Retired from newspapers and television, currently sailing Thelonious II, a 1984 Ericson 381.
The original Ericson topping lift was heavy stainless wire, coated in vinyl. I've tossed it, but the effective diameter was 3/8ths or more. It was dirty--how do you clean a fixed topping lift? I was unable to easily check the top shackle. The swaged loop at the foot of it connected to the internal leader with a shackle, which made a rather clumsy thing banging around overhead. And the leader had meat hooks, from which my regular application of failing vinyl tape provided a nice flag blowing over the helmsman's head.
Yes, what you're thinking already is--why not a solid vang to hold the boom up? Then there's no need for a topping lift at all.
I thought about it for a year. There are several rigid vang designs, all of them well proven and with experienced advocates. Installation isn't difficult, and in most cases the topping lift can be removed completely. After all, a fixed topping lift is good for only what it does, and nothing else.
But some solid vangs, so I am told, have a bit of spring in them. I like a rock-solid boom offshore, where I am occasionally clinging like a monkey wondering why I let myself out of the cage in the first place. And a traditional topping lift sets up hard indeed when the mainsheet is winched down. Besides, I like my traditional tackle vang, led nicely back to the cockpit, which would have to go. What would I do with it? I already have a tackle specifically for MOB.
It is said that we are all different. Allow me to revise: you are all different. I am the same as ever, and, although every other dude on my dock now has a big shiny solid vang, did not particularly want to join them in current modernity. I just plain like, and am used to, a big unnecessary topping lift flapping away over the roach of the mainsail all the time. And which is not led back, meaning any adjustment means climbing on deck to the boom and fiddling with a line on a cleat.
Could I replace the existing wire topping lift with Spectra myself? Sure. Just make the splices, climb the mast, take the boom apart, make up a new leader, run new line through the 2:1 purchase, and be done with it. Oh, and might as well replace the outhaul line, too. But then, I don't much like climbing masts anymore. And getting inside the boom, which I've done twice recently, requires planning and somebody to help.
So I called Rosie the Rigger--Mary Ellen Rose, who's been doing this for years. And in a mere four weeks, while I lay in my hammock, not that I actually have one, my new Spectra TL was all set up. Now that is do-it-yourself-yacht maintenance at its best: when you have somebody else do it.
Now I am still circa 1984, but in 21st Century Spectra that is friendly to the eye, almost invisible, and hangs the boom from a soft shackle and not that awkward hunk of metal the boat came with.
"And it was cheap," he said.
Sort of. Here's the bill, showing why there is a good reason to get out of the hammock and do this stuff yourself. Click to enlarge and maybe the details will show. If not, the total cost was $723.
As a curiosity, here is the topping lift in an early Ericson publicity photograph for the 38. It has a block at the end of the fixed wire, rather than inside the boom. The control line appears to be external, rather than internal. This may have been a temporary rig. Hanging blocks are old-fashioned, and it is undesirable to have such stuff banging around overhead.
Yes, what you're thinking already is--why not a solid vang to hold the boom up? Then there's no need for a topping lift at all.
I thought about it for a year. There are several rigid vang designs, all of them well proven and with experienced advocates. Installation isn't difficult, and in most cases the topping lift can be removed completely. After all, a fixed topping lift is good for only what it does, and nothing else.
But some solid vangs, so I am told, have a bit of spring in them. I like a rock-solid boom offshore, where I am occasionally clinging like a monkey wondering why I let myself out of the cage in the first place. And a traditional topping lift sets up hard indeed when the mainsheet is winched down. Besides, I like my traditional tackle vang, led nicely back to the cockpit, which would have to go. What would I do with it? I already have a tackle specifically for MOB.
It is said that we are all different. Allow me to revise: you are all different. I am the same as ever, and, although every other dude on my dock now has a big shiny solid vang, did not particularly want to join them in current modernity. I just plain like, and am used to, a big unnecessary topping lift flapping away over the roach of the mainsail all the time. And which is not led back, meaning any adjustment means climbing on deck to the boom and fiddling with a line on a cleat.
Could I replace the existing wire topping lift with Spectra myself? Sure. Just make the splices, climb the mast, take the boom apart, make up a new leader, run new line through the 2:1 purchase, and be done with it. Oh, and might as well replace the outhaul line, too. But then, I don't much like climbing masts anymore. And getting inside the boom, which I've done twice recently, requires planning and somebody to help.
So I called Rosie the Rigger--Mary Ellen Rose, who's been doing this for years. And in a mere four weeks, while I lay in my hammock, not that I actually have one, my new Spectra TL was all set up. Now that is do-it-yourself-yacht maintenance at its best: when you have somebody else do it.
Now I am still circa 1984, but in 21st Century Spectra that is friendly to the eye, almost invisible, and hangs the boom from a soft shackle and not that awkward hunk of metal the boat came with.
"And it was cheap," he said.
Sort of. Here's the bill, showing why there is a good reason to get out of the hammock and do this stuff yourself. Click to enlarge and maybe the details will show. If not, the total cost was $723.
As a curiosity, here is the topping lift in an early Ericson publicity photograph for the 38. It has a block at the end of the fixed wire, rather than inside the boom. The control line appears to be external, rather than internal. This may have been a temporary rig. Hanging blocks are old-fashioned, and it is undesirable to have such stuff banging around overhead.
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