Getting Butterfly sorted after a long break for winter and lockdown, discovered one part of the main halyard had become unreeved.

I climbed up using a couple of prussic loops around the mast to stand in, and the remaining halyard used as safety connected to my climbing harness.

Work ok, though could be improved.  Note the mast is alloy, not tapered and old so had good friction.  I made one loop longer than the other, though perhaps did not quite get the lengths optimal.  One was a bit heavier than the other and was a bit more difficult to slide up the mast. Both were not new and shiny which helps.  I should have made a separate loop around my shoe, ideally a piece of bungee. My shoe came out of the longer one a few times.  Boots with a stiff sole would have been more comfy, though not as easy to grip the mast. I did wonder if I should have a loose loop from the shoe around the mast to keep the shoe from swinging out, but found it not necessary.

I did do it at low tide, would have been a bit more tricky / scary if afloat.

Fortunately  a still so the sail hoisted and all well....well except for the midges!

I wrote:My christmas present to myself was a Petzl Grigri2 ascender/descender/belay device. I had been using two Petzl toothed ascenders, and the step up/step down method, but found this to be very slow and tedious in descent (mostly because the toothed ascenders are difficult to disengage from the rope).

Now my kit consists of:

• Sit harness, similar to a climbing harness, but heavily built with 100mm webbing waist band and leg supports.
• Large carabiner attaching the Grigri to the harness.
• Handled ascender, and carabiner attaching twin webbing foot loops in the form of an inverted 'Y' ( so that I can put one foot either side of the mast for stability).
• A webbing  sling between the carabiner on the handled ascender and another carabiner attached to the large carabiner on the harness. (so that the harness is always attached to both devices on the rope). 
• The foot loops also pass through this third carabiner (that makes it easier to push yourself up on them. 
• A length of 9mm climbing half-rope* that is hoisted on the main halyard to the masthead.

The lengths of the foot loops and sling are critical. They should be such that when you are sitting in the harness, and you have drawn your feet right up underneath you, the handled ascender is as high up the rope as you can reach, with the sling between handled ascender and harness taut. Then when you stand up in the foot loops, the Grigri should be close up to the underside of the handled ascender. That way, you gain the most height for each cycle of stand-up/sit-down.

Descending is remarkably easy, if the Grigri is on a 9mm climbing half-rope (not so easy on an aging 10mm braid halyard). Just take the handled ascender off the rope, and control the speed of descent using the handle on the Grigri, which lifts the cam in a very precise manner.

I've been up the mast four times in the last week using this system, to replace a broken and corroded-on VHF antenna, and I found it easy to use (well, anyway, as easy as a mast climbing system is ever going to be. And I only want to do it in calm water – no at-sea heroics for me, if I can avoid it).

*so called because climbers use them in pairs on some difficult climbs, rather than a single 11mm rope.

Long ago, I pledged to myself that when i was no longer capable of getting to the masthead unaided, that would be the time to give up cruising. Now in my mid-70s, I know that I'm losing strength, and that time is looming up over the horizon.

Well, yesterday, I went up quite easily, by using a method I hadn't tried before. I used part of the 10mm halyard, through one masthead block. I made a figure-8 loop knot in one side of the line, and clipped it to the carabiner on the climbing harness. Then I put the Grigri2 and ascender onto the the other side of the line. Thus, I got something like a 2:1 advantage, halving the effort needed to climb, but also halving the speed, of course. The 10mm halyard having aged somewhat, its diameter was more like the 9mm half-rope I've used before, and was OK in the Grigri2.

Anyway, job done, with enough strength left on reaching the masthead to rig another block, so that the halyard can now be 3:1 instead of 2:1. Another concession to old age and keeping going for another season or two.