Is it possible ?
In: Engineering
We do! Sometimes. In cruiser sailing it’s common to hook yourself in if you’re going up towards the bow if things look a bit dicey, and there’s usually a straps or rope on each side (called a jackstay) for this purpose, don’t clip onto the guard rail it won’t take your weight if you fall. It’s also recommended if you’re keeping watch alone to clip onto something sturdy in the cockpit.
If there’s a high risk of falling, or being swept overboard, then that’s what we do. It’s called a life line.
In all other situations, as in, low risk,these things severely restrict your movement and are therefore generally not used.
You sort of can, and they sort of do.
If you go all the way back to even the days of galleons on the high seas they would sometimes lash their sailors with lanyards to posts and masts.
The issue is just it’s awkward as fuck. If you think of the geometry of ships, they are long and narrow. For the lanyard to be useful it needs to prevent the sailor from falling, which implies it’s length is the shortest distance to the edge, which means that sailor is limited in forward/back movement.
So sailors would have to constantly reattach their lanyards as they go.
One thing pop culture we don’t see is that sailors aren’t just… standing around… watching the boat and shit. They RUN back and forth and climb rigging and go below deck and above deck like generally just rush around like a football player doing those spring to the lines exercises.
Sailing single or short handed it’s good practice. Sailing at night it’s a requirement and you’d be idiotic not to clip on. It’s not that inconvenient to clip onto a jack stay when unclipping from the helm position
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