All, Let me first say that what I'm about to describe is very pricey but could be a life saver. Years ago I almost drowned after falling off the dinghy tube right on the port side of our boat. Marilyn was at the helm of the Avon and I was sitting on the side deck in the gate with my feet on the floor of the dinghy. There was a lot of surge so I had to time my next move carefully, the object being that I would end up sitting on the tube with my feet in the boat. Well so much for my timing because when I "shoved off" so to speak, the dinghy moved away from the side of the boat and I fell into the drink butt first. I was wearing Levi's and an anorak, both of which weighed me down and to add insult to injury, the anorak acted as a sea anchor. For every thrust of my arms up, I'd go down a wee bit more. We have four pair of boarding steps on the transom-hung rudder and getting to them was near impossible. I honestly thought that my day had come. To make matters worse, Marilyn thought it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen and laughed longer than safe before firing up the little Honda 2 in an attempt to get me. With one of my last thrusts I grabbed the lifeline on the side of the dinghy. Other than risking having my toes chopped off by her revving the he** out of the engine and dragging my feet astern, she delivered me to the rudder. My next effort involved walking slightly away and backwards from the boat due to the aft rake of the transom and where the steps need to be placed by necessity. Needless to say that by the time I'd hauled myself up and over the stern rail, I was unbelievably exhausted. The decision was made right then and there to get a midship boarding ladder (the safest location to board especially in any kind of a sea) and the one I thought most suitable for all around use was/is the 70" foldaway made by Mystic Stainless
http://www.mysticstainless.com/foldaway.html It's a heart stopping $788.00 with a pair of mounts included but we both judged and agreed that it's a pittance to pay for possibly save someones life. The beauty of the ladder's design is that the it attaches to the boat by means of spring loaded pins in cars that simply slide onto our 1 1/4" Genoa track. The only added work if you can call it that was to center the ladder in the starboard gate, mark the car locations and drill holes for the pins. As it turned out, only one hole needed to be drilled in the Genoa track. When not in use, it folds neatly into the gate and is held in place with a wide piece of Velcro that I replace every few years or so due to UV degradation. The only difference between ours and the one illustrated at the Mystic site is that I added a trip line to the Velcro, the other end tied around a stanchion base. This way a person in the water can easily grab the coiled line that sits on the side deck and with a moderate pull, deploy the ladder from the water. As luck would have it, we were flying east the next week and stopped by their shop in Mystic CT and carried the ladder home on our return flight. Glyn Judson, E31 hull #55, Marina del Rey, CA
