Hans

Christian 43T Jolly Swagman

extensively on the East Coast and

across the North Sea to Europe and the

Baltic. He has now switched to racing a

single-handed 2.4MR keelboat and

finished 25th out of 87 at last year’s

silver fleet worlds in Sneek, Holland.

Step

by

step