Midnight Re-boarding, can you? Alone

River Rat, your post made me check our 6 step swim ladder and I found out it's rated for 300 lbs. That weight limit seemed sufficent when we bought it but may not be based on your expierence. Also our dingy davit also is rated a 300 lbs and I always thought in a MOB situation I could sling someone aboard with the davit. I for one will be looking at alternative life saving methods.
One thing comes to mind from my Navy background. Cargo nets, easy to stow and quick to deploy IF the person in the water has the strength to climb it. Might need to use a sling and net in some cases.

sdowney717 said:

It is one thing to fall in and not be injured in some way to be able to get back into the boat.
But what if by falling in you have hurt yourself, sprained something, broke something, whacked your head, now it is that much harder to get back in.
That easy to get back in since you are physically very fit may now be very hard if your hurt.

I wonder if you see a shark would that give you an energy boost to get back in?

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And the biggest threat of all may be water temperature. Most people don't realize how little time they can survive in very cold water. Even mild hypothermia leads to mental confusion. Plus a large percentage of those falling into cold water have consumed large quantities of alcohol which worsens the hypothermia significantly.

HiDHo, try to climb your ladder next time you get a chance. Our ladder may have been fine brand new. But, it has some years on it. The bottom half and the top half were connected with a wooden dowel the size of a broom stick (and maybe rivets). It clearly had rotten or shrunk over time. I'm not sure our friend was quite 300 lbs but he's a good 250.

After the fact, I thought about the options of hand crocheting a rough cargo net of some kind with dock lines. Really just a length of chain stitches to act like a slim ladder. It wouldn't be pretty, but might have been enough to help. And it has a lot of downside. Time. Loose knots. Snagging a foot and then falling back is a sure recipe for drowning.

River Rat, No wood, welded stainless steel.

My swim platform is only about 6-8" above the water, and I have a ladder built into the platform but I've never tried to deploy it while in the water.
The ladder is covered by a hatch with a ring latch you pull on to raise it. That hatch might be difficult to raise from the water.

I need to try it from the water obviously...

HiDHo, that ladder is much nicer and sturdier than ours was. And I looked at it again today and realized it wasn't attached with the dowel. The dowel was inside the ladder tubing for support. The ladder tubing just broke. I'll take a picture in the morning to show the break. One look at the ladder and everyone will agree it should have been replaced.

River Rat said:

One look at the ladder and everyone will agree it should have been replaced.

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After the fact, we'll all agree to that, but then how many of us would have replaced it before. I'm sure there are a lot of never used ladders on boats, that are also never inspected.

If your boarding ladder looks like this, you might want to test or replace it. The ladder broke where the next rung was screwed into the rails. The metal rails and the wooden interior support broke right off. The legs holding it away from the boat provided some good leverage for breaking.

And here's a closer look at the break.

While at it, if you have ladders elsewhere, to the flybridge, to the engine room, check them too. We were at a marina not long ago where a man was seriously injured due to a step that broke.

Keeping up on the posts in this thread, which I do upon occasion, is like listening to some of the best advice on TF for staying alive aboard, near/off, or even walking some distance around the water toward our boats.

Would be great if most (if not all) boats had easily accessible means of re-boarding so that anyone who may fall into water could utilize that location for getting back out of the water.

Alas... most boats don't have such re-boarding easy access equipment that is instantly available. Ours included; when we are away from boat, that is. When at boat, we have nifty re-boarding capabilities (utilizing our custom made 6' long stainless swim ladder that hinges onto swim platform with thick knotted pull rope coming off transom top for help in climbing back aboard) that we put into place for duration of time using the boat. That said - If we fell over between dock and boat before setting up our re-board system (which takes a couple minutes)... we may be in trouble. And, while we're not there our secured system would be of little use to others.

Soooo... Thanks to this thread regarding all boaters maybe needing some sort of easy re-board capabilities, and the fact that Linda and I are not getting any younger, I'm going to rethink and redesign re-boarding safety equipment on our Tollycraft. I hope to make it easy to use, always available to use, and usably understandable by any person who may fall into the water and become in need.

I'd be honored to have any person in emergency situation to use our boat's equipment to get back out of the water!

This thread saves lives - I'm confident in that statement. Will let you know what I come up with - by photos after items are completed... may take a while before all is in place.

Happy Boater-Life-Saving Daze! - Art

@ Art Your comment awakened me to my waddle around the harbor last weekend. I was observing the boats at anchor. Almost to a T there were NO deployed ladders, and I don't recall seeing a 'pull down line' on any of them. Almost universally the boats that had a ladder that was usable were swim platform mounted 2 or 3 step ladders which were yankable while in the water (if you knew they were there).

Me thinks I am going to find a swim platform ladder to permanently mount.

Even my 4 step WM model is a @#$%^&* to climb out on even when intentionally going swimming. Time to re think the boarding process. As you said: we aren't getting younger!

Anyone have the 'inflatable' ladder on their dink?

Thanks to Kitty for sharing the experience with stark honesty. It has been my contention that many types of vessels, the Manatee among them, are really difficult to recover MOB's. I'm just under 250 lbs. and a narrow step ladder, in addition to being a real torture on the feet, has little to grasp with your hands and is typically too fragile to depend on any degree of positive climbing angle. I keep rethinking the boarding ladder idea over and over, but there's no substitute for thick tubed, wide-step dock style ladder extending at an angle outward toward the MOB so one can actually lean one's weight forward while climbing the ladder. Four steps instead of two or three would no-doubt, be even better. In the case of helping someone up the ladder, one can actually assist by pulling toward the boat instead of trying to lift straight up.

Attached is a photo of my SS side ladder, which was the only way to get back aboard the boat when I bought it. Nice looking, no? Climbing that ladder to get back aboard was a torture for anyone who did it. Thankfully, we never needed it for an emergency, but I can't imagine the guy that Kitty was talking about being able to use it.

The second photo is of what I should have attached to my swim platform. An unapologetically blatant life saving tool, standard equipment on Great Harbour Trawlers.

healhustler said:

Thanks to Kitty for sharing the experience with stark honesty. It has been my contention that many types of vessels, the Manatee among them, are really difficult to recover MOB's. I'm just under 250 lbs. and a narrow step ladder, in addition to being a real torture on the feet, has little to grasp with your hands and is typically too fragile to depend on any degree of positive climbing angle. I keep rethinking the boarding ladder idea over and over, but there's no substitute for thick tubed, wide-step dock style ladder extending at an angle outward toward the MOB so one can actually lean one's weight forward while climbing the ladder. Four steps instead of two or three would no-doubt, be even better. In the case of helping someone up the ladder, one can actually assist by pulling toward the boat instead of trying to lift straight up.

Attached is a photo of my SS side ladder, which was the only way to get back aboard the boat when I bought it. Nice looking, no? Climbing that ladder to get back aboard was a torture for anyone who did it. Thankfully, we never needed it for an emergency, but I can't imagine the guy that Kitty was talking about being able to use it.

The second photo is of what I should have attached to my swim platform. An unapologetically blatant life saving tool, standard equipment on Great Harbour Trawlers.

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The person in the water has to unlash that thing?

caltexflanc said:

The person in the water has to unlash that thing?

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That one, in particular, is on an N-47 that was parked behind me in a Marina in Stuart, FL for about a year. The owner preferred that method, claiming that from the water, he could reach the rope easier than the ladder's original catch. When the ladder swings down on it's axis, I suppose it was a good idea to be on the side of the ladder rather than under it.

sdowney717 said:

I wonder if you see a shark would that give you an energy boost to get back in?

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Yes, probably, especially if at the same time I heard the sound of doom-doom doom-doom doom-doom...

'Jaws' ruined sea bathing for me anyway. I'm just very careful not to fall in...

healhustler said:

That one, in particular, is on an N-47 that was parked behind me in a Marina in Stuart, FL for about a year. The owner preferred that method, claiming that from the water, he could reach the rope easier than the ladder's original catch. When the ladder swings down on it's axis, I suppose it was a good idea to be on the side of the ladder rather than under it.

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Always hard to tell from pix, but it seems like velcro straps as an example would be quicker. I really like the feature of the extended handles above the platform, though I wonder how that center positioning affects getting on and off a dinghy (which in the right spot those handles would be additionally handy).

caltexflanc said:

Always hard to tell from pix, but it seems like velcro straps as an example would be quicker. I really like the feature of the extended handles above the platform, though I wonder how that center positioning affects getting on and off a dinghy (which in the right spot those handles would be additionally handy).

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Then I couldn't use the platform to haul the dingy on..... Always a trade off. Guess I may have to upgrade to a larger swim platform.

Velcro. Awesome idea. Leave a pull down line hanging just above the surface and use Velcro. Good idea.

Or could you tie the rope with a slip knot and just grab the end and yank?
I still like the simple idea of a loop of rope setting on the platform, just pull it down into the water and step into the loop and stand up to climb on. Not elegant but simple and works.

Velcro - Yeah... that's the ticket... maybe!


Stainless broom handle clamp fastened in correct place/position could be longer lasting and so much more pleasant to look at, yet maybe obtrusive for hands, arms, shoulders when ladder is in released position.

Hummm - Could this baby be set up correctly for easy/fast deployment while in water???

https://jet.com/product/Master-Equipment-Non-Skid-4-Step-Pet-Stair/eabe9c6b13814edeb0721eaabacc919c