Retired from newspapers and television, currently sailing Thelonious II, a 1984 Ericson 381.
As owners, we must be attuned to complaints. Some are challenging, such as, "Can we talk about me, instead of the boat?" Others we take in stride, as, "My cousin's Hunter 46 has a bedroom." When guests complain about heeling over we promise that the boat will always return to upright, an effect caused by the counterweight of the keel blah blah blah. But logic doesn't always work. And indeed, David Hume maintained that cause and effect itself is a bucket of swill. All we have is probability. All we can say is that boats have so far always stood back up after tipping over. So, the doubt in our guests' eyes is philosophically valid. Even the famous syllogism containing the sentence "All men are mortal" is a bag of wind, Old Hume would say. It is only true up to about the year 1900, or whenever the oldest person was born. Because who knows but that someone among us now may live forever? Unfortunately, when I tried explaining that "In all probability, the boat will return to upright," it was even less persuasive.
So, many complaints that yachts attract are not only logical but useful. They provide an objective review of realities we shrug off or fail to notice. What is the biggest complaint on your yacht? In my case it was this:
Your boarding ladder kills my feet.
OK, point taken and thank you for your candor. One-inch stainless tubes were not meant to support the human foot, and standing on them barefoot is like a try-out for the New York City Ballet. Yet many boats forgo any form of step or tread on boarding ladders. Bare tubes work, they're just really, really uncomfortable and slippery. Did this come up at the Ericson design desk? Probably. And then somebody leaned in and said quietly, "they won't know the boarding ladder kills their feet until the check clears." Or maybe not.
In any case, I have now solved this complaint using leftover Trex decking (and for which a quicker solution might be plastic ladder treads at Catalina Direct).
Trex, or any synthetic deck material, is impervious to the elements, cheap, and easily worked with tools such as jigsaw, drill and router. This tread is 3 1/2" wide and drilled at the ends to fit the tubing. A tight fit is useful, requiring that the tread be pounded into place with a hammer. Further connection is almost unnecessary, since weight is borne by the horizontal tube. The notch keeps the tread from rotating and makes a firm platform for even the most unsympathetic foot. I secured them down with stainless eye straps and #10 screws.
The top rung (or bottom, depending) I left off, so the ladder would still conform to the line of the pushpit. That rung is underwater when down, and not used when boarding a dinghy.
Does the addition of treads disfigure the handsome Bruce King stern? Not much, it seems to me.
.
Here are views of the up and down positions.
..
Trex is heavy. I have learned to tie a retrieval line before the ladder is deployed.
So, many complaints that yachts attract are not only logical but useful. They provide an objective review of realities we shrug off or fail to notice. What is the biggest complaint on your yacht? In my case it was this:
Your boarding ladder kills my feet.
OK, point taken and thank you for your candor. One-inch stainless tubes were not meant to support the human foot, and standing on them barefoot is like a try-out for the New York City Ballet. Yet many boats forgo any form of step or tread on boarding ladders. Bare tubes work, they're just really, really uncomfortable and slippery. Did this come up at the Ericson design desk? Probably. And then somebody leaned in and said quietly, "they won't know the boarding ladder kills their feet until the check clears." Or maybe not.
In any case, I have now solved this complaint using leftover Trex decking (and for which a quicker solution might be plastic ladder treads at Catalina Direct).
Trex, or any synthetic deck material, is impervious to the elements, cheap, and easily worked with tools such as jigsaw, drill and router. This tread is 3 1/2" wide and drilled at the ends to fit the tubing. A tight fit is useful, requiring that the tread be pounded into place with a hammer. Further connection is almost unnecessary, since weight is borne by the horizontal tube. The notch keeps the tread from rotating and makes a firm platform for even the most unsympathetic foot. I secured them down with stainless eye straps and #10 screws.
The top rung (or bottom, depending) I left off, so the ladder would still conform to the line of the pushpit. That rung is underwater when down, and not used when boarding a dinghy.
Does the addition of treads disfigure the handsome Bruce King stern? Not much, it seems to me.
.
Here are views of the up and down positions.
..
Trex is heavy. I have learned to tie a retrieval line before the ladder is deployed.
-
Theonious treds 2 (before).jpg
