One of the items I started sewing before Christmas was a bosun’s chair. A bosun’s chair is one of the less-expensive ways to get to the top of the mast. Basically you sit in a seat, attach it to a halyard (and a backup line for safety), and someone uses a winch to hoist you to the top. We figured that I would generally be the one going up because I’m lighter, making it easier for Jeff to hoist me vs. my hoisting him. However, we needed to keep open the possibility that he might have to go up there.
Looking at the most common suppliers, we discovered that hoisting Jeff along with some tools would put him uncomfortably close to the weight limit of the chair. Fortunately Sailrite had a kit that was not only cheaper, but also had the highest weight capacity of the options we’d seen. After convincing Jeff that I felt comfortable enough in my sewing skills to make one by hand, I ordered it up.